Sora copycats have flooded the Apple App Store, and some still remain

The rapid adoption of Sora has caused a number of App Store scammers to attempt to get in on the action. Following the launch of OpenAI’s invite-only video generation mobile app last week, Apple’s App Store was flooded with knockoffs that also claimed to be “Sora” or “Sora 2” – the latter referring to the new underlying AI video model that was released alongside the mobile app.

These apps somehow made it past Apple’s app review process. They actually had public listings on the App Store, despite using a trademarked name that OpenAI had that was fairly well-known in the tech industry even before the app’s debut.

According to research provided to TechCrunch at our request by app intelligence platform Appfigures, more than a dozen “Sora”-branded apps went live on the App Store after the app’s official launch. More than half of them specifically used “Sora 2” in their name. (One was spotted by blogger and Apple expert John Gruber, who called it “the App Store scam of the week.”)

Most of the apps weren’t newcomers either. Some have been online on the App Store – sometimes under other names – since the beginning of the year, or even last year. Impostors, which also includes those live on Google Play, have seen around 300,000 collective installs to date, with over 80,000 installs following the official launch of the Sora app. (OpenAI has since announced that Sora’s official mobile app has been downloaded 1 million times, for comparison.)

Almost all impostors were updated right after the launch of OpenAI’s Sora app to capitalize on consumer demand and searches, often by changing their name.

It’s unclear how these apps escaped Apple’s criticism; Apple ended up removing a lot of it from its App Store, Appfigures said.

Among the imposter apps, the largest was called “Sora 2 – AI Video Generator” – an obvious attempt to game App Store searches for the keyword “sora”. It recorded more than 50,000 installs after the launch of the official app.

At the time of writing, a few Sora-branded apps are still active, despite the potential for consumer confusion. One of them, “PetReels – Sora for Pets”, however, has only seen a few hundred installations. Another, “Viral AI Photo Maker: Vi-sora,” attempts to insert the word Sora into it, but has also failed to gain popularity.

The app that uses the “Sora 2” brand in its name (Sora 2 – Video Generator Ai) does a little better. It has had over 6,000 downloads and counting.

Collectively, the apps have grossed over $160,000 – a decent sum considering their short lifespan.

Apple was asked for comment on how Sora-branded apps may have come online and whether these remaining Sora-branded apps would be removed. He did not respond before publication.