back to article Apple prepping 'Explicit' App Store?

Apple's campaign to shield iPhone and iPod touch users from what it deems to be "overtly sexual content" has entered a new phase - and a strange one it is. On Wednesday morning, Cult of Mac, 9to5Mac, and Recombu all reported that Apple has added a new "Explicit" option to the list of categories from which developers must …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    also

    Also when they say "well known names" they mean well known yank names, as companies like Upfront and wanibooks have had their photobooks pulled, and those you'd only find if you were fans of their specific product.

  2. ratfox
    Thumb Down

    I can understand the developers

    It is already hard when your business is scrapped in a day, but this really feels like Apple is just yanking their chain.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Tombo

    Apple knows the value of a developer community. Lack of one almost killed them back when.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Ummm....

      I assume you're being sarcastic as they don't appear to have learnt a thing.

  4. Atli
    Thumb Down

    Is this even legal?

    Does Apple *really* have the right to deprive their users of choosing what they do or do not watch on their gadgets? Sure, I assume they stuck it in some form you had to sign when they sold you the thing, but surely this sort of imposed filtering of information goes against some law or another. - It is at the very least highly immoral.

    I mean, if they are against sexual content, I can respect that. It's not like I'm asking them to come over and watch a porno with me. But seriously, if they have a problem with sexual content, then DON'T WATCH IT. Just leave those of us who don't have a problem with it be.

    I for one will not be handing my freedom of information over to those... (struggling to find a word to describe them... I want to think... something regarding China... or like... Germany a few decades ago...) O I'm to tired for this. Going to sleep. (After putting my iPod out in the hallway. Wouldn't want Apple to catch me having an "overtly sexual" dream... would I?)

    1. Cameron Colley

      People vote with their money.

      Apparently some people like being told what they can and can't install on their own computing device (as the iPhone surely is) and actually pay for the privilege.

  5. LinkOfHyrule
    Paris Hilton

    Somebody hurry up...

    Somebody hurry up and invent the "black turtle necked bikini" and "denim thong" so that we can have "porn" back on the iPhone!

    (well Steve Jobs calls it porn, I call it the knickers section of the freeman's catalogue)

  6. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Graham Marsden
      Troll

      pointless and derivative type of apps

      Sorry, have you actually looked at some of the rubbish that's already available?

      And you approve of Apple tying themselves up in knots (oops!) trying to decide what sort of content they should or shouldn't allow to presumably "protect the integrity of their brand"?

      Go away, troll.

  7. some vaguely opinionated bloke
    Joke

    Questionable content

    "an Apple rep... provided details on what was deemed objectionable, including women or *men in bikinis*"

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Horns

    Apple gone bad

    I like Apple products and can just about buy the argument of controlling apps for security reasons. But censorship? If they extend this model to the rest of their product range I'll soon be one ex-customer and I don't see myself getting an iPad or iPhone in the foreseeable future.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Good riddance to the rubbish

    I'm pleased to see the App store trimmed down a bit. It seems to me that they've swept away apps that were cheap, exploitive, and - frankly - insulting. We saw one example recently of an app that takes images of women and encourages the user to see them as nothing more than a collection of 'wobbly bits', as if the person was little more than breasts and buttocks. It's a sick way of looking at life. Every women is your mother, your sister, and your daughter. And every man is your father, your brother, and your son. Deal with everyone in that way - don't exploit them for your entertainment. And if you want a healthy sex life, develop and nurture a close, personal relationship first. Don't waste your time playing with your phone.

    I applaud Apple for rejecting these apps. It's an easy way to make money, and therefore a tempting business prospect. There are any number of companies that will leap to fill the gap, so you'll have plenty of outlets if that's what you want.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      You must be fun between the sheets

      Oh mummy!

  10. Steve Evans
    Thumb Up

    Burqa

    Quote - He was also told that "no skin" could be shown. "I asked if a Burqa was OK, and the Apple guy got angry," he writes.

    LMAO!

    Well done that man, fine question!

    For a company making a device that connects to the internet they have a very puritanical outlook on life, have they never type boobies into google?

    I'm an ornithologist, honest!

  11. The Vociferous Time Waster
    Flame

    just don't buy one...

    Look, FFS, it's really quite simple:

    Anyone who wants a kiddy safe toy that does what its manufacturers want it do to and does it quite well can buy an apple product. They're locked down so you can give one to a sales manager and he'll be able to work it.

    Anyone who wants a phone they can reflash with their own firmware, develop their own software on for free or run apps that might not be particularly child friendly can choose from the many other devices out there. Apply make gadgets that just work for the limited range of functions that Apple has sanctioned, if you want something that will probably work with most of the software but might have bugs and take a bit of geekery to sort out can get something from HTC or the like.

    I look after a bunch of blackberries and we lock them down so the users can only install sanctioned software because it cuts our support costs dealing with handsets that people have installed crap on. We test the sanctioned apps and we support them, but nothing else. It's exactly what Apple do, they allow stuff that they have a fair bit of confidence won't shag up you iphone.

    That's also the real reason the don't allow multi tasking on third party apps, they don't want to have to test every app with every other app to make sure they co-exist, they can do that with their own range of apps but it's easier and cheaper to just not allow multi-tasking.

    So let's just get over Apple and their control freakery, they are doing it because their customers are idiots and need to be protected from themselves, if you don't like that or don't think you are one of those people then don't buy an iPhone.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      RE: just don't buy one...

      "Anyone who wants a phone they can...develop their own software on for free...can choose from the many other devices out there"

      Doesn't cost anything to develop for the iPhone.

      I'd like to add that if you need an application to give you porn then you don't know how to use google image search!

      "So let's just get over Apple and their control freakery, they are doing it because their customers are idiots and need to be protected from themselves"

      They're doing it so that all those young teenagers don't spark off lawsuits from their parents when said parents discover naked wobbling women on their iPhones. (And to prevent viruses, malware etc). It does make sense!

      ...and hands up anyone who has reflashed thier phones firmware? I thought so, nobody, that's who. It's all too much hassle. I have a computer when I want to fanny about with operating systems, installs, patches, bug-fixes etc etc

      "they allow stuff that they have a fair bit of confidence won't shag up you iphone."

      Exactly. That's why it's a "safe" platform - how many other phone manufacturers can say that? Round about none.

      1. The Vociferous Time Waster
        FAIL

        idiot

        Interesting use of the FAIL icon while you agree with pretty much everything I said.

        numbnuts

  12. Nigel Brown
    WTF?

    About flippin' time

    I've no objections to the female form, what I do have an objection to are the developers putting a handful of oh-so-tame pictures into a slideshow app and then having the brass neck to try charging for it. Anyone with a spare hand and a box of tissues has only to do an image search at Google with the smut filter turned off.

  13. Gav
    FAIL

    The question remains

    Just how sad and pathetic you need to be to pay to view smutty pics on a tiny screen on your phone.

    Apart from anything else, you're putting that same phone to your ear.

  14. Player_16
    Paris Hilton

    Not only that...

    ...you're putting that same phone to your mouth.!

  15. Get the puck outa here

    As Marge Simpson said

    Why would anybody need so much porn?

    More importantly, why would anybody pay for porn? I realize that the demand for (relatively) anonymous pornography was the foundation for Polaroid, VCRs, and the commercial internet, but there's no need to pay for anything except an ISP connection.

    Smut on the internet is the biggest renewable resource in the world, and unless you're a washed up rock star cum pedophile, it's available free.

    Just consume it out of sight of your mom and your boss and the TV camera behind you.

  16. Matthew 3
    FAIL

    Why?

    The thing that I don't get it that to own an iphone the contract's demands mean that only over-18s are legally allowed to own one.

    Of course Apple can impose whatever ridiculous rules they want but surely someone within their organisation must have noticed that only Americans seem to be horrified by the naked human body.

    Many of these apps may be puerile but I respect the right of the individual to waste money on them, should they wish to. What's next, banning apps which feature alcohol?

    Even if *you* believe that their work is without merit, they still did the work, got it approved by the rules in force at the time, and then have been booted out because the rules have secretly changed...

    I can't be the only one who thinks that they'd get a lot more respect if they spelt out what the rules are. Those who infringe clearly stated rules, or those working against the spirit of them deserve what they get - but it isn't fair to cut off a developer's income on a whim.

  17. uhuznaa

    Food for thought

    Has anyone noticed yet that Apple is having trouble to find out how to do this right? There has been no such ecosystem before. The market for PC apps is and ever has been a jungle with all the good and the bad things around. Apple tries to come up with something more friendly and civilized and it's just clear that they're making things up as they go.

    There are no clear rules because Apple doesn't know which rules work and which do not work. Noone does. Porn is a huge market and a shady one, too. There's good and often also very easy money in it. They have to do something here or there will be a flood of such apps, pissing customers off. They're experimenting. Give them some time or just ignore them or whatever.

    As long as Apple doesn't start to censor the websites you view with Safari or the pictures and movies you sync to it, complaining about "censorship" is just absurd.

    I could fully understand any company that comes up with a web-only phone or tablet now. Then you get not only "clean" apps, you get no apps at all and nobody can complain. Problem solved.

  18. JeffShortland

    No different than the headphone fiasco

    Do you people not remember the "sue iphone because my music is too loud" garbage from no more than a couple months back? This is no less than the same issue. It wasn't that the apps were inherintly good, bad, well made, poorly made, what have you. Enough people complained about something that they were not forced to buy, use, or allow themselves/children/family to access, that apple went "Well Shit, time to cover our asses people."

    So they pull anyone that is small enough, and quiet enough not to stir up a major legal shitstorm - at least financially - because they can hold out against negative feedback, but having a major name go after their wallets is not taken as lightly. So SG's flip strip and Wobbly bits (WHICH I might add, can be used for just about anything, so get off the degrading troll-call) get pulled, while Playboy, which has been objectifying women under the same line of reasoning as the major critics, has been around for HOW long? I don't see you lined up at Hugh's homestead yelling at him, when the content has been available and in your homes for ages already. But This is a closed device, and one that (like many small electronic devices) your average consumer doesn't really understand how it works. So you get all the complaints about allowing something to be there, that's already there. Let the Dev's just make web-based apps, and download bookmarks to them on the phone - Who do you blame then? Go after the ISP? The Browser? Start pissing and moaning about the failure of society to prevent your children from seeing a nipple on google image search while you were busy watching As The World Turns?

    Get. Over. It.

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