App Store Promotion and X/Grok
Elon Musk has threatened legal action against Apple, claiming that the company is violating antitrust rules by favoring OpenAI’s ChatGPT in App Store rankings over his Grok AI assistant.
Apple is behaving in a manner that makes it impossible for any AI company besides OpenAI to reach #1 in the App Store, which is an unequivocal antitrust violation.
X’s own community notes list some counterexamples.
Hey @Apple App Store, why do you refuse to put either 𝕏 or Grok in your “Must Have” section when 𝕏 is the #1 news app in the world and Grok is #5 among all apps?
[…]
And why is ChatGPT literally in every list where you have editorial control?
Right now the “Must-Have Apps” are TikTok, Tinder, Duolingo, YouTube, Bumble, HBO, ChatGPT, Hinge, Peacock, Audible, Paramount, ESPN, Snapchat, Crunchyroll, Amazon Prime Video, Twitch, YouTube Music, LinkedIn, Dropbox, and Amazon Music. It’s kind of an odd list, actually.
Apple today responded to Elon Musk’s claims that the App Store favors OpenAI’s ChatGPT app, telling Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman that the App Store is “fair and free of bias.”
The App Store is designed to be fair and free of bias. We feature thousands of apps through charts, algorithmic recommendations, and curated lists selected by experts using objective criteria. Our goal is to offer safe discovery for users and valuable opportunities for developers, collaborating with many to increase app visibility in rapidly evolving categories.
Who can now be surprised by Musk’s antics, but I did find Apple’s response interesting. First, that they bothered to respond. And, second, the response itself. If you thought they were cooking the lists, this would do nothing to persuade you otherwise. (This is the same company that also claims it applies the App Store guidelines equally to all developers and even to its own apps.) And the wording is just strange. Why do they need experts if the criteria are objective? And didn’t they recently do a redesign/rebranding to feature more human curation and editorial copy?
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