It’s been a rough week for App Discovery apps everywhere – perhaps no more so than AppGratis, whose founder got off a 12 hour plane last weekend to find that his app, which has 12 million users, had been pulled from the Apple App Store. While other App Recommendation apps are quick to say “oh, but we provide quality,” it put even a more strained tone as bloggers quickly began citing AppGratis CEO Simon Dawlat as saying just that a year ago when AppShopper got pulled from the AppStore.
CEO of Appsfire Ouriel Ohayon has already posted two blog posts to the Appsfire Blog, which shed a little bit of light on why the cofounder isn’t worried about his app getting the chop anytime soon. With one of the reasons for AppGratis’ getting pulled being cited as sending push notifications for paid promotions, Ouriel reminds us that Appsfire never pushes notifications about paid promotions , only about deals on the App Store (discounts, new releases, etc.) – this is one of the reasons I like Appsfire, in fact, because they are the ones who notify me when high-profile players like Google put out new apps like Google Maps.(Update: Appsfire CTO Yann Lechelle points out that, while the app discovery in-app is 100% algorithmic, the company, like most apps, makes a living off of ads, and thus, pushes promotions to bring users back to the app who will , in turn, see a “splash” ad when they arrive on the app)
“We fought for our vision, our values, and eventually solved the problem while trying our best to be within the spirit of the ecosystem,”
Ouriel Ohayon on Appsfire’s previous troubles with Apple and the App Store
While a lot of what Ouriel said sounds similar to what Simon Dawlat said about what his vision is for AppGratis – a “michelin guide for apps,” “push notifications are opt-in” etc. – I still can’t help shake the fear that Apple may not be seeing it that way. And yet, Ouriel seems all too comfortable with the reality that Apple could boot them, almost as comfortable as he is that they won’t. Ouriel said that Appsfire has already gone through 4 iterations of its product with Apple.