Hi, I'm not a developer, just an IPod Touch and IPad user. Since I migrated to the IPad nearly a year ago, I forgot some of the titles I used to own and have installed on my IPod Touch. I passed the Touch down to my son when I bought the iPad and never looked back. However, the other day, I was looking around the Touch and saw a couple of apps I'd totally forgotten. Consequently, I went to the app store on my iPad to re-download them and much to my amazement they were gone! Now, I'm not concerned about how to get them not the iPad (I understand iTunes enough), my question is why would a develop pull down an app? It was my understanding Apple makes developers jump through hoops just to get their app approved, and even if the app isn't a commercial success, what would be the benefit to the developer in pulling it down? I mean even if you sold five a month, that's still better than none, no? There aren't any mandates to continually support your product, are there? Am I missing something here? Does Apple charge you to keep an app listed? That wouldn't make sense to me given the number of free apps. Also, I don't believe the app would have been pulled down for content reasons, the app that got me thinking about this is "Bearpaw," an interesting but innocuous little space fighter game. But, it was more than one app, it 4 to 5 - enough to make me wonder if there is more to this than perhaps a developer saying, "Forget it all," and asking to have their app delisted. Can anyone shed any light on this? The only thing I could envision is the constant updating to the OS. Perhaps the new updates make an older title unstable and if you as a developer no longer want to spend the time on the app to ensure it works with the new OS you might simply ask to have it taken down? Still, there are enough 1st thru 3rd generation devices out there, you'd think there would still be a sizable market for older apps. Yeah, I just confused myself more!
There is an annual cost for the developer to stay on the App Store, but not for the apps. If the developer doesn't renew, then their apps disappear. But there could be other reasons. Maybe they don't feel the quality matches their newer work. It is unstable on recent versions of the OS and don't want complaints from new customers.
