CEO Simon Dawalt and his team were shocked when they find out that Apple had removed AppGratis, a discover app, from its App Store. Later on Monday, April 8 Apple did give some clarification over the eradication of the app, after which Dawalt posted his statement on the AppGratis site in which he described the scenario as “absolutely crazy.” He added that, “And that is pretty much where we stand, still stunned that Apple took the decision to destroy so much value within their own ecosystem, but more than ever convinced that what we’re doing is good, and accomplishing a much needed mission in a broken App Discovery world.”
Apart from explaining that their discovery app had gone through several rejections for breaching the guidelines of Apple’s App Store on different occasions which were later resolved, Dawalt also explained in his statement what Apple had said to them:
“Early Monday, R. gave me a follow-up call. He basically couldn’t go beyond repeating multiple times that our app had been pulled out due to guideline 2.25 and 5.6.
I asked how he and his team could have possibly changed their minds overnight, pretty much pulling the plug on a 45-person company. He seemed very detached regarding the gravity of the situation, and was unable to let me know on what specifics these decisions had been made.
For us, obviously, it’s a hard hit. And as I’m about to push the ‘publish’ button on this story, I’m still in absolute shock as to what is happening to us.”
Dawalt continued his statement by saying that things are “far from finished” with Apple, as there is still some room to make the situation right, as he urged the Cupertino-based company to get in touch with him in order to discuss the problem. Moreover, he also requested the users to spread his word. At the same time, Dawalt also confirmed that existing 12 million users of AppGratis did not need to worry about the app’s future:
“Even if our iOS apps are momentarily unavailable, your app recommendation service, AppGratis, is very much up and running. If you’re part of the 12 million lucky people to have downloaded our app before last Friday, know that it will keep updating everyday with new free apps and cool discounts. So will our website, and so will our daily newsletter.
Our iOS apps may have been unavailable now for a few days, but at the same time, a few million free apps have been downloaded through AppGratis since last Friday. So for now, it’s business as usual in AppGratis’s world.”
Source: 9to5Mac