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AppGratis pulled from the App Store. Here’s the full story

appgratis.com

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Re: AppGratis pulled from the App Store. Here’s the full story

#21

Post by metafour »

dave1619 wrote: post #18
metafour wrote: post #12

I don't feel like the larger issue was addressed by the CEO in the post and Apple seems to be avoiding it as well. According to the AllThingsD article [1], "But sources close to the company [Apple] say it was more than a little troubled that AppGratis was pushing a business model that appeared to favor developers with the financial means to pay for exposure. ... In other words, app-discovery platforms built on paid r…

This is an interesting point. Just curious why did the AllThingsD article cross out: "In other words, app-discovery platforms are fine as long as they’re not built on paid recommendations." and replace it with "In other words, app-discovery platforms built on paid recommendations aren’t going to fly with Apple."

My guess is that app-discovery platforms could also not be allowed for reasons other than "built on paid recommendations"

Re: AppGratis pulled from the App Store. Here’s the full story

#23

Post by therandomguy »

credo wrote: post #16

Detailed post, but it doesn't seem to address two things. 1. The WSJ report noted that Apple was concerned that " AppGratis was pushing a business model that appeared to favor developers with the financial means to pay for exposure." Simon hasn't addressed this point. Do they make paid recommendations ? If they do make app-recommendations based on payments, it makes a lot of sense for Apple to ban them. As an iOS (an…

I think Simon's point regarding #2 above is that the push notification is just letting the user know about an event ("deal is ready"). It is not pushing advertising or promotion. I wonder if it would be in violation of the rule if the app sent push notification stating, "It's noon. You know what to do!". Of course, this is not in the spirit of the rule...

Re: AppGratis pulled from the App Store. Here’s the full story

#24

Post by pgrote »

credo wrote: post #16

Detailed post, but it doesn't seem to address two things. 1. The WSJ report noted that Apple was concerned that " AppGratis was pushing a business model that appeared to favor developers with the financial means to pay for exposure." Simon hasn't addressed this point. Do they make paid recommendations ? If they do make app-recommendations based on payments, it makes a lot of sense for Apple to ban them. As an iOS (an…

Does 5.6 apply to all apps? Is it a black and white issue? For instance, the Southwest Airline app, Ding, sends me push notifications when there are sales.

Re: AppGratis pulled from the App Store. Here’s the full story

#26

Post by niklas_a »

Regardless of if you are in the "It's Apple's store, they can do what they want" camp or the "Apple should not be allowed to have this level of control" camp I think we can all agree that it's not good when one single entity holds this amount of power over arguably one the world's most important computing platforms.

Essentially, Apple can block any app they want for any reason they want. Even if you play by their rules they can change them tomorrow.

While I'm a free market supporter I don't think this is a good situation. It breaks innovation and makes our smartphones less capable than they should be. Sad.

Re: AppGratis pulled from the App Store. Here’s the full story

#28

Post by lleims »

credo wrote: post #16

Detailed post, but it doesn't seem to address two things. 1. The WSJ report noted that Apple was concerned that " AppGratis was pushing a business model that appeared to favor developers with the financial means to pay for exposure." Simon hasn't addressed this point. Do they make paid recommendations ? If they do make app-recommendations based on payments, it makes a lot of sense for Apple to ban them. As an iOS (an…

I've heard from one investor in Spain who was recently pitched by an AppGratis competitor that, depending on the client, AppGratis might charge big companies between $12/14K a day to promote their apps.

Take it with a grain of salt as this information comes from one of their competitors. But I wouldn't be totally surprised if they charge that amount.

Re: AppGratis pulled from the App Store. Here’s the full story

#29

Post by espadagroup »

credo wrote: post #16

Detailed post, but it doesn't seem to address two things. 1. The WSJ report noted that Apple was concerned that " AppGratis was pushing a business model that appeared to favor developers with the financial means to pay for exposure." Simon hasn't addressed this point. Do they make paid recommendations ? If they do make app-recommendations based on payments, it makes a lot of sense for Apple to ban them. As an iOS (an…

Pay for exposure already exists within the app store. Large companies pay around $10-$20K a day depending on the category on crap ad networks (won't name them) that incentivize the users to download the companies app in order to "get to the next level" or something like that. The downloads are incredibly cheap and you get thousands and thousands of them. The app store ranking is almost entirely based on download velocity, so your ranking goes up. Once you get in the top 12ish the organic downloads start pouring in just from being near the top. The value per user of those organic users is so high that it more than off sets the cost for the crap/incentivized downloads. Almost everyone who can do this, does this.

Re: AppGratis pulled from the App Store. Here’s the full story

#30

Post by sanjkris »

AppGratis is a pay-to-play platform. About $20k per app. If you watch the performance of one such AppGratis recommended app, Recorder Pro. The $20k couldnt even keep them in the top-50 in the biz category for a month. Seems a waste of dev mkting $$$ imo.

Simon should stop whining and just shift to Android. God knows it needs curation. The amount of filth in goog play is unbelievable.

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