As of January 1, 2018, many companies like us will no longer be able to offer an inexpensive option to create an iOS app for their customers because of Apple’s draconian policies. On Jan 1, 2018, Apple will finally shut the door on using ANY App Builder platforms to create and publish an iOS app. App builder companies such as Biznessapps, GoodBarber, and Shoutem have all been told that any apps they submit on or after Jan 1, 2018, will be denied listing in the App Store. Apple has even gone as far as to ban developers from creating and using a commercial app template as a starting point to speed the creation of multiple apps.
How does this affect BSS?
This is unfortunate news for us and has caused us to halt our plans to create and publish native iOS apps for our customers because we rely on our app builder platform to provide the backend services for the app as well as their User Interface & App templates to keep it as inexpensive for our customers as we can.
Why is this bad?
This has harmed and will continue to harm the entire app builder industry and any companies that use them to provide inexpensive apps for their customers. It has already caused the app builder Shoutem to go out of business. Even worse it is handicapping small businesses who can’t pay 10's of thousands of dollars to have an app developed from scratch in order to comply with the no app builder and no commercial template rules.
The result of this is that Apple is now picking the winners and losers in their marketplace. Apple is choosing to list the apps from businesses who can afford to pay thousands of dollars to develop a custom app from scratch. Apple is also prohibiting apps from small businesses and non-profits who choose to use an app builder because they can’t afford to pay thousands of dollars to build an app from scratch making it impossible for them to compete.
What are your options now?
Fortunately for us and our customers, Google does not have these restrictions. We are happy to say that we are still offering native Android apps as well as Progressive Web Apps(PWA’s) for our customers so you can provide your customers with in-app loyalty, coupons, online ordering, and a content management system that allows you to advertise directly to your customer’s devices. For more information on our apps please visit ReachMyBase.com
Where can you learn more?
All relevant information is detailed here in this TechCrunch article
What can you do?
Biznessapps has created a petition on change.org and we encourage you to follow the link, sign and share this petition with everyone you can to try to give Biznessapps and all other app builder platforms a bigger voice when trying to get through to Apple.
Please help support small business by signing this Change.org petition
