2,000 Apps Later, BrightHouse Labs Still Sucks

<roll theme song from COPS>
“Bad boys, bad boys, watcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do when they come for you”

Apple-Tackle-Streaker-FINAL Did you hear about the App Store’s episode of COPS? In an undercover operation, Apple raided and revoked the developer’s license of Khalid Shaikh, founder of Perfect Acumen. Khalid was pretty much running a sweat shop for app development … requiring his 26 employees (primarily based in Pakistan) to work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. A 72 hour work week? – you MOFO Khalid! Perfect Acumen’s results were impressive – they published 943 apps in about 8 months. Obviously when you churn and burn at this rate, the net output is complete garbage …
943 KRAPPS most priced at a bargain rate of $4.99. Anyways, Apple basically got sick of Khalid’s bullshit and yanked him from their program. For more details about this episode of COPS … check out MobileCrunch’s solid article.

Inspired by the “Khalid Take Down” story, we decided to check up on our “favorite” developer BrightHouse Labs (aka Arctic Gerbil). In our last article on May 7, BrightHouse Labs published approximately 689 apps (we use the term “apps” loosely) … 195 SupaFan apps, 148 Quote apps, 82 SlidePuzzle apps, etc … indeed great work by BrightHouse, bravo!

Well about 3 months later, it’s obvious, BrightHouse Labs is still hard at work spamming the App Store … errr … publishing apps. There are now 169 pages of BrightHouse Lab produced apps … at 12 apps per page, this equates to well over 2,000 apps. If Khalid demands a 72 hour work week, we can’t even imagine the hours these poor Arctic Gerbils must succumb too. Let’s see … about 13 weeks later … net increase of 1,339 apps … that’s 103 apps per week … or about 15 apps per day from May 7 to August 19. Huh?!?

BrightHouse-Labs-169-pages-FINAL 

Now props to Apple for busting on Khalid! But uh, come on … maybe you got the wrong guy? Or maybe Apple needs to add BrightHouse Labs to their “Most Wanted” list. Not really sure what’s going on at One Infinite Loop since just a couple of weeks ago the 514th SupaFan app (Demi Moore Fans) was approved. Come on … TWO FREAKING THOUSAND apps … you suck!

arctic_gerbil_logo_NO Best part of this whole BrightHouse Labs thing is that not only are they a joke here at KRAPPS, but also among their peers. Chris Noel of BrightHouse Labs contacted Satosoft’s CEO, Graham French, inquiring if Satosoft was interested in either selling them the iAboutClock application or some of its source code for BrightHouse’s own development use. BrightHouse must have looked into the functionality of iAboutClock and came up with a scheme to create dozens of similar apps. The following is Graham’s email response to the BrightHouse request  (LOL – pretty tame dude – but way to keep calm and not rip BrightHouse a new one). For more details about this bizarre incident, check out Satosoft’s article – Satosoft Says ‘No’ To BrightHouse Labs.

Chris,

Thanks for your interest. I’m unable to take this conversation any further, for two specific reasons;

  1. You mention below that you are looking to provide a small payment for this. As mentioned in my previous email, I’ve never considered doing this, especially for what would be a sum of money so small, that it would be insulting.
  2. Secondly, yet more importantly, we’ve done some research on your company, having never heard of you before. To be brutally honest, satosoft.com would never be associated with the type of company you are. The damage to our high value brand would be too great. Your company’s method of producing multiple, almost identical apps, flooding the iTunes App Store with what we consider to be questionable quality, is far, far below the ethical standards that we live by.

I wish you the best of luck in your ventures.

Regards

Graham

Comments

  • WoW! Who would put THAT many apps in the app store? To raise their chances of profit??

  • WoW! Who would put THAT many apps in the app store? To raise their chances of profit??

  • Name

    For the record Khalid was kicked out for copyright infringment not crappy apps. My guess is that the store will continue to fill up with these type of apps and the quality will rise to the top. The lesser apps will fill up with junk no different then any brick and mortar dollar store.

  • Name

    For the record Khalid was kicked out for copyright infringment not crappy apps. My guess is that the store will continue to fill up with these type of apps and the quality will rise to the top. The lesser apps will fill up with junk no different then any brick and mortar dollar store.

  • cak

    This is hilarious, Birghthouse are a disgrace. The fact that they couldn't write this simple app themselves is great, but I wonder how many other developers they have gotten too.

    They should be banned, pure and simple. Apple don't need a good reason to do it, most people know that this sort of stuff just makes Apple brand looks bad.

    Thanks for your investigation. So we have the 1st, and the 3rd is gone, who is the 2nd?? Maybe we could have a top 10 of bad guys?

  • cak

    This is hilarious, Birghthouse are a disgrace. The fact that they couldn't write this simple app themselves is great, but I wonder how many other developers they have gotten too.

    They should be banned, pure and simple. Apple don't need a good reason to do it, most people know that this sort of stuff just makes Apple brand looks bad.

    Thanks for your investigation. So we have the 1st, and the 3rd is gone, who is the 2nd?? Maybe we could have a top 10 of bad guys?

  • jon

    Wow…

    All we need now is to have the Dollar Store enter the app market.

    Or better yet, the 99 Cent Store.

    No wonder the iTunes upload pipes are clogged.

  • jon

    Wow…

    All we need now is to have the Dollar Store enter the app market.

    Or better yet, the 99 Cent Store.

    No wonder the iTunes upload pipes are clogged.

  • LOL … that's actually a pretty funny/awesome idea … KRAPPS Most Wanted
    List … top 10 current apps and devs we “want”. Nicely done!

  • LOL … that's actually a pretty funny/awesome idea … KRAPPS Most Wanted
    List … top 10 current apps and devs we “want”. Nicely done!

  • Well there are a bunch of 99 Cent Stores here in Southern California … so
    that totally makes sense.

    Eventually you would hope a bit of “Quality Over Quantity” logic will
    surface … we shall see.

  • Well there are a bunch of 99 Cent Stores here in Southern California … so
    that totally makes sense.

    Eventually you would hope a bit of “Quality Over Quantity” logic will
    surface … we shall see.

  • jon

    Wow…

    All we need now is to have the Dollar Store enter the app market.

    Or better yet, the 99 Cent Store.

    No wonder the iTunes upload pipes are clogged.

  • LOL … that's actually a pretty funny/awesome idea … KRAPPS Most Wanted
    List … top 10 current apps and devs we “want”. Nicely done!

  • Well there are a bunch of 99 Cent Stores here in Southern California … so
    that totally makes sense.

    Eventually you would hope a bit of “Quality Over Quantity” logic will
    surface … we shall see.