After Company Pulls iPad Giveaway, Apple Approves Apps [Exclusive]

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A company got in touch with Cult of Mac after our story about Apple enforcing the ban on iPad giveaways. Their apps were being held in limbo — see email above — during the iTunes approval process due to a contest they were running.

Stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place, they opted to pull the iPad contest. (The giveaway had been a major way, they told us, to get the apps better known.)

All of the apps they submitted are now available in iTunes.

It’s part of a larger move by Apple to enforce its guidelines for third-party giveaways. The guidelines (.PDF here) were set out in April 2010, but Apple is only going after companies who have not adopted them correctly now.

In some cases, Apple simply discourages giveaways — you must buy 250 iPods to use them in a contest, for example.

But according to the guidelines, Apple’s hottest products are all strictly verboten when it comes to freebies:

“iPad, iPhone and the iPhone Gift Card may not be used in third-party promotions.”
Pretty clear? Not so fast.

A quick Twitter search shows there are still dozens of iPad giveaways, all of them in clear violation of the Cupertino company’s guidelines.

Didn’t they get the memo — or is there a double standard at work?

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