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AppShopper returns to the App Store with new social slant

Clause and effect

AppShopper returns to the App Store with new social slant
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iOS

Five months after being removed from the App Store for violating Apple's rules, the AppShopper discovery app is back on The Big A's iOS marketplace.

To ensure it didn't fall foul of the guidelines that were rumoured to have prompted its removal late last year again, though, AppShopper owner Arnold Kim has had to make some alterations to his app's core functionality.

Enter AppShopper Social, the new, socially slanted version of Kim's app location software. It's an all-new app; not an update. This means you can hold on to the old app if you still have it installed.

It's not all good news for fans of the original AppShopper discovery application, mind.

The 'What's New' and 'Top 200' features are conspicuous by their absence in this new edition, presumably because they violate App Store regulation 2.25.

Give and take

However, AppShopper Social does come with some tricks of its own. The most noteworthy addition is the "social discovery" element, which is designed to complement - rather than conflict with - the App Store's own app promotion policies.

These changes were apparently necessary to ensure the AppShopper app would be approved by Tim Cook & co. The Next Web reports that the app's creator tried multiple times to no avail to get the original app re-instated on the App Store, you see.

The most recent victim of Apple's banhammer is AppGratis, another app discovery tool which fell foul of clause 2.25.

The clause prevents developers from releasing "apps that display Apps [sics] other than your own for purchase or promotion in a manner similar to or confusing with the App Store".

As for the future, the maker of AppShopper Social will address those abovementioned 'missing features' in updates down the line.

James Gilmour
James Gilmour
James pivoted to video so hard that he permanently damaged his spine, which now doubles as a Cronenbergian mic stand. If the pictures are moving, he's the one to blame.