“Two months after closing $13.5 million in funding, hitting revenues of $1 million a month, and reaching the 300,000 new users a day plateau, app discovery platform AppGratis has been pulled from the iOS app store by Apple,” John Koetsier reports for VentureBeat.
“‘This is going to be an insanely big market,’ AppGratis CEO Simon Dawlat told me when we chatted then,” Koetsier reports. “But not for AppGratis, if Apple kills his business.”
Koetsier reports, “Yesterday Apple pulled AppGratis, which promotes paid apps by offering one for free every day, from the app store. AppGratis has been astoundingly successful, in some cases driving 500,000 install in a single day, and recently, as it has been growing, over a million daily installs. Apple has not returned repeated calls and emails requesting details, confirmation, or rationale, and AppGratis isn’t talking right now either. TechCrunch speculates that Apple’s new [Oct. 2012] rule around displaying apps other than your own for purchase or promotion might be to blame… Other app-discovery platforms such as AppHero seem to be still up and running, and a quick search for AppGratis in the app store reveals copycat apps such as Gratis App Hoy still available, as well as other free-app-of-the-day apps.”
Read more in the full article here.
I hope AppsGoneFree doesn’t suffer the same fate. I didn’t know there were others.
In the mean time, if you have the app, it isn’t going to disappear. Tether still works for me.
Acquisition?
I’ve gotten a bunch of good apps from Appsgonefree. It’s worth having, IMO.
Yes it is. Apple really needs to stop this pick one app and pull it while others of the same vein remain approach. Causes nothing but confusion and makes them look inconsistent and confused themselves
Agreed. Apple is amazing at creating mystery and intrigue and fan hype, but somehow horrible at when it comes to public impression of such moves. Basically Apple comes across as the bad guy. Unhelpful and totalitarian. They are not really this at all, but such moves make a bad impression.