“I founded AppGratis back in 2008, and have been running it ever since,” Simon Dawlat, AppGratis CEO, writes via the AppGratis blog. “Today, for the first time, my company is dealing with an incredibly difficult moment.”
“A few hours before starting to write this, I landed in São Paulo, Brazil on a visit to our local office here. I turned on my iPhone after an exhausting 12-hour redeye from Paris, only to receive notifications for over 75 missed calls, and a seemingly infinite flow of unread text messages,” Dawlat writes. “I almost fainted.”
“These things only happen when a relative or a friend dies, or gets caught in a terrible accident. I immediately thought that someone in my family had passed away during my flight and couldn’t touch my phone for a few minutes. Scared. Paralyzed. Trying to imagine what the terrible news could be,” Dawlat writes. “But by now Apple has issued an official statement, and the Wall Street Journal has published it. And as you’ve guessed, my friends and relatives are fine. They’re just worried for me now.”
Dawlat writes, “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.”
“I’ve read a lot of comments and media features saying things like ‘R.I.P. AppGratis,” Dawlat writes. “I want to tell these people the reports of our death are greatly exaggerated.”
Much more in the full article here.
John Paczkowski reports for AllThingsD, “On Sunday, AppGratis, which promotes paid apps by offering one for free everyday, abruptly vanished from the App Store without explanation or comment from Apple. This, just a week after Cupertino had approved the iPad version of the app. At the time of its disappearance, word on the street had it that Apple banished the app for violation of an App Store Review Guideline clause that states: ‘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.'”
“And that was indeed the case — partially. Apple confirmed to AllThingsD Monday that it removed AppGratis from the App Store for violating clause 2.25,” Paczkowski reports. “But it said that the app also violated clause 5.6: ‘5.6 Apps cannot use Push Notifications to send advertising, promotions, or direct marketing of any kind.'”
Read more in the full article here.
Related article:
Apple pulls AppGratis from App Store two months after it raised $13.5 million in funding – April 8, 2013