I met with the major repository owners today and we all think SwagBucks apps are a scam against the user. Basically, it’s an app that you use to do some shopping. The guy that wrote the app then accumulates swag buck points or such to buy products.  It wasn’t so bad, but it seems that releasing a single swagbuck app isnt enough. The developers want to release 3, 4, 5 of these so that they get somehow even more and more users usingthem. It turns out to be quite a flood of garbage in Cydia.

Therefore, as of right now, I have removed all swagbucks styled apps from Cydia and we will not accept any more. I talked to the other major repo owners, and they indicated they will not be hosting these apps either.

I hosted these originally because I feel it is not my place to censor or decide the value of an app based on its quality or content. Often times what one person hates another one loves. But the mentality of developing these apps is disappointing. The “one app is not enough” flood is unacceptable. I could create a rule like “only one swagbucks app per developer” but then I will just get submissions in a different name and email address from the same developers.The goal of these developers is not to provide nice apps to the community but instead just to get swagbucks money from you so we end up with 10 of the exact same app.

So, swagbucks apps and the likes are no longer going to be in Cydia via any major community source.

Tags: swagbucks