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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

#171

Post by beedogs »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #149
untog wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He did say "OSX lately ", and I agree. Snow Leopard was probably the best version of OS X, it's just been downhill from there. I don't want/care for things like Launchpad being in my OS.

Why does this actually matter? This is an honest question. I don't use Launchpad, but its presence on the system doesn't affect me any more than the presence of Photo Booth does. I've been using OS X since version 10.2, I think (maybe even 10.1, looking at the timeline), and came to it in large part because it married things I liked about the Mac--but never quite enough to justify buying one--with the things I liked…

They're slowly locking down the ability to install what you want from the Internet. Sooner or later, it'll be App Store-only or jailbreak. The (not-quite-a-rumor) transition from x86 to ARM will only hasten this.

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

#172

Post by beedogs »

eridius wrote: post #96
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.

Oh, so just because you don't get sued for it means you should go ahead and do something illegal?

[citation needed] that breaking a EULA is illegal.

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

#173

Post by DesaiAshu »

krschultz wrote: post #158
lessnonymous wrote: post #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…

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.

but this would ruin the closest we have to a perfect competition

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

#174

Post by niklas_a »

MBCook wrote: post #101
niklas_a wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the problem is, as I mentioned in my comment that the owner of the world's biggest computing platform can shut down a 45 person company without even giving a hint of warning or telling them what needs to be changed. I think even you can agree that's not a good thing for us developers, no? Also, if I build an Android only app I limit my audience. It's like saying I should create a website only for Firefox in 2005…

> Well the problem is, as I mentioned in my comment that the owner of the world's biggest computing platform can shut down a 45 person company without even giving a hint of warning or telling them what needs to be changed. I think even you can agree that's not a good thing for us developers, no? That's what happens when you put all your eggs in one basket. If you make pre-prepared food for a grocery store chain and t…

It's interesting how many people are coming out and saying this. It's like they want to be that little company that wants to make >75% of their revenue from one single company.

The point I'm trying to make is that for us developers iOS is one of the most important computing platforms. All else being equal we would benefit from it being more open. The more consumers you can reach with your products, the better.

Now if you want to do mobile apps you have to take huge bet when addressing 50% of the market. I think we should be working on fixing that situation sooner than later.

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

#175

Post by Termana »

zevyoura wrote: post #168
nkorth wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen many games that let you "earn" ingame currency by downloading apps or completing surveys. A few of these games _indirectly_ require you to download the incentivized apps by providing very few coins in the actual game, or making the ads the only way to get coins (other than with real money). Apparently that's sneaky enough for Apple.

How does this work? My understanding is that apps cannot see what other apps are installed on iOS unless the device has been jailbroken.

I'm not sure if this is how the specific ones being talked about might be working, but a simplified way of doing it would be that when APP A is installed it connects to a server and tells it that it has been installed with UNIQUE DEVICE ID, that way APP B can connect to the server and see if APP A has been installed on UNIQUE DEVICE ID. You can imagine ways to do the same with viewing ads etc.

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

#176

Post by dmorre »

This German site [1] had an article on the bare cost AppGratis asked the developers to pay:

In Germany you pay 15.400€ for a slot.

They work on a CPI basis. The CPI rate is 1,1 euro for iPhone and 2.2 for iPad. They list the amount of downloads that they "generally can achieve in Germany, Austria and Switzerland"

iPhone : 10,000 DL - iPad : 2,000 DL

[1] http://www.iphone-ticker.de/15-400e-pro-aktion-wie-appgratis...

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

#177

Post by derefr »

espadagroup wrote: post #29
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 velo…

> The app store ranking is almost entirely based on download velocity, so your ranking goes up.

I wonder how much the App Store's rankings would change if Apple only counted a download "impression" once the app had had, say, 10 minutes of (non-contiguous) runtime on your device? These perversely-incentivized game users would be filtered out of the metrics, but all the drive-by "download, look around, oh this app isn't what I wanted, delete" users would as well.

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

#178

Post by pinaceae »

zem wrote: post #134
pinaceae wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

good luck with the play store then: http://unleashthephones.com/2013/04/09/google-removed-60000-...

"Google removed 60,000 Low-Quality Apps from Play Store in February"

how does Google define low-quality again?

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

#179

Post by zem »

pinaceae wrote: post #178
zem wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

good luck with the play store then: http://unleashthephones.com/2013/04/09/google-removed-60000-... "Google removed 60,000 Low-Quality Apps from Play Store in February" how does Google define low-quality again?

i wouldn't need to trust google; there would always be a way to get my app to users who want it whether or not google wants it in their official play store. that is the huge difference between apple and google - google says "if we think your app is good quality we'll carry it in our store, otherwise find some other way to promote and sell it"; apple says "if we think your app is good quality we'll allow it on the iphone". with apple, there is no "otherwise".

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

#180

Post by fnayr »

zevyoura wrote: post #168
nkorth wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen many games that let you "earn" ingame currency by downloading apps or completing surveys. A few of these games _indirectly_ require you to download the incentivized apps by providing very few coins in the actual game, or making the ads the only way to get coins (other than with real money). Apparently that's sneaky enough for Apple.

How does this work? My understanding is that apps cannot see what other apps are installed on iOS unless the device has been jailbroken.

For iOS apps there's something called "custom url schemes," which is basically a string that every app is self-assigned (if at all) that can be used to open up the app from within another app (or check the app's existence).
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