∞ Apple: We won't distribute porn

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Yesterday, I reported that Apple had allowed the first softcore iPhone porn app entry into the App Store. Shortly after, the app disappeared and I immediately blamed Apple only to apologize later for jumping the gun.

hottestgirlsWell, it appears Apple did remove the app after all. Apple confirmed the move in a statement on Friday.

“Apple will not distribute applications that contain inappropriate content,” according to the statement. “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.”

My question is how did the app get approved in the first place? In the description of the app on the store, it clearly said the app contained pictures of naked women. Apple put a 17+ rating on the app and published it.

Why then were they surprised when people downloaded pictures of naked women?

Apple clearly wants to be the gatekeeper of the App Store, dictating what is appropriate for us to download. Okay, that’s fair. It is Apple’s store, but please get this approval process under control.

The more that things like this happen, the more people lose confidence in what’s going on in there. It’s confusing for everyone involved.


  • Peter Cohen

    Jim, I’m *very* disappointed that you chose to include a thumbnail image of the app in this article. Talk about inappropriate.

    I see clothes on all these women. Bring on the naked chicks!

  • Jim Dalrymple

    Why am I not surprised ;-)

  • Joost

    I’m guessing that before the launch, there were no topless pics served from their site. For whatever reason, those only turned up after they had passed certification.

    I don’t think even topless women are ‘softcore porn’ BTW. Naked people, if they’re not actually sexually stimulating themselves isn’t ‘porn’. You could call it ‘adult images’.

    ‘Softcore porn’ is traditionally hardcore pornography edited for late night TV or hotel channels where the viewing angles and edits typically don’t show off genitalia or insertion.

    Now sure, to someone more prudish in nature, they’ll just paint everything with the same brush and call even a clothed girl in a sexy pose ‘porn’.

  • Jim Dalrymple

    Joost, you’re right, adult images would have been a more appropriate description.

  • Soul of Wit

    This reminds me of a classic exchange:

    Q: Define pornography.
    A: I know it when I see it.

    It’s not that complicated. Softcore porn is the simulation of sex. Hardcore porn is people having sex. Anything else is nudity, or a pinup, or a swimsuit/lingerie girl, or a fetish pic, or–like Joost said–an adult image.

    Okay, maybe it is a little more complicated. Full-frontal nudity, especially of males, will hit most people’s porn meter. Of course, my comments assume that the subjects are both adult and consenting to the image creation.

  • Jamie Kahn Genet

    Sad to see that Apple DO lack confidence in their parental controls *sigh*

    Still, it’s not like there aren’t thousands of adult websites out there viewable with Safari on the iPhone.