Apple is kicking off its backyard mobile apps that are being used by developers to monetize and grow their apps such as offering incentivized social sharing and video viewing, following its revised policies in the App Store.
In addition, mobile apps that offer in-game credits for watching videos, that endorse other apps and attempts to manipulate the rank of apps in the Store’s charts are also under scrutiny and will be taken down, the revised policies state.
Rejection slips have since flown to several developers, referring to key sections in the Developer Guidelines for reasons why Apple is rejecting their apps, whether it’s merely an updated version, in the App Store. The rejection notices are said to be finally reflecting the new rules Apple has set for its Store.
One developer named Dan Sinclair posted to StackOverflow his recent experience with his app being rejected by Apple. He says the app was approved and released four times already in the past by the App Store but the app was still rejected in spite of having updated only the graphics and not the underlying code.
“It doesn't make any sense, especially as the code hasn't changed from my previous accepted submissions, and especially as THOUSANDS of other apps have "More Apps" buttons,” says Sinclair in a June 5 post.
In response, Apple explained the reasons for the rejection of his app, including a violation of the in-game credits for promoting other apps and watching videos.
Another developer also complained of the same scenario at the forum of iPhoneDevSDK.
“So we can't encourage users to share stuffs on social networks anymore? This is one of the oldest tricks in the book and even Candy Crush uses it,” the developer who goes by the name pillow_blender writes at the forum page on June 4.
Market analysts say this new move of Apple will bring about a considerable impact to the entire app industry and will reorganize the ways on how these apps can reach its desired scale and growth in the business.
Research also reveals that this bad app crackdown may be because of the impending overhaul in the App Store that the company intends to introduce along with the new iOS 8. Recall that Apple announced of the improvements at the WWDC last week. With the iOS 8, many changes are to be expected such as a better search algorithm, a new “Explore” feature, and discounted app bundles, among others.
