Arment launched Peace on Wednesday, the same day iOS 9 officially exited its beta period. It quickly reached the No. 1 spot on the Top Paid Apps charts, but Arment pulled the app from the App Store just two days later. He encouraged customers to ask Apple for a refund, and said the app would continue to work for the people who bought it, just with no maintenance or updates.
Arment’s blog post says the automatic refunds, coming straight from Apple, could take a few days to process. His blog post doesn’t elaborate on how this situation came about, or if getting a refund from Apple will also remove the app from their devices, or if the app will continue to work on devices where it’s still installed.
The impact on you: This blanket issuing of refunds by Apple seems unprecedented, but Macworld contributor Glenn Fleishman says that when The Magazine (also founded by Marco Arment) went dark last January, Apple issued pro-rated refunds to subscribers, at Fleishman’s request. Apple saw some backlash when it unilaterally added a free U2 album to everyone’s iTunes account, so some Peace customers might find it strange to be handed their $3 back when they didn’t even ask and assumed the sale was final. But if money can’t buy Peace, at least it can buy new Beyoncé tracks.
Did you buy Peace Did you request a refund—and if not, were you planning to, or were you happy to just keep the app Are you relieved or annoyed that Apple is refunding your money Let us know in the comments.