The iOS App Store might be a walled garden, but that’s not to say that developers and publishers don’t have the elbow room to engage in some of the principals of capitalism, like cross-promotions. Just don’t be surprised if one day, Apple routs you out.
The latest example of Apple clamping down on developers for engaging in practices that they don’t quite think is critic is the crackdown on pay-to-install apps, which now appears to be in effect, with publisher TapJoy claiming that Apple is actively banning such apps from the App Store.
What’s a pay-to-install app? Essentially, it’s a form of cross-promotion with freemium games in which a player can get in-game goods, currency or other items by downloading another app. In other words, say you want some more f***ing Smurfberries, you could just download another app to get a free infusion…. which, in turn, would probably want you to download some other app to get an item, ad infinitim de pukum.
From Apple’s perspective, the problem with pay-to-install apps is that it artificially inflates download numbers. I can see their point, but as TapJoy is quick to point out, nothing in the Developer Program License Agreement actually precludes pay-to-install apps. Well, no, and I suppose there’s nothing in the ToS per se that prevents an app from collecting users’ addresses and then mailing them a sopping sack of indeterminate meat slurry either, but my guess is Apple would quickly add a provision in the ToS for this unexpected new development. The Dev Agreement isn’t the Ten Commandments, guys.
