Hooking Up With The Gerbil

1billiondownloads As you probably heard, recently Apple had this big
1 Billion Download celebration. Some 13-year old kid won a bunch of stuff and the app he downloaded got all sorts of media love … lucky bastards we guess. As part of the celebration, Apple released the All-Time Top Paid and Free Apps (pretty funny in itself considering iPhone apps have only been available for 9 months). As you would expect, the Big Boys dominated the list: Crash Bandicoot from Vivendi Games … Moto Chaser and Flick Fishing from Freeverse … Tap Tap Revenge from Tapulous … Pocket God from Bolt Creative … Tetris from Electronic Arts … and others.

TopApps

YAWN! Pretty BORING stuff if you ask us. Freeverse – big freaking whoop! Bolt Creative – rip someone’s head off, then we’ll talk! Tapulous – yeah, we’d tap that! Like often during the app approval process, Apple blew it! So as usual, we are forced to point out Apple’s shortcomings … it’s a krappy job, but somebody’s got to do it.

ArcticGerbilLogoJPG Apple needs to take a closer look at the 40,000 applications and their respective developers … because there is a clear #1 … the undisputed heavyweight developer of the word … Brighthouse Labs (formerly the artist known as Arctic Gerbil – we’ll leave it up to Wired to find out why Brighthouse Labs links to the Arctic Gerbil site). We are here to declare … Brighthouse Gerbils completely rock our world! Seriously, how can you resist the following accomplishments:

SIX HUNDRED EIGHTY NINE (689) Apps Approved!!!

This is freaking HUGE and worth repeating … Brighthouse Gerbils have released SIX HUNDRED EIGHTY NINE iPhone applications. Damn … that’s like over 2 apps per day, EVERY DAY since the App Store opened 9 months ago. The Gerbils must be like those really fly folks who never have to wait in line when clubbing. They have VIP automatic approval at Club Apple. And heck, why not have them on auto-approval … look at the quality product they are flooding/spamming the market with:

ONE HUNDRED NINTY FIVE (195) SupaFan Apps!!!

Yeah … SupaFan freaking rips .. classic krapp like SupaFan Denise Richards or SupaFan The Olsen Twins or SupaFan Dr. Phil or SupaFan Pokemon or SupaFan Rachel Ray or SupaFan Abba … there are 189 more SupaFan example, but we’ll refrain.

SupaFan

ONE HUNDRED FOURTY EIGHT (148) Quote Apps!!!

Jessica Alba Quotes – Alex Rodriguez Quotes – Tyra Banks Quotes – Woman Quotes, etc.

QuotesApp

EIGHTY TWO (82) SlidePuzzle Apps!!!

SlidePuzzle Fluffy Cat – SlidePuzzle Beaver – SlidePuzzle Crow – SlidePuzzle Vatican, etc.

SlidePuzzleApp

And the list goes on and on … 151 Sports Fan apps, 37 Joke apps (including Aviation Jokes app and Horse Jokes app) and multiple iFinder, iGuides and iLanguage apps.

For your convenience, we have compiled ALL Gerbil apps in a handy dandy Google GerbilLove Document … CLICK HERE to view the Gerbil’s worldwide domination!

You know, there is a theory among men … if you hit on enough girls, one of them is bound to hook up with you. Thinking the Gerbils use this approach with the ladies and YOU, the iPhone app consumer. But back off and wait your turn, cuz we’re hooking up with the Gerbil first!

May 7, 2009 | Filed Under News 

Comments

  • Shaun Austin

    For the most part those apps should be bundled into single apps and sold at a higher price point, this is nothing but icon spamming on the store. I can make the case for fan type apps where you only want the one for your favourite star but Slide puzzles, that should be a single app with downloadable content, same with jokes, same with quotes, so basically the reason apple didn't list them is that they are one of a few App Store spammers and are making he store less useable because of it!

  • Shaun Austin

    For the most part those apps should be bundled into single apps and sold at a higher price point, this is nothing but icon spamming on the store. I can make the case for fan type apps where you only want the one for your favourite star but Slide puzzles, that should be a single app with downloadable content, same with jokes, same with quotes, so basically the reason apple didn't list them is that they are one of a few App Store spammers and are making he store less useable because of it!

  • @Shaun, I don't really want to defend these guys and sure if would be better for me as a developer if they did bundle these apps together. However, I also understand why they do this. iPhone app customers are demanding 99 cents or free apps and everyone is forced to race to the bottom of the price scale. The only way to change such a low price and still be profitable is to spam tons of apps.

    The apps that these guys are selling will probably never go over the 99 cent price point. Why should they start bundling all that stuff into just one app and only get paid once when they can make separate apps and get paid a few more times.

  • @Shaun, I don't really want to defend these guys and sure if would be better for me as a developer if they did bundle these apps together. However, I also understand why they do this. iPhone app customers are demanding 99 cents or free apps and everyone is forced to race to the bottom of the price scale. The only way to change such a low price and still be profitable is to spam tons of apps.

    The apps that these guys are selling will probably never go over the 99 cent price point. Why should they start bundling all that stuff into just one app and only get paid once when they can make separate apps and get paid a few more times.

  • This is clearly an exploit of Apples browse-to-find-games system.

    This isn't an isolated case. Although Brighthouse labs has taken it to a whole new level by clearly automating the submission process, many developers have multiple versions of the same functionally identical application in the store. For example an Easy, Medium, Hard version of the same game.

    For an indy developer with 1 game, 1 icon in the Puzzle section, it really hurts to be buried behind 82 functionally identical slide puzzles. (Yes, thats 4 pages if you are browsing the AppStore on your iPhone)

    I personally don't have the patience to find my application by browsing now, and I really don't expect a customer to. So until this is patched, we rely on game review sites, word of mouth, and the hand of god (being featured) for sales.

    Thanks for mentioning this! Hopefully if enough people talk about it Apple will actually step up and do something.

  • This is clearly an exploit of Apples browse-to-find-games system.

    This isn't an isolated case. Although Brighthouse labs has taken it to a whole new level by clearly automating the submission process, many developers have multiple versions of the same functionally identical application in the store. For example an Easy, Medium, Hard version of the same game.

    For an indy developer with 1 game, 1 icon in the Puzzle section, it really hurts to be buried behind 82 functionally identical slide puzzles. (Yes, thats 4 pages if you are browsing the AppStore on your iPhone)

    I personally don't have the patience to find my application by browsing now, and I really don't expect a customer to. So until this is patched, we rely on game review sites, word of mouth, and the hand of god (being featured) for sales.

    Thanks for mentioning this! Hopefully if enough people talk about it Apple will actually step up and do something.

  • Your are 100% correct … this is NOT an isolated incident (however the
    Gerbils seem to be the wrost offender). Just take a look at all those Dialer
    apps … dial Mom, dial Dad, dial Brother, dial Babysitter, dial Volleyball
    (yes, there is one like that), dial Judy, dial Simon, dial Grandpa, dial
    Teacher, dial Purple, dial blue and on and on … all from the same dev(s).

    As you note, this is a a huge problem which needs to be addressed by Apple
    … no sense in partnering with an entity that does not have your back.

    Good luck out there devs!

  • Your are 100% correct … this is NOT an isolated incident (however the
    Gerbils seem to be the wrost offender). Just take a look at all those Dialer
    apps … dial Mom, dial Dad, dial Brother, dial Babysitter, dial Volleyball
    (yes, there is one like that), dial Judy, dial Simon, dial Grandpa, dial
    Teacher, dial Purple, dial blue and on and on … all from the same dev(s).

    As you note, this is a a huge problem which needs to be addressed by Apple
    … no sense in partnering with an entity that does not have your back.

    Good luck out there devs!

  • I received an email from Chris Noel of Bright House Labs, completely out of the blue. He asked me if I was interested in selling my iAboutClock application or at least the source code.

    After a bit of research, I quickly came to the conclusion that my company, satosoft.com wants nothing at all to do with Bright House Labs, in any way, whatsoever!!

    Read it on my site, here: http://www.satosoft.com.

    Cheers

    Graham

  • I received an email from Chris Noel of Bright House Labs, completely out of the blue. He asked me if I was interested in selling my iAboutClock application or at least the source code.

    After a bit of research, I quickly came to the conclusion that my company, satosoft.com wants nothing at all to do with Bright House Labs, in any way, whatsoever!!

    Read it on my site, here: http://www.satosoft.com.

    Cheers

    Graham