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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

#131

Post by tayome »

spontaneus wrote: post #33
espadagroup wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 velo…

Facebook just recently started doing this as well. You can now pay to get your app promoted in people's news feed.

Facebook's app value proposition is not to be an app store - it's a social networtk

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

#132

Post by DigitalSea »

This whole situation highlights another problem, you should never base a business around a third party API or service. Remember when Twitter changed their guidelines and API usage rules basically destroying companies that had built a product based around Twitter only for it to be deemed in violation of the new rules? This situation should be a warning to others thinking of putting their eggs in one basket, because if the service you've come to rely on has the final say in the end for how your product should function and if that understanding is based on loose interpretation of company rules, you are at the mercy of that reviewer.

I hope AppGratis sorts this all out, it's a heartbreaking story. I know from experience what it's like to spend months working on something only for it to be rejected.

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

#133

Post by zem »

gyardley wrote: post #129
untog wrote: post #2

I will save HN the time: "I can't believe that it's 2013 and people are still basing their entire company around the App Store with it's murky rules" "But there's a lot of money to be made there, it's worth it!" "Apple needs to change their procedures" They're all true. Basing a business around an app is both risky and potentially very profitable. Apple should change their practises but have little incentive to. So,…

Basing a business around an app is both risky and potentially very profitable. Yes, which is why you should treat your ambiguously legitimate AppStore business like a vein of gold which might suddenly run out. You make sure you can put the money in your pocket as you go (note: fundraising can hurt your ability to do this), you don't invest too much in crazy expansion (forty-five employees? hopefully it was all sales)…

you should treat any appstore business that way. seeing as how there's no consistency in apple's enforcement of the "rules", and they feel free to change them any time they please, dealing with the appstore on any level is basically a crapshoot.

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

#134

Post by zem »

pinaceae wrote: post #45
pi18n wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been recommending Android for a while, and here is another concrete reason why. Every time one of these stories appears I write the following: I develop for iPhone and I used to love OS X. The iPhone in entirety and OS X lately are aimed directly at people who don't know how to use computers even if it comes at the expense of those who do. Everyone do yourself a favor and switch to Linux on your computing platfo…

i am sorry, but this is the largest density of drivel in a while posted here. android, linux, suing samsung, lack of innovation - it's like reading an Engadget comment. apple's business model around the app store is to protect users from CRAP. malware, viruses, etc. it acts like a spam filter of sorts. just like any spam filter there are false positives, some things get through, etc. but this concrete case? good ridd…

that's all well and good from a user perspective. as a developer, why on earth would you trust apple to determine whether or not your app is crap?

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

#135

Post by robryan »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #123

Do not write for iOS. If you write for iOS, you are sharecropping. Your income exists at the sole discretion of an entity that has more power than you and very little incentive not to misuse it. Further, your income is more , not less at risk, if you are successful. If you lose, it's your loss. If you win, they take your niche, call you a plagiarist and kick you out with nothing. And if you are just puttering along,…

People should keep developing for iOS, they should just fully understand that point and have other markets and a contingency if it does happen.

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

#137

Post by mikeash »

mdmarra wrote: post #97
w1ntermute wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was the last time a developer got sued for violating the OS X EULA? Start worrying about real world problems for a change.

Just so I'm clear, where is the list of which ToS and EULAs are OK to break and which ones aren't? AppGratis seems to have gotten boned for violating one, yet you're advocating people break another in the same thread? Sure, the odds of Apple coming after you are low. But that doesn't mean that it's any less of a violation of the license agreement that you agree to when installing the software. AppGratis also thought…

EULAs are crap, as they attempt to tell me what I'm allowed to do with an entity that I own. Once the transaction is complete, we're done, and the creator doesn't get to control what I do, beyond the restrictions laid out in copyright law. If I violate a EULA, the creator has no recourse but to sue, and they'll be suing me for taking legal actions with my own property.

A ToS, on the other hand, lays out terms for the ongoing use of a service. If I violate the ToS, the service provider is within their rights to decline to provide me service. They're within their rights to do that anyway for nearly any reason they feel like, because this is an ongoing relationship and I don't have them enslaved. Beyond that, they could also sue, at which point things get a bit murky.

There's nothing wrong with breaking a EULA, and their legal enforceability is worrying. There's also nothing wrong with a service provider terminating service when a user breaks a ToS, which is what happened here.

There's no inconsistency.

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

#138

Post by tayome »

querulous wrote: post #111
OoTheNigerian wrote: post #82

The lesson here to me is simple. If you do not have an email address, you have not 'acquired' a user. If they had email addresses, they could have focused on sending out emails while trying to seek other platforms to develop for. As for the people offended about AppGratis' business model. Can you explain the difference between it and Groupon? Or any super bowl ad? It is wrong for someone to have money to promote thei…

i'm not offended by AppGratis' business model but i am offended by the notion that Apple are in the wrong for cracking down on paid installs. AppGratis can do whatever they want but they shouldn't expect Apple's support

agreed, it's Tapjoy's story repeating again http://www.tuaw.com/2011/04/19/apple-banning-pay-per-install....

ok, Appgratis was "curating" the apps, and their reviews were quite funny sometimes, but still, their business model was not "editorial", you need to pay to get reviewed. And why would you do that? Well...to boost your rankings within the App Store.

With that developer/advertiser money Appgratis can then do their own paid promotion to acquire more downloads, then go back with an even bigger claim to advertisers/developers and resell that inventory. This is basically an arbitrage model and i can understand why Apple wouldn't like that.

Anyway, they've got $13M to pivot, so they should be fine.

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

#140

Post by sneak »

niklas_a wrote: post #26

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 rul…

> 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.

They created the platform. There are others.

Stop spouting this foolishness.

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