If the user consents to receiving special deals or time limited sale announcements, I don't see the harm. But Apple's TOS seems at best capricious and unevenly applied. I'd like to see them pull Southwest or another popular brand who offers announcements of sales. By that token, they might as well pull Twitter, Mail, and other apps, since they all have the potential for pushing advertisements of time limited sales.

And, what about Groupon and Living Social? All they do is promote a different business every day... If Apple is going to make rules like this, they need to be consistant on how they enforce it.

Why do they need to be consistent?

For a lot of reasons. First, if I'm spending time creating an app, it would be nice to know with 100% certainty that it will be accepted in the app store. Second, it's unfair if competitors don't have to run by the same set of rules. Third, because it's extremely confusing and could turn developers off from creating on their platform.

That is a very good question. Their rules, their interpretation. I could see that line of thought.

I guess it would help me as a consumer from the standpoint of any confusion. I don't develop IOS apps, so I can't speak to the fairness of the process. I am an IOS user and it would irritate me if an app I like, such as Southwest's, is pulled all of the sudden for a rule that wasn't enforced consistently.

They are competing against Android for developers.

Yeah I'd like this answered. I have several apps that advertise through push notifications, EA is one of them.