Earlier this month we reported that Apple had seemingly been cracking down on apps that promoted incentives such as video watching or app sharing as a means for the developers to earn extra revenue. For those unfamiliar, these are apps that basically gives the user something in return for watching a short video clip or sharing the app on social media.
This is more prominent in free-to-play games where gamers can earn extra points, moves, gold, etc. by sharing the app or watching a video. However it seems that Apple might have a change of heart, according to a report from TechCrunch who claims that Apple has stopped rejecting apps or app updates that rely on incentivized ads.
However there are still some caveats and that is Apple is still rejecting apps that incentivize app reviews, app ratings, or downloading another app. Presumably this is because false reviews, ratings, and downloads could falsely boost an app’s rank in the charts, which is essentially chart manipulation and is something that is frowned upon everywhere, not just at apple.
What this means is that apps that show videos that encourage or market another app will be fine, as long as the rewards are not given to the user to actually download said app itself. This is probably good news for developers who rely on such methods to make some extra money, although we’re not sure how the end user might feel about it.
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