Apple has quietly reinstated its adult content ban in the App Store and is now banning the following content according to Wobble developer Jon Atherton:
1. No images of women in bikinis (Ice skating tights are not OK either)
2. No images of men in bikinis! (I didn’t ask about Ice Skating tights for men)
3. No skin (he seriously said this) (I asked if a Burqa was OK, and the Apple guy got angry)
4. No silhouettes that indicate that Wobble can be used for wobbling boobs (yes – I am serious, we have to remove the silhouette in this pic)
5. No sexual connotations or innuendo: boobs, babes, booty, sex – all banned
6. Nothing that can be sexually arousing!! (I doubt many people could get aroused with the pic above but those puritanical guys at Apple must get off on pretty mundane things to find Wobble “overtly sexual!)
7. No apps will be approved that in any way imply sexual content (not sure how Playboy is still in the store, but …)
Any apps that currently feature the above are also being pulled from the App Store with no explanation, with exceptions still present for the time being.
Before this latest move, Apple gradually loosened its policies on adult content until it implemented full parental controls for apps and purchases in iPhone 3.0 last year, which many thought would spell the end of Apple’s seemingly arbitrary process for pulling applications it deemed too risque.
Now with the reinstatement of the adult content ban despite having the tools for controlled access, Apple is risking the wrath of developers once again as it is pulling applications without prior warning or explanations, affecting many whose livelihoods depend on the sales of such apps.
Uncle Stevie must have found his inner puritan and now feels the needs to protect all Apple products and users from the evils of sex and sin.
What happens if you all ready have a bikini girl app?? Apple going to give me my 99 cents back??
The real reason is that provocative apps began taking over the Top 25 on the App Store. Apple didn’t like that, so they exercised their Berlin Wall style controls.
If you already have purchased an app, you can continue to use it. Apple didn’t employ any type of killswitch on provocative apps that have already been downloaded.
So the Apple Victorian prude got mad at the word burqa? Welcome to The Great Wall of American Moralizing Judgmentalism buttressed by the self-interest, power and control vested in Corporate tyranization of the Great American “Free” Market. Gotta love it.
Thanks Apple, for keeping me safe from what you deem “offensive” or that may even imply offensiveness. Please extend that to my phone’s Safari app so that I have no chance of seeing anything that may even imply sexual content on the phone that I paid for and own outright.
Well, maybe its to cut down on bandwidth usage. Everybody knows, The Internet is for porn.
I thkink sex addicts should get a therapy.
Apple should continue this approach.
We don’t need more trash applications. If someone needs trash, the internet is full of it.
I forgot to mention that when I searched iStore for “Sex”. I found a good free application for sex addiction and its effects.