Apple Clamping Down On App Discovery Apps

Last week AppGratis was removed from the App Store, and it appears might not be the last app-discovery application to have this fate. AppGratis provide free and cut price downloads through a daily push messages.

Simon Dalwat the chief executive at AppGratis blogged about the removal stating “Friday, April 5th was the day Apple decided to pull AppGratis out of the App Store, leaving our 12 million iOS users wondering where one of their favorite apps had gone, my 45 employees wondering if they’d still have a job next week, my partners and investors in shock, and myself with an absolutely crazy situation to deal with, thousands of miles away from our headquarters”. AppGratis say its app was removed for violating two provisions in Apple’s App Store guidelines that forbid apps to display apps from other developers as well as programs that push notifications for marketing reasons.

All Things Digital is reporting that people who claim to have knowledge of Apple’s plans and those sources say that Apple is worried that app-discovery applications that help promote programs from other developers threaten the App Store’s rankings.

As an ipad app developer in Los Angeles we are more than away of the 0ver-zealous nature of Apples App store and wonder how the mobile app development community will react over time as Android becomes more popular and Windows 8 mobile matures.