back to article Free French app app booted by Apple, triggers 1m-strong petition

Almost a million people have signed a petition demanding Apple rethink its decision to pull a popular free-app-finding app from the App Store. French-designed AppGratis - which describes itself as an "app-discovery" service - was pulled from the App Store earlier this month after falling foul of Apple's new rules regulating …

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  1. Lionel Baden
    Unhappy

    Dont worry

    There will soon be another version of this app out, but branded as Amazing new content under the Fruity logo with the next OS update.

    Im guessing it will look very similar too

    1. Tom 13
      Devil

      Re: Im guessing it will look very similar too

      Nah, this one will have some seriously innovative re-engineering.

      You know, like rounded corners.

  2. stephajn
    Big Brother

    Welcome aboard AppGratis...

    ...now get the hell off our app train. We don't like you anymore.

    Very Sincerely Yours,

    The Apple Store App Police

    And off in the ditch, so many other apps that faced the same problem, with Mozilla still screaming, "We aren't interested in your platform anyway!!!" and Facebook shouting out, "Come on! Facebook Home is the wave of the future!!!"

  3. nematoad
    Unhappy

    Surely not!

    "“This behaviour is not worthy of a company of this size," she raged."

    No, it's not but sadly it seems to be the way things are done in Apple-land.

    As AppGratis only looks for free apps then the bit about "purchase" does not apply, it's the "promotion" bit that has Apple in a knot. Don't forget Apple wants to be in the driving seat and no-one else gets a look-in. That's the way Apple works.

    I have no idea why, either they are the greediest bunch of bastards ever made, or the spirit of Jobs is still running the show and needs to control everything. With a cash pile of about $35 billion or so surely it can't be the money.

    1. h3

      Re: Surely not!

      They all do the same thing Amazon / Google / Facebook.

      (If you are doing something not really all that related to what they do then Microsoft is the only safe option. The others will just clone as soon as it starts working. Microsoft will as well but only with stuff that is kind of related to what they do already so it is safer).

  4. g e
    Holmes

    God forbid you should promote free apps

    Cos 30% of nothing is fuck all.

    I wish them the very best of Apple-irritating luck in their HTML5 version.

  5. g e
    Coat

    In tomorrow's news...

    Samsung announces record 12M-strong surge of orders for Galaxy SIV in France as eBay claims huge uptick in iphone listings.

  6. Naughtyhorse

    apple v the French

    irresistible force meet immovable object

    popcorn anyone?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: apple v the French

      Excuzez, vich von of zoze is zee immovable object?

      1. An(other) Droid
        Thumb Up

        Re: apple v the French

        Listen very carefully, I shall say 'zis only once...

        Upvoted AC@22:00 for reminding me of 'Allo 'Allo.

      2. Yag

        Re: apple v the French

        L'objet immobile est sans aucun doute l'administration française. Le terme peut également s'appliquer au cerveaux des politiciens français.

        Il semble qu'il n'y ait pas tant de différences que cela d'un coté de la Manche ou de l'autre...

        -----------------------------------------------------

        The immovable object is without any doubt French administration. The term can also apply to french politicians' brains.

        Seems like there's not that many differences between both sides of the Channel.

        (Congrats on your imitation of the french accent btw, it's spot on. I blame lack of practice in my case. What about your french, dear anonymous fellow?)

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: apple v the French

      *shrug*

      Paf!

    3. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      Re: apple v the French

      The French know exactly what to do with an apple. It's hard to beat a good Tarte Tatin.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: apple v the French

        I raise you tarte aux pommes with a bit of cream. As for the app thing - goal posts moved, 'nuff said.

        1. Irony Deficient

          Re: apple v the French

          Le calvados pour la victoire — vive le trou normand !

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Pellerin is planning to raise the matter with the European Commission, in the hope of setting out guidelines governing the management of social media and digital sales channels."

    This could get messy for Apple - an EC investigation into the iOS ecosystem is never, ever going to end well. They don't allow browser competition, they don't allow app market competition, they don't allow microtransaction competition and so on and so forth ad infinitum. The EC does not take kindly to service providers abusing their position in one market to try and muscle in on another with anticompetitive measures. If they've got any sense they'll just grandfather the app back into the store and pretend this never happened.

    1. g e
      Facepalm

      If they have any sense

      So. Lawyers at dawn, then.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Problem with the EU involvement hope is ...

      ... that Apple are not a monopoly and therefore cannot be seen to be abusing a monopoly position.

      Much as I detest Apple, it's their company and their business and without the presence of a monopoly their restrictive practices are not actually illegal (unless they break some other discrimination laws of course).

  8. Charlie Clark Silver badge

    What to do?

    “This behaviour is not worthy of a company of this size"

    Well, apart from getting a proper portfolio (minister for the digital economy FFS), the sensible thing to do would be to refer it to the competition authorities: should be an an open and shut case. Not this app but Apple's insistence on a monopoly position at the very least in handling payments - apps and subscriptions only available through the store. Just waiting for someone with the balls and energy to refer it. Given the current trend towards vertical integration the sooner the better.

    1. Yag
      Facepalm

      "minister for the digital economy FFS"

      Heh... You know, it's not the worse portfolio title in the current french government...

      It is a subdivision of the ministry of industry, now renamed "Ministere du redressement productif".

      I can't even figure out how to translate the thing. Google gives a somewhat lacking "Ministry of productive recovery".

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I googled her image

    purely for research context, obviously, as I had to inspect every angle of this hot affair.

    ...

    No, I would not.

    1. TriathlonMan
      Flame

      Re: I googled her image

      We complain about the lack of women in IT and then some prat posts a comment like this.

      This isn't the 1970's, and hasn't been for some time.

      I'm too angry to risk writing what I really think for this AC.

  10. Diziet Sma
    WTF?

    AppShopper was pulled too

    The App Shopper (touch arcade guys) app was pulled too but has since been relaunched on the store as a new app. Does much of what it did before and now doesn't fall foul of the changes. I suspect these guys to do the same with some major tweaking. For now I have both the old and the new on my device until I'm convinced all is OK.

    Still it was a ridiculous rule change by apple, not that it really surprises me.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What's all the fuss about?

    It's not your phone anyway, it's Apple's, along with everything on it.

    Surely you didn't think that iThingy was yours to do with as you please?

  12. h3

    What the EU needs to do is stop companies taking the p*ss that is all.

    Google did the same with emulators. They are nearly all back with a slightly different name. (Other than the original yongzh ones).

    They just kicked adblockers out maybe they will follow through a bit more with that I dunno.

    Microsoft are less bad these days. The browser choice error I think was a very harsh punishment for a minor transgression. You can get interoperability stuff that is really good. (See the stuff taken advantage of by e.g Samba/Nexenta). They are not making totally terrible decisions that affect me. (e.g As useless as metro is to me there the OS as a whole is faster and there is no negatives to e.g 3D performance just running a window manager should not kill Opengl performance)

    I am a UNIX guy by trade anyway (Use Hyperv Server 2012 and Windows 8 at home that is it). Probably it is different for people using them in the Enterprise / Integrators and having Microsoft increase prices so much )

    (Maybe I sound like a Microsoft shill but at the moment Google / Facebook / Apple are seriously p*ssing me off on a pretty constant basis. Amazon is annoying me a bit but there is other things they do that makes up for it. (Don't like the mp3 store or appstore way it is deliberately designed to make you buy stuff without being able to review properly what you are going to buy or the way they don't force app developers to keep up to date.)

    1. Adam 1

      Google play still has dosbox. It is also easy enough to install apps from other stores.

      The ad block apps worked as a man-in-the-middle interception for all web traffic without an explicit permission token. I agree it is incredibly convenient for an ad business to be allowed to block an ad blocker but it is hard to argue that this technique couldn't be exploited by malware.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Good job the Google Play and the Amazon Aoo market are vibrant

    Mercurial Apple is no longer the only way to make a bean in mobile apps market. Time to re-tool, re-train and get their App into what will eventually be the world's largest app markets.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Change your apps name. Not that big of a deal

    - some twat

  15. Nifty Silver badge
    Megaphone

    Apple will fix this for you...

    Competition authorities can only jurisdict on companies with a really serious share of the market.

    Way Apple is going, this is not going to be the case anyway.

    Apple execs are scratching around for ideas to improve investor confidence/get its share price back.

    Hows about OPENING UP a bit then?

    1. ThomH

      Re: Apple will fix this for you...

      It seems to need repeating several times a day but Apple's marketshare isn't in decline. Looking at the worldwide numbers as reported by StatCounter and going back three years to March 2010, the iOS market share has had a range of 19.41%–30.13%. It is presently 27.14%.

      What's happened is that Android has killed more or less everything that isn't iOS. So in in the same three years it has risen from 6.21% to 37.23%. But saying that success for Google must obviously mean failure for iOS is plainly false. (aside: the stats report 12.58% share for Nokia Series 40 so they're not exclusively about smart phones; if the 37.23% doesn't sound like what you thought then that's probably why)

      Investor confidence is an issue but loss of marketshare isn't.

      1. Nifty Silver badge

        Re: Apple will fix this for you...

        I did say "way Apple is going"

        And indeed, Apple's market is IS diminishing... maybe a a result of just these 'closed shop' policies.

        1. ThomH

          Re: Apple will fix this for you... (@Nifty)

          But the numbers from StatCounter show that Apple's market ISN'T diminishing, at least in terms of share.

  16. Inachu
    WTF?

    The way APPLE ACTS.

    They way Apple acts would be as if everyone got their way.

    Many times I feel like the person banning certain apps is a bit eccentric and leans towards a certain religion thus that influences how people see software that shows up in the list.

    If we could have a person who was religious neutral not against or for religion and would truly accept or deny apps on a secular basis and not on a basis of "MOTHER/FATHER" knows best.

    I get that feeling that this is how apps are banned/denied at apple. I bet you 100% there is not a list but in someones head on how they think what merits a pull/yank.

    May as well hire a super orthodox jewish man as leading the cause and delete all the games as well and any pretty girl girl screen saver.

  17. wowfood
    Coat

    WAIT WAIT WAIT HOLD IT!

    So, it's anti-competative for Google to display lots of search results, but have theirs at the top, so there's still some competition

    But it's not anti-competative for Apple to block any app which performs the same action as one of there, y'know competition?

    Oh what a wonderful green sky, and the grass is so red today

    WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP

    *Starts spinning on the floor ala Zoidburg"

  18. Nabil Shabka

    Monopoly investigation

    Seems to me that iTunes and the App Store be broken up as they are a monopoly, no question about it.

  19. Alan Denman

    all my precious

    keep you filthy hands off my precious say Apple.

    It is 'Tootle pip' to anyone wanting more than a crumb from that pie.

    Heck, they even gave their lucky users IOS maps to further please them precious shareholders.

  20. TeeCee Gold badge
    Facepalm

    Gosh, really?

    So the cause is that Apple changed the rules on what was acceptable?

    Hell, it's not like they haven't got form here. Nobody should develop for iOS without understanding that whatever it is they create could easily be subject to falling foul of rules yet to be made up. If you can't just shrug your shoulders, say "c'est la vie" and get on with something else, choose another platform.

    Apple's app store has goalposts and they are mounted on castors.

  21. Tom 13
    Trollface

    Don't you just hate it when

    you're not sure which side to root against?

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