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Over the past ten days, we've been tracking the story of AppGratis, the app discovery service that saw its app pulled from the App Store by Apple as part of the first phase of a broader crackdown on apps that could be confused with the App Store itself or which might be used to game the App Store rankings.
Following the removal of AppGratis from the App Store, CEO Simon Dawlat claimed that the service was "far from finished" and that existing users of the app could continue to receive daily deals while AppGratis works on a solution to the issue.
But as noted by TechCrunch, Apple now appears to have used yet another tool in its effort to shut down AppGratis, revoking the existing app's ability to send push notifications to users alerting them of each day's deal.
The move was reported earlier by French publication JDN which said AppGratis informed subscribers that Apple had killed notifications in an emailed newsletter. TechCrunch has obtained a copy of the email sent to (Italian) AppGratis subscribers — the first part of which is embedded below. As well as explaining to subscribers why they haven’t received a push notification from the app that morning, it urges them not to panic, and says AppGratis will be launching a daily special offers newsletter to keep them informed about app offers.
TechCrunch points to a new blog post from Dawlat outlining plans for AppGratis going forward, including new newsletters and an HTML5 web app to help skirt around Apple's App Store ban.
But while the company may be able to develop some workarounds for its services, it is clear that Apple is committed to shutting down AppGratis for iOS and is not interested in having discussions that could potentially lead to an alternative resolution.
Top Rated Comments
(View all)If you have thousands of dollars, you can drive and keep an app like Candy Crush Saga at the top of the freemium charts and make millions (money to make money)
While everyone who can't afford placement in FAAD / this / other botfarm techniques, slip out of sight.
Basically it's the rich always getting richer. And guess what? you're all sucking it up... nom nom nom! iAP baby! nom nom nom!
Stupid. All these chart manipulation techniques should be banned outright, for a level playing field or you'll find indies eventually stop caring about making fun games and just join the iAP herd out to nickel and dime you for every cent you've got.
Stop being so blind.
Since when did an app cease being judged on it's own merit and start being judged on how much fake chart it's managed to get?
I hope AppGratis, FAAD and botfarms die a horrible death so that a democratic and level playing field for apps can exist. It's so manipulated that even well known apps like [deleted] have resorted to botfarms. And they're harder than ever to trace now.
Apple can trace them - it simply tracks what apps were actually used. Funnily enough most of the apps weren't used on the way up to top 10. They were simply downloaded. Makes you think.
Email notifications and WebApps are out the reach of Apple.
I'm wondering why Apple don't pull all similar apps?
I think it was because AppGratis was doing some shady behavior like manipulating app rankings while others have not.
I could see this turning into a lawsuit.
What is AppGratis going to sue Apple for? That Apple stopped their fraud?
Remember, this is a company that was gaming the ranking system by pushing crap apps to the top of the charts and charging the developers a lot of money for the service.
This activity was against apple's rules for well over a year before Apple took action.
Now its time to get rid of AppsFire too.
So after AppGratis was kicked out, a few days later, a similar app, AppsFire, received a minor update along with the promise of a larger one coming soon. You would think Apple would be more sensitive to other AppGratis-like apps being updated! Weird. :\
I can certify that AppsFire is engaging in the same business practices... they wanted to charge $5,000 for our App to even *appear* in their apps.