Apple Shuts Down Push Notifications From AppGratis
macrumors.com
macrumors.com
> Allow me to jump right into this by saying that yes, we have created a business while solving a problem.
> And that last time we checked, it was still OK to do that.
Double-speak: "solving a problem" wasn't why AppGratis was banned: if "solving a problem" was a bannable offense, every app would be banned. No, it was banned for a specific "solution" to a very specific "problem": providing pay-to-play access to their install base in order to game the ostensibly organic rankings of the App Store.
Under the section that promises to explain why AppGratis's business model is fair, you'd expect it to be about that, but it's not: instead, it's a short biography of the founder, a recap of all the money they raised, and this curious statement:
> And this is how we helped and are still helping – for free – hundreds of indie devs with great apps to get well-deserved visibility. In the past few days, many of them have stood up for us – and many haven’t, probably in fear that Apple will stop featuring their app if they speak. I make no judgement of this. I thank the former, and fully understand what motivates (or doesn’t) the later.
So everyone believes AppGratis is good, and the people who actively state otherwise are only doing so under threat from Apple? That's begging the question on a grand scale.
Under the "Where's the money coming from?" section, they go into great detail about how AppGratis was accepting money from people with big marketing budgets to feature their applications on a CPI basis— something they admit Apple banned—and how the companies were using this to game the App Store:
> And to guide them through their complicated media buying, we’d send them – with no guarantees whatsoever – a spreadsheet that indicates the forecasts of installs we thought we’d be a able to drive for their app in each country. Since the App Store algorithm relies mostly on download velocity, it’s simple math to buy your way to the top of the charts by purchasing the numbers of installs you need combining multiple vendors.
Yet they immediately deny that they were gaming the App Store. Their entire business model, as described by them, was built upon facilitating app store gaming. The hair they're splitting here is that they are not providing an explicit statement of guarantee regarding placement in Apple's App Store rankings. Yet that's the entire value of AppGratis to potential buyers and what a CPI business model would result in, leading to the same end result: buying placement on AppGratis guarantees better rankings in Apple's App Store.
Finally:
> We have always based our business on solving the App Discovery needs that consumers have.
and
> We then surveyed our community: “Folks, happy with this new type of deals?” Answer: “Yes”. Status: OK. Carry on, AppGratis.
are both double-speak: their consumers and community are the companies that buy placement in AppGratis, not the people downloading the app (much less the people who are relying on Apple's App Store rankings). Of course they're happy with AppGratis: they wouldn't be paying them otherwise.
AppGratis had a fairly sympathetic narrative handed to them: mean old Apple, who has a history of ostensibly capricious and arbitrary decisions regarding their app store, banned an app that had 12 million installs. Blog posts like the ones they've been posting that at best sidestep the issues raised, or at worst confirm them, do them no favors.
[1]: http://appgratis.com/blog/2013/04/18/setting-things-straight...
All of you vultures with your paid and "incentivized" marketing can just leave. Go "solve" a problem that doesn't cause a myriad problems for the victims. Instead of making golden crumbs from rich app developers at the expense of poor app developers - instead of running up the score for scumbags and becoming scummy in the process, make something that helps people do something worthwhile in the world.
Seriously, get out. You are bad people running these kind of companies, or you are delusional to not understand how the things you do are bad. You are so infatuated with success or entrepreneurship or hacking or whatever, that you lost sight of what it means to be human and part of society.
Apple's response to App Gratis is another reason why the App Store is a good market for honest, hard-working people. Even if the walls around the garden seem a little imposing sometimes, at least scumbags can be kicked out. It's not like the internet where malware and dishonesty flood over you if you venture out of the well-trodden nodes.
http://appgratis.com/blog/2013/04/18/setting-things-straight...
> And to guide them through their complicated media buying, we’d
> send them – with no guarantees whatsoever – a spreadsheet that
> indicates the forecasts of installs we thought we’d be a able
> to drive for their app in each country.
> Since the App Store algorithm relies mostly on download velocity,
> it’s simple math to buy your way to the top of the charts by
> purchasing the numbers of installs you need combining multiple
> vendors. It’s the most common marketing strategy in the market
> today, and at the end of the day, it’s just regular advertising.
For example, I could imagine Apple requiring disclosure of promoted apps and factoring that in to the rankings. Sure, that adjustment wouldn't be perfect, but there's lots of other noise to deal with (e.g. iOS apps with Android counterparts that are featured by Amazon or Google can see a significant bump) that it shouldn't be hard to make it good enough.
With Apple's, once an app is kicked out of their app store, there's no way to use it short of jailbreaking (with the possible exception of grandfathering depending on the particular circumstances).
So you could still find the app by direct link or searching for the app name, but paying to increase rankings would be for naught. Like Google, Apple could then accept reconsideration requests that demonstrate the app is no longer the beneficiary of app store ranking manipulation.
Developers shouldn't have to spend $100K to get into the top 10 of an App Store. For whatever reason. That is money that Apple would much rather see dedicated to making better apps.
Suppose AppGratis successfully transitions to a newsletter / web app model instead (and all the "big bad Apple" publicity is probably helping with that), is the impact on the App Store that much smaller? Or does Apple just have fewer options to respond with?
I'm not a huge fan of Apple and a big part of that is due to the power they have over the app store (and the fact that they were successful with this model encouraged so many others to emulate it), but given that they removed the app from the App Store, disabling APNS for it is a pretty reasonable thing to have done on top of that.
Why expend resources (all APNS go through Apple's server infrastructure) servicing an app that isn't even allowed in your store anymore?
Disabling a feature within an app != shutting off push messaging. The first doesn't use Apple's infrastructure. There aren't a lot of apps that have been permanently removed from the store by Apple, and I can't remember if any of them used push messaging, so I can't be sure, but it seems reasonable to infer that if an app is permanently removed, its APNS profile might be automatically removed as well.
As to disabling push messaging: I think this is a bit of a gray area. For some apps, push messages are minor features. for others, they can be an essential part of the app. Disabling them for such apps is equivalent to removing the app from the user's device.
I haven't seen the AppGratis App, so I don't know what push messages mean for that app.
That's Apples #1 concern.
Don't panic over the other issues listed.
For example, AppGratis tried to rally developer sympathy by claiming this rule was being used : "Apps that are not very useful, unique, are simply web sites bundled as Apps, or do not provide any lasting entertainment value may be rejected."
And while that rule is ridiculous and too generic, it wasn't what caught Apple's attention.
Gaming the ranking is what concerns Apple.
There is nothing here to indicate that Apple has demonstrated any level of complete control over the devices they sell.
The only thing Apple demonstrated here is that once they determine an app is a bad actor that they are willing to terminate the services they provide utilized by those apps. There's no Big Brother style weight being thrown around here like it's some school yard fight, just a simple termination of contract and it's a benefit to users as well as Apple. It is also a mechanism that is severely limited in scope. Apple isn't capable of exerting full control over a person's phone only certain aspects which they have demonstrated a significant amount of restraint and have only been willing to execute any action when they have determined that there is either a security risk or a breach of terms. We can debate whether their determination of what constitutes a breach is appropriate, but I have seen nothing from Apple to demonstrate that they aren't acting in their customers' best interests in these cases. I can't say that of any other company I've owned products from with similar capabilities so I'm inclined to give them a little slack.
It's also important to remember that Apps do not define the functionality of Apple's devices, merely extend them, and weren't even available until consumers demanded it. Users have never "owned", in the sense of control, everything about the applications they install on any platform and I don't think we can rationally say they ever will, unless they build it themselves. You want examples of devices that can be considered "owned" by the company that produced them? How about Playstation or Kinect (before MS' shift)? There are plenty of examples of companies that publicly used the big hammer approach to dealing with things before they went with warnings, notices, policy change deadlines, service termination, or any other remediable approach, but so far I haven't seen Apple go that route and they don't deserve to be vilified for doing what we all wish everyone else would do when faced similar kinds of things. As far as I know Apple can't arbitrarily disable your phone from working as a phone.
I wouldn't want my business model challenged by the company that created the product I had based my business on either, but it is the height of folly to assume it wouldn't be when the model depends on "bending" a few rules that are otherwise considered to protect customers from foul play.
edit: edits.
As a user: I want the platform to take care of notifications. I care not to install dozens of different notification systems because some app decides to use Yet Another Notification System.
As a developer: I want the platform to take care of notifications. I don't want to worry about some third-party server works as expected nor do I want to have to care about the user having the right software install either.