We finally have an official answer from Apple about the “titillating apps” removal affair. Phil Schiller, head of worldwide product marketing at Apple talked to the New York Times last night to explain this sudden puritanistic policy shift.
The move is unsurprisingly due to complains from (female) customers:
It came to the point where we were getting customer complaints from women who found the content getting too degrading and objectionable, as well as parents who were upset with what their kids were able to see.
We obviously care about developers, but in the end have to put the needs of the kids and parents first.
That is some great PR work, the kids and the parents before the perverts, how can you argue with that?
What about apps like Playboy or Sports Illustrated then? Well, Apple claims to have mainly taken in consideration the intent as well as the source of the apps :
The difference is this is a well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format
Apple is walking a very fine line here and since I believe a majority of users are supporting this move, their take on this dilemma might actually not be the worse one.
Holding such a double standard however is, like John Gruber puts it: “Bullshit”.
So Apple is saying, if you want to publish certain types of content you have to be well known in your field…
The less trash out there the better. Well done Apple!
I have to say, it was getting to the stage where seeing this stuff everywhere when browsing the app store was getting a bit much. I’m entirely sex-positive and think that people should have access to porn if they want it, but constantly tripping over tacky male masturbation fantasy plastic representations of “women” was starting to get very old when I was just looking for e.g. a social networking app.
Perhaps Apple could have created a category for this stuff instead? Having said that, I won’t mourn its passing from the app store.
when browsing the appstore on the iphone you´ll find sexy-this and sexy-that in almost every category. it sucks having to browse through 15 sexy blondes apps in the utilies category.
they don´t even seem that proffessional, just straight up pictures.
why not use safari for your iphone-pron-viewing?
so i think its a good thing that they were removed, and i agree that playboy and sports illustrated is a different thing.
thanks apple
That’s the thing.. the overwhelming majority of those apps *weren’t* professional. They were low quality crapps with limited content, but they were everywhere. One particular prolific developer simply renamed his bikini app and had 500 copies of it. They all did the SAME THING. that’s exactly the kind of junk that the App Store approval process was supposed to keep out, but people whine about how restrictive it is. Then they loosen it a bit, and look what happened.
I personally don’t want the App Store to turn into the Android Market, which has been absolutely flooded with junky “sexy girls” apps. It’s ridiculous.
Good now my kids can use the app store to browse games. Smart move apple.
They could simply make an adult section but the crap is available for free all overthr net so why bother.
This seems another example of Apple been lazy. Since their app store is so badly designed, let’s just get rid of the apps they don’t like. What a lame approach and a stupid double standard. Maybe apple should set the app store to filter apps according to their ratings and that would have solved the problem. Why not filter by default any explicit apps and let the user re-enable them if he want?
Honestly if you need that crap for your iPhone then your just a loser. Why don’t the ones who’s complaining just use a computer that offers alot more then the iPhone ever did haha. But yeah I’m sick of seeing all that garbage in the AppStore. Thanks.
I understand the reasoning for Apple to want to stay away from such apps but the bottom line is parental guidance. If your child has an iPhone or iTouch they have access to pretty much anything the internet has to offer anway. So to get too upset over an app that has very mild sexual content is ridiculous. I have seen some of those apps and I think that it was only a matter of time before they went that direction. I have also seen Apple take away alot of apps that actually at one time or another showed nudity. Sooner or later it all falls back on turning a profit. These upset parents are/were the same people that complained about cable tv nudity and violent rap music. Its ultimately up to the parents to control what their kids have access to. NOT APPLE!
I actually don’t care much about those apps an found that there was too much of them any how and all offer the same shit, but the verey idea of sensoring MY device is really annoing to me every body have the right to see and have what ever on their devices even extreme porn as long it’s legal, who the fuck is apple to control what I can see on my phone but I’m not surprised coz that’s what they love to do playing big brother u can’t use sexy apps who cares they wnt let u use yr full potential of yr device (unless u jailbreak) which they deem illegal, and they always have a nice explaination to it (no multitasking for the sake of battery performance) screw u apple why not give me the option to chose warn me and let me chose put sexually explicit apps in a separate category that can’t be accessed exept by adults and let me chose give me multiple tasking and let me chose to recharge my phone 3 times a day it’s my device and I’m free to do whatever I like with it I might as well through it of the window it’s like some one sells me a house and tell me u can’t bring girls here it’s my house and I’m a free person, I’m really sick and tired f this big brother BS
@DrNose
damn
That was one long sentence.
Hard to read but i think it said bla bla whine bla whine whine.
They are not big brother for wanting nice, good apps in the appropriate category.
The appstore for me is a place to download good games and useful utilities.
Not for low quality pictures of asian girls in swimsuits, why would you want to download that? And why do you even have an iphone?
To me it’s not about those apps, they are mostly crap anyway and won’t be missed for me, and you can find whatever you want online. It’s more about Apple been hypocrites and allowing the apps such as SI and Playboy to remain (and you can find some other ones if you look). Either you remove them all or don’t remove them at all. And don’t tell me the intent is different, that’s BS, SI and Playboy show the same thing as all the other crappy apps, only difference is they have the influence and money to give apple a hard time if they pull those apps out…
I for one am really pleased that Apple took this stand. Thanks Apple
Beth
Complaints from Women? Haha, women don’t have to buy or use the apps; clearly, their complaint is strictly political and wanting to control other’s behavior. As for kids, there are parental controls, lockable, and easily settable, as the article describes. Finally, it’s most definitely NOT about any principle concerning “objectionable (to whom?) material” since, as the article correctly reports again, the larger corporate sites such as Playboy and Sports Illustrated continue to have downloaded apps with IDENTICAL CONTENT TO BANNED APPS. Apple, once again, embodies the worst in its grasp of freedom and citizenship in the United States–supporting large corporate interests over small entrepreneurs, lying about protecting kids (when its product already has built-in controls to do just that), and caving into to a small, vocal minority (prudish women) who go through life feeling offended and wanting to push their restrictive, dry world view onto everyone and everything. Good riddance Apple. Now learn how to say, “Class action.”