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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

#151
post #81
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dunno why Apple doesn't do as Google does (at least did when I had a Droid, pre-Play store), where you had 24 hours to get a refund, presumably with some sort of fraud trigger if you request too many refunds.

I believe that is down to 15 minutes now.

10 iirc, which is outrageous. Download a game with enough content which takes more than 10 minutes just to find out it sucks ass.

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

#152
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

apple's business model around the app store is to protect users from CRAP Apple's business model around the App Store involves protecting users from crap, but it also has healthy doses of limiting competition and establishing first-party app dominance.

Apple has always put their priorities in this order aroun iOS: Apple > users > developers. As of now, it's working out quite well.

Uhh, have you been watching their stock at all for the past 6 months?

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

#153
Apple needs to fix this process or they WILL lose developers.

I have no problem with simple humans making a decision to list an app in the App Store according to subjective guidelines. It helps get through a lot of submissions fast.

But delisting an app should involve a serious review process involving several levels of people on both sides.

And the depth of the review process should directly correlate to the number of installs and the time the app has been in the store.

This means that something like AppGratis has at least an assurance that their 45 staff wont be out of a job simply because they got someone in a bad mood.

The whole "no sympathy" bullshit is talk from people with nothing better to do that shit upon a fellow HN reader.

Imagine if Apple decided to pull Zynga's apps because they use notifications to promote themselves. There goes a public company up in smoke. The FTC will surely have something to say about that.

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

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, what about Groupon and Living Social? All they do is promote a different business every day... If Apple is going to make rules like this, they need to be consistant on how they enforce it.

Why do they need to be consistent?

For a lot of reasons. First, if I'm spending time creating an app, it would be nice to know with 100% certainty that it will be accepted in the app store. Second, it's unfair if competitors don't have to run by the same set of rules. Third, because it's extremely confusing and could turn developers off from creating on their platform.

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

#155
Work for a tyrant and you will eventually get screwed over - a good lesson for developers who target Apple products.

Stallman remains very right on Apple - it is the antithesis of openness and hacker culture, and the fact that good programmers choose to be Apple serfs is very disappointing.

For those who say developers have no choice but to target Apple products or lose a big chunk of revenue - if developers had refused to develop apps for Apple from the outset, and only targeted open platforms, they wouldn't be in a dominant position in the first place.

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

#157
Time to pivot, go web mobile, retain user base, launch from there maybe, - but overall you should of seen this coming, any time you get "tooo" close to app core apps, especially the app store models no matter how much you "fix" their problem, you will get pinched.

And the paying 20k for app promotion, or taking rev share on apps sold, that was just plain stupid given that you provide apple more ammo.

Real question is, how long does Kindertown have?

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

#158

Apple needs to fix this process or they WILL lose developers. I have no problem with simple humans making a decision to list an app in the App Store according to subjective guidelines. It helps get through a lot of submissions fast. But delisting an app should involve a serious review process involving several levels of people on both sides. And the depth of the review process should directly correlate to the number…

It still blows my mind that you can't pay $X,000-$XX,000 a year to get into a different line at Apple and get some damn feedback. Companies are investing hundreds of thousands of dollars a month building iOS apps, and they get the same treatment as a guy making an alarm clock app one Saturday morning. And I say that as a former alarm clock app sideproject maker and now professional app developer.

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

#159
post #118
post #63

I have zero sympathy for Simon. AppGratis business model is dirty at its core because basically it's just a way for developers with cash to splash to have a big burst of downloads to help them climb the App Store Rank and get "organic download". An even dumber thing is to bet everything its iOS app when you saw that a far superior product from one of your competitor was banned from the App Store 4 months ago (App Sho…

Oh come on. It's certainly "dirty" to push your app up the charts with fake downloads from bots, but this is just advertising. There are much worse things happening in the world... and in the App Store. Plus however you might feel about apps like this, the much larger issue is that Apple is now pulling apps it doesn't like. While it's of course within their rights, this really shouldn't be just happening like this. W…

I would agree, that if Apple had somehow managed to obtain a monopolistic position in mobile, such that people didn't have any real alternative to their platform, and they had to chose iOS if they wanted a smart phone, that it might be reasonable to put some restrictions on what they enforced people to do with their ecosystem. With monopoly market power, comes greater responsibilities (at least in the United States - but similar legal theories exist in other countries).

But, I think we can all agree, that Apple does not have a monopoly on the mobile platform, and, there is in fact at least one reasonable alternative (Android) - Some might go so far as to suggest that Microsoft's "Windows Phone" platform, and, for that matter, even Blackberry could be considered reasonable alternatives to the iOS platform.

And, regardless, 5.6 is pretty clear, ""Apps cannot use Push Notifications to send advertising, promotions, or direct marketing of any kind."" - If anything, Apple has simply failed to chase down all of the other apps that are doing this.

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

#160
post #140

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.

That's not going to fly long term. Microsoft created Windows and Internet Explorer while you could use Linux or Mac OS - the DOJ was not happy about it. Android is a god send for Apple in that regard, if Apple had 90% of the market and Blackberry was the only other game in town, the DOJ would be all over them by now.
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