France's digital industry minister Fleur Pellerin has called on Apple to "behave ethically" following its removal of AppGratis from the App Store.
Pellerin referred to Apple's action against the French start up as "extremely brutal," and claimed that the Cupertino firm had acted "unilaterally and without explanation."
"This isn't virtuous and dignified behaviour for a company of that scale," Pellerin added, before explaining that her comments were intended to encourage Apple into a negotiation with AppGratis.
Pull a fast one
Apple removed AppGratis from the App Store on Friday 5 April, and has since claimed that the application breached clauses 2.25 and 5.6 of the App Store Review Guidelines.
The first forbids apps that might be mistaken for app stores themselves, while the latter bans the use of push notifications as marketing.
AppGratis CEO Simon Dawlat claims that Apple approved an iPad version of his application just days before pulling AppGratis from the App Store taking Dawlat and his colleagues completely by surprise.
Reuters reports that this incident has prompted Fleur Pellerin to state her plans to ask the European Commission for tighter regulation of digital platforms such as the App Store.
Versions of events
In fact, when Reuters reporters working on this story reached out to Apple for comment, they were told by a representative that Apple "had had a discussion with AppGratis before removing it from its platform and that the company had disregarded its technical specifications."
This statement seems to directly contradict AppGratis CEO Simon Dawlat's recollection of events, however.
"A few days after Apple had approved our latest iPad version, a new app review team member named R., who no one on my team had ever had contact with before, came pretty much out of the blue and after trying to call me three times without being able to get hold of me (I was on a plane), decided to pull out our apps."
[source: Financial Times and Reuters]
News
Related Articles
Top Stories
Feature
May 7th, 2024
Mobile Mavens: The industry has its say on Squad Busters ability to draw in “untapped audiences” with its “influence from a range of genres”
Feature
May 7th, 2024
Hot Five: Supercell’s Squad Busters supremacy, Brawl Stars bounces back, and a games industry journey at King
Feature
May 7th, 2024
April 2024 mobile game charts: Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile loses launch momentum and Brawl Stars’ astronomical rise
Events
Valencia Indie Summit 2024 | Europe | May 16th |
Mobidictum Meetup Tallinn May 2024 | Europe | May 21st |
Israel Mobile Summit 2024 | Middle East | Jun 6th |
WN Conference Istanbul 2024 | Jun 11th | |
DevGAMM Vilnius 2024 | Europe | Jun 14th |
Develop: Brighton 2024 | Europe | Jul 9th |
Mobidictum Meetup Barcelona September 2024 | Europe | Sep 1st |
Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki 2024 | Nordic | Oct 1st |