Apparently nudity isn't allowed in the App Store after all. Yesterday Hottest Girls became the first ever app in the App Store to
display nudity. Shortly after this news spread across the web, the app was hastily removed from the App Store. The story doesn't end there, however. The developer of Hottest Girls claimed that he had to personally remove the app due to it being "
sold out," which basically meant that his servers had caved from all of the traffic. As it turns out, you can't trust a developer who makes apps that display nudity.
According to
TechCrunch, Apple PR has told
CNN that the app was removed by Apple and that they will not distribute "porn" or any other inappropriate content:
"Apple will not distribute applications that contain inappropriate content, such as pornography. The developer of this application added inappropriate content directly from their server after the application had been approved and distributed, and after the developer had subsequently been asked to remove some offensive content. This was a direct violation of the terms of the iPhone Developer Program. The application is no longer available on the App Store."
So this makes sense, at least in a way, because Apple's stance on inappropriate content has never changed, even with the new parental controls. They still state that "porn" will not be allowed in the App Store. The thing is, some people may not consider general nudity as porn. It also seems odd that Apple has actually included nudity in their rating system, so it's almost as if they don't even consider nudity porn either.
The developer was obviously at fault here because of the way he went about adding the content to his app. Apple didn't actually approve of any of it, it was just slipped in. The statement by the developer that was placed on his website yesterday is
gone as well, with the website only displaying contact information. It seems he is guilty as charged.
What we can take from all of this is that nudity, porn, inappropriate content, or whatever you want to call it is still not officially allowed in the App Store even with the parental controls and app ratings.
