Download Exclusive Apps From WP Store Without Having Lumia

Exclusive apps are one of the reason why Lumia users have more reasons to be happy than other Windows Phone users. These exclusive apps are Nokia’s initiative to strengthen their presence into the Windows Phone ecosystem and one way to make more people choose Lumia over other brands. Seeing these apps exploited and ported to other Windows Phone is really disappointing.

Chinese hacker Reker has discovered a way which allows non-Lumia users to download some of Nokia’s exclusive apps. Here’s how:

• Someone sets up a proxy server which disguises itself as a Lumia phone.
• Users anywhere connect to the Windows Phone Store through said proxy, effectively disguising themselves as Lumia phones too.
• Users perform search via the proxy in the Store, searching for Nokia-exclusive apps by name. Normally a device model/brand check would be performed by the Store server, and refuse to offer any result upon finding model/brand mismatch. But since now those users are cloaked, the server will spill app descriptions and download links without a fuss.
• However, the proxy server is not able to pass file download streams to each user request, therefore non-Nokia users who just managed to get app download links are not able to really buy or download stuff.
• This is where the server glitch actually exists: in common sense of this universe, the Store should perform a model/brand check upon each search AND download request, to make sure what’s supposed to be exclusive will stay exclusive, no matter how hard people try. However in Microsoft’s case, download requests are NOT FILTERED AT ALL.
• Therefore if a user switches into WiFi setting, turn the proxy off, then switch back to the app description page and click the download button, he/she just gets the app. Microsoft is assume that if this button is displayed on your screen at all, your device must be well qualified, what could possibly go wrong? Just go ahead and make yourself comfortable.
• End of story: Nokia-exclusive apps ending up on non-Nokia phones.

This will allow non-Lumia users to download Nokia’s more than 50 exclusive apps. Apps like Nokia Glam and Temple Run, work pretty well on the Huawei Ascend W1.

App exclusivity is Nokia’s edge among other OEM’s but having this apps exploited is like putting Nokia’s hard work into waste. But does Nokia need to be alarmed at this point? In my opinion, not really much because there are only 14% of non-Lumia users out there and there are only few techy users who will desperately attempt to do this. But still we hope that Microsoft will fix this as early as possible.