You may have never heard of the application that existed for a long time in Apple's App Store under the name AppGratis, but since Apple decided to remove it, it has sparked a storm of reactions, even from the French government itself, while an online protest page has been set up that already counts 891 thousand signatures!!!
It should be noted that AppGratis was an application that allowed its users to download a variety of applications from the App Store for free or at a reduced price after consultation with their creators.
Apple removed it for two reasons, according to its official announcement. The first was that it promoted specific App Store apps through push notifications, and the second was that it had started to look like another App Store within Apple's existing one.
Although we understand the reactions of ordinary users, the fact that even the French government addressed the issue certainly means a lot.
Business Insider today dug into the matter and made a discovery that suggests AppGratis has bigger sins hidden. So beyond an app, AppGratis was also a well-established business with a lot of money from revenue to the point that its creators had recently opened a branch in America. But where did they get all this revenue?
According to Business Insider and the exclusive text it found and published, AppGratis was making deals with developers worth thousands to upload their apps to the top 10 of the App Store. For example, for $100,000, AppGratis would upload apps to the top 5 and so on.
This Business Insider article burns any defensive line of AppGratis that proudly declared that they had never dealt with anything like the above:
“We've never been in the business of gaming the top charts or anything.”
Many say that the removal of AppGratis from the App Store is just the beginning of a major effort by Apple to uncover illegal activities that harm the company itself and at the same time exploit developers and users.
Dimitrios Georgoulas @ GreekAppleNews
