Feb 10
19
This evening Techcrunch published a story indicating that Apple has begun to remove all adult content-related apps from their store (see story and link below).
While I certainly consider myself a huge fan of the company, I’d have to say this is simply a bad decision on their part. As anyone with a even basic knowledge of tech in U.S. culture knows, new technology succeeds or fails in large part on how the adult industry adopts it. Beta Max? No, adult companies went with VHS and killed Sony’s alternative. HD-DVD’s? Nope, adult originally embraced Blu-Ray before going with streaming and killed the new format kid on the block (although the industry’s embrace of streaming video will likely spell the end for Blu-Ray as well).
I know a lot of people who love their iPhone who are concerned about this development, but it’s not nearly as bad as it looks on the surface. Sure those whose apps were removed could likely see a small decrease in revenues, but there is an upside if they want to go the alternate route set out by companies like Google; web apps.
Google’s very public falling out with Apple over their Google Voice app cause them to re-think how they approach providing service to iPhone users. Frustrated (as many are) with the App Store’s infamous drag times on approvals and content restrictions, they developed a way to do an end run around the whole process. Their apps now include Voice, Wave and now Buzz, all of which can be updated and released at their leisure. Adult companies should follow suit, if they have the technical ability.
Apple may have just made a major change to the App Store that could render many developers’ applications worthless. We’ve just heard from Jon Atherton, the developer behind Wobble iBoobs, who says that he just received an Email from Apple indicating that his application was being removed from the App Store because of a new policy change: Apple has apparently decided “to remove any overtly sexual content from the App Store.” Here’s the letter Atherton says he received:
The App Store continues to evolve, and as such, we are constantly refining our guidelines. Your application, Wobble iBoobs (Premium Uncensored), contains content that we had originally believed to be suitable for distribution. However, we have recently received numerous complaints from our customers about this type of content, and have changed our guidelines appropriately.
We have decided to remove any overtly sexual content from the App Store, which includes your application.
Thank you for your understanding in this matter. If you believe you can make the necessary changes so that Wobble iBoobs (Premium Uncensored) complies with our recent changes, we encourage you to do so and resubmit for review.
Sincerely,
iPhone App ReviewFrom what I can tell, this isn’t an isolated incident. I’ve tried to download apps called “Exotic Positions” and “Sexy Women”, and both of them gave me errors indicating that the applications were no longer available. However, some applications with similar themes (“Beautiful Boobs”, “Sexy Girls Uncovered”, and “Sex Strip”) worked. All of these applications came with Apple’s “objectionable material” warning that requires you to affirm that you’re over the age of 17. This may be a case of Apple picking and choosing which apps are too sexual, or they may still be figuring out which apps to pull (or the changes may not have propagated to all of Apple’s servers). There are reports on Twitter of other developers having their applications pulled as well.
Of course, many of these “sexy” applications have been on the App Store for many months. Wobble, which lets you add “jiggle points” to any photo (use your imagination) hasn’t released a change in functionality for 6-8 months, and has been installed 970,000 times — none of these were flying under Apple’s radar.
We’ve reached out to Apple for more information. Source
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