AppGratis Launches on Android Weeks After Being Kicked Out of Apple Store

AppGratis, the French app promotion and discovery platform startup that was recently ejected from the App Store on the grounds that it violated two of Apple’s iOS Guideline, officially launched for Android users today.

“Just a few weeks after being pulled from Apple’s App Store, we’re happy to announce that AppGratis is now available in 9 languages for Android users worldwide,” the company said on its blog.

AppGratis CEO Simon Dawlat said that while the company does not comment on the Apple situation, it has experienced very good feedback with its Android version with over 2,500 reviews and an average 4.7 rating.   Dawlat said the Android version, which was uploaded over the weekend, had to pass a quick bug-fixing update yesterday before its official launch today.

AppGratis was kicked out of the Apple App Store in April for allegedly violating two App Store Review Guidelines including 2.25 that states “Apps that display Apps other than your own for purchase or promotion in a manner similar to or confusing with the App Store will be rejected.”

Many argue that a number of other “Appfinding” programs that exist in the app store haven’t been under the same kind of scrutiny as AppGratis, including App-O-Day and AppsHawk.  Even Facebook, arguably, is an “Appfinding” program because it has App Center, where it prominently displays well-designed apps and doesn’t list apps that receive poor ratings.  The popularity of app discovery programs has grown as users look for guidance to find and discover apps in a store that now boasts more than 800,000 apps to choose from.

AppGratis, which still boasts more than 10 million users on iOS, will likely face less stringent oversight on the Google Play Store as its terms of service remain more lenient than the Apple App Store.