Tech Skipper

Appolu.us has been shut down by its founder Kyek. The portal which started as a ‘solution to Flawed App Store’ soon became a hub for piracy stuff. The initial purpose of Kyek was to open up a site which could be used to first take a full version trial of iphone applications before spending money on them. The idea thrived and Appulo.us stepped in the first 2000 most popular sites on the web. But as described earlier, the idea of the founder was not to create a site which could be used to use pirated stuff but the actual figures suggested otherwise. Most visitors downloading apps didn’t buy the product at all although they kept the pirated software in use. God knows where Kyek got that information. However, that’s what he feels.

The truth is that Application store has given a huge setback to general public and independent developers using it to download and develop applications. Flawed to general public because it doesn’t allow anyone to take software trials before setting out to buy an application. Did you hear the story about ‘I am Rich’ iphone application which costed $999.99? The application did nothing but show you a glowing gem on the screen (making you feel rich :-)). Many complaint to Apple and an interesting stuff, the developer told that 8 people bought the application before Apple kicked it out of the store. Of course that happens when don’t have trials.

"In the first 24 hours that it was available, eight people bought a completely useless iPhone app for $1,000 a pop. This app does nothing except alert onlookers that you have a lot of money. The developer priced it at $999.99, which is the most you can charge on Apple’s store. Apple has since yanked the app (without explanation as usual), while the inventive programmer walked away with $5,600.

Secondly, the setback to developers was the fact that every developer had to pass the door of Apple before he could start developing an iphone application, that’s quite weird actually.

Kyek has left a note on Appulo.us for Apple employees and the note suggest some remedies to Apple about the restrictions. Let’s take a look at the note.

But there’s still time to change it. Apple’s already advertised the device as a really really big iPod Touch, with the same app store and same restrictive back-end. No one inside your company can turn back on that now. But what CAN be done is taking a page from the playbook of any popular Linux distribution — as well as from the iPhone jailbreak community.

Every major Linux distribution has software repositories just like Apple’s app store. Apt, Yum, Portage. All central locations to have software automatically downloaded and installed. And every single one of them allows users to add links to other repositories, enabling them to get software distributed freely by others, hosted on their own servers. Add this ability to the iPad app store — or even better, all of your devices’ app stores — and everyone wins. Non-"computer people" who get confused by extra options won’t explore any of it. Your application sandbox protects the device from malware, so even if a non-techie did manage to plug in an unsafe repo, their device is still secure. The device opens its doors to software free of Apple’s app store and makes tech folk happier, but Apple still retains their 30% profit margin because apps can never get truly popular unless they’re part of your default repo. Finally, this move would eliminate the reason many iDevice owners jailbreak in the first place.

So there’s your choice, individual inside Apple. It doesn’t fix all the problems with this ridiculous excuse for a computer, but it puts it on a far better path. Do all you can to encourage the change. Be so bold as to cross the line, if you need to. Because after all, can you honestly say you want to work for a company responsible for the mainstreaming of so many digital restrictions on personal computers?

–Kyek

Truly, closure of Appulo.us is a disappointment for many but the site has been shut down for good. Kyek wants to have ideas to move on, he wants to completely transform the site. Looks like he is short of ideas, so anyone wanting to help him out can contact him with the information provided below:

If you’re in, then awesome. Send an E-mail to newappulous AT gmail DOT com and type "I’M IN" in the subject. If I know you from one of the forums, let me know your username :). And definitely include what you know and what you’re working on, or looking to learn. It’s not like a job application or anything — I’m just trying to gauge what kind of mix the new site will have. If you’re not in or think it’s a horrible idea … then do nothing :). Thanks for your past support and I hope you enjoy the other services out there.

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Tags: appulo.us shutdown, Kyek, note to apple