Why AppGratis Was Pulled From the App Store

RougeFemme writes "By now, you may know that AppGratis, a popular app discovery app, was recently pulled from the App store. Apple listed violations of the following guidelines: '2.25 Apps that display Apps other than your own for purchase or promotion in a manner similar to or confusing with the App Store will be rejected. ... 5.6 Apps cannot use Push Notifications to send advertising, promotions, or direct marketing of any kind.' Now, the company's CEO, Simon Dawlat, has made a blog post with 'the rest of the story.'" As it turns out, AppGratis had been cleared by Apple for guideline 2.25 as recently as October, and its iPad version was approved less than a week ago. The brand new Apple review team member who contacted the company isn't able to explain what went into the decision to ban it now. Dalwat says the complaint about guideline 5.6 was 'another surprise for us since we only send one "system notification" a day to our users, coming in the form of a generic, opt-in only "Today’s deal is here!" message, which is precisely how Apple recommends developers to use its push notification service.'" However, the AllThingsD article cites sources claiming Apple 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." Dalwat does not address this in his post.

Re:Android apps tend to use ads more often

[Karlt1]

The article you linked states that though Apple had the lion's share of revenue from priced applications, Google Play Store had more total downloads, paid and free, than downloads from Apple, Microsoft, and RIM stores combined. (Conspicuous by its absence from the article is Amazon, but that's beside my point.)

Let me take a guess as to why Google wins downloads while Apple wins revenue. Apple never launched the iPod touch, iPhone, or iPad in a given country without support for iTunes payment. Google, on the other hand, chose to allow sales of devices with Android Market (now Play) in some countries to which it hadn't yet launched Checkout (now Wallet). To reach customers in those countries, developers had to make their applications available without charge and recoup their expenses through advertising. This set up an expectation among Android users that applications would have an ad-supported version.

Or another guess is that Android users are cheap....

http://allthingsd.com/20110527/android-users-like-apps-but-dont-like-paying-for-them/ [allthingsd.com]

http://gigaom.com/2012/11/26/why-are-android-users-less-engaged-than-ios-users/ [gigaom.com]

Didn't Rovio claim to earn more from advertisements in ad-supported versions of Angry Birds than from sale of priced versions?

Rovio:

http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/angry-birds-exec-calls-android-too-complex-iphone-no-1-125769 [nbcnews.com]

Why? Apple has "gotten so many things right. And they know what they are doing and they call the shots."

Android, too, is growing, he said, "But it's also growing complexity at the same time."

"While there are many devices and carriers that use Android, "device fragmentation (is) not the issue," Vesterbacka said, "but rather the fragmentation of the ecosystem. So many different shops, so many different models. The carriers messing with the experience again. Open but not really open, a very Google-centric ecosystem. And paid content just doesnâ(TM)t work on Android.""