According to media reports, Apple is planning to soon crack down on services that promote apps and games from other developers, following the removal of app discovery service AppGratis from the App Store.
AppGratis was pulled from the iOS App Store earlier this week, as Apple told the company that its popular app and game discovery initiative had broken guidelines to do with promoting apps from other studios.
Notably, AppGratis is far from the only company that does this, and plenty of other similar services are still alive and well on the App Store.
However, All Things Digital reports that it has been informed by sources that the removal of AppGratis was just the beginning, and that Apple plans to enforce these guidelines even further, removing more discovery apps in the process.
This isn't the first time that Apple has attempted to crack down on incentivized downloads. Back in 2011, the company began pulling down apps that incentivize users to install other apps in exchange for in-game currency.
Seriously, what are they thinking? You're not allowed to do anything anymore. You can't even make a game based on political satire and upload it to the App store.
If they keep doing stuff like this, developers are going to give up on the platform. Talk about digging your own grave.
I guess Apple wants developers to make games for their platforms for free or something.
App A promotes App B and App C since they are getting paid off by B and C.
App X is a much better app/game then either A or C but don't have the tens of thousands of dollars to pay a "fee" to get their name on App A.
So, who wins? The more crappy apps with more marketing money or the apps that are actually better and stay within the spirit of Apple's terms-of-service (which is JUST like Google's page rankings - you game the rankings you get booted or banned).
If people don't wank to play in the walled garden that's their prerogative..go create another app for a different system like Android.
What a waste of energy and resources... People can release 'ad supported' rubbish games by the truck load but when one tries to offer a service it gets pulled...
The more I hear about apple the less I like it. Alot of the moves they've made in the past 4 years have been pretty negative ones. I remember when Microsoft was seen as villianous, but I guess Apple had to try and top that too
If they keep doing stuff like this, developers are going to give up on the platform. Talk about digging your own grave.
I guess Apple wants developers to make games for their platforms for free or something.
App A promotes App B and App C since they are getting paid off by B and C.
App X is a much better app/game then either A or C but don't have the tens of thousands of dollars to pay a "fee" to get their name on App A.
So, who wins? The more crappy apps with more marketing money or the apps that are actually better and stay within the spirit of Apple's terms-of-service (which is JUST like Google's page rankings - you game the rankings you get booted or banned).
If people don't wank to play in the walled garden that's their prerogative..go create another app for a different system like Android.