January 31, 2010
By aaronwatkins
By aaronwatkins
There is a subset of folks very excited about the iPad, yet none the less rather quiet about their bubbling anticipation – the (probably underage) set that has made applications like “Hand Bras” and “iPasties” almost overnight hits – the smut enthusiast. Why is mobile smut so enticing? Probably because the personal nature of a handset makes it even less likely that their hidden past time will be accidentally discovered by friends / parents / significant others, not to mention the highly portable nature of the phone. What better then was the thought that soon this would be transferred onto a larger, high definition multi-touch screen? Who wouldn’t want to multi-touch away?
Apple – That’s who. KRAPPS has discovered that Apple is rapidly but silently removing anything that it considers too risque from the app store, either due to an internal policy change, or to recover from a slowly pushed line that more and more were able to cross. Here is their full article:
Via KRAPPS:
It’s been well documented that Apple does not allow porn in the App Store … but nevertheless, developers aggressively push the envelope in efforts to show as much skin as possible in their apps. At first, Apple began approving apps featuring girls in full-back bikinis. Later they lightened up … thong bikinis became acceptable. In November, Apple approved the first pasties app … iPasties by Pastease … which broke into the Top 100 Paid Apps and created a flood of new approvals featuring adhesive nipple covers. And finally, raising the “how much skin can we get away with” bar to its peak … Apple allowed the Boobs In Hand Bras app on January 14. Today, there are literally thousands of sexy girlie apps available for sale.
Well all that came to a screeching halt yesterday. Apple changed its mind and began emailing developers that their once approved sexy girlie apps were no longer welcome in the App Store and thus, removed from sale. Why the sudden reversal of standards? Seems Apple was receiving a number of customer complaints about inappropriate content. Below is the email Apple sent to developers regarding removed apps.
So exactly how much skin can you show these days without fear of getting the boot? Since Apple did not provide concrete examples to developers, it’s tough to say. However, it’s clear that hand bras are blacklisted … they have all been removed from the App Store. Most pastie apps are absent as well.
It’s also tough to figure how many developers were effected by this change of policy. We spoke to a half dozen developers regarding the matter and figure at least a dozen more had their apps removed. Is Apple done cleaning up? Who knows. The entire situation is confusing and mysterious … but one thing is certain, Apple is doing some major housekeeping and removing numerous sexy girlie apps. College Girls Extreme, Epic Boobs, Sexy Bikini Contests, Yau’s Asian Boobs Fruit Punch, Sexy Topless and many more … all these apps were once approved by Apple and now banned.
The developers we spoke with were completely blindsided by yesterday’s occurrences. “I wish Apple would adopt detailed written standards like every other mobile storefront in the world,” said one developer. Agreed … perhaps clearly communicated standards would help Apple avoid that reoccurring theme … Inconsistent Review Process.
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F*ck apple.
They keep changing the standards…making it very hard for a developer to produce apps.
Apple development is like playing wackamole.
The poor developer never knows when he’s stepping in sh*t.
Comment by jon — January 31, 2010 @ 8:50 pm
Nice post Aaron. I think Apple did their best to see what THEY could get away with. When they reached a limit where they were overwhelmed with customer complaints, they realized that’s where they need to stop, and began backpedaling.
Of course Apple wants to sell these boob apps, it makes them more money. But if it starts to affect the app store as a whole — like losing straight female customers for example — they have to take the best route, e.g. remove apps that are causing problems.
Essentially, don’t get mad at Apple, get mad at the whiny complaining moms that don’t appreciate hand bras.
Comment by bravetarget — January 31, 2010 @ 10:38 pm
Jon, putting a bunch of images together is not software development.
Not to mention that most of these “developers” would have a hard time proving that they have the rights to publish these pictures.
Comment by Big Bob — February 1, 2010 @ 4:47 am
I’m a developer and I had a booby app pulled from the App Store Friday. Every picture in my app is totally legal and all documentation and required credits are right in my apps about screen. The app is far more than just sticking some images together. It consists of an very nice thumbnail viewers that supports portait and landscape, a slick favorites editor that works just like the iPhone home screen and a great photo viewers with slideshow, zoom, pan and all the goods. It most definitely was software development. It took many phone conversations with Apple to get it in the App Store and after we complied with all requests over the course of the 3+ month review process it has been removed with no notice. My app is very tame compared to most out there to say the least especially after all the trimming we did at Apples request. What Apple did was just plain wrong. Giving developers some advance notice with even just a week to fix the issues would have been a real solution. Defining in clear terms what is deemed appropriate is a bare minimum that needs to be done. I have already spoke to my rep at Apple and his explanation was extremely vague as to what is legit. Totally inappropriate for a company that has a good portion of the success of the iPhone because of apps. “There’s an app for that”. Not anymore there isn’t.
Comment by Mike — February 1, 2010 @ 10:58 am
> The poor developer never knows when he’s stepping in sh*t.
Y’know, as one of those poor developers, it seems to me that the flow here is pretty simple.
“Would my mother be proud that I released this application?”
“… ok, I’m probably stepping in sh*t, as jon puts it.”
If you stick with The Proud Mother Test, you will never fall afoul of any content standards Apple ever decides to put into place on their store, I quite confidently predict.
Comment by Alex Curylo — February 1, 2010 @ 11:41 am
@Big Bob: If you check out the developers websites, you will find that what they develop is porn/soft porn content.
Now, not all of the “soft porn” entries in the AppStore are by developers that produce porn, but I would guess that over 95% of them do.
The developers that I wonder about actually owning the content that they are selling are the “bulk app” developers that have over 2500 apps in the store. Mostly, they are RSS feeds to lists that they don’t own, so one has to question if they have the right to make money off of someone else’s RSS feeds.
Comment by Dave M. — February 1, 2010 @ 12:09 pm
I have an app that was banned 3 days ago, with the same email from appreview team.
But my app – VN Girls – has no stars-covering-nipples stuff.. it is mostly fully clothed girls.
I would want to email appreview team of the complaints that they received, and wonder what they would send me.
Another strange thing with the review team is that they banned the $1.99 paid app, but spared my free app (which has the exact same girls)..
Comment by erwen — February 1, 2010 @ 6:30 pm
[…] letter is sent to quite a few developers, as mentioned in The iPad will NOT be the Newest Way to Get Your Smut. Seems like Apple is cracking now with the arrival of […]
Pingback by VN Girls (PAID) banned | Girls2me — February 2, 2010 @ 5:49 am
I like pics of pretty women, and I like pics without any obscure overlay on the naughty bits. But this is an APP store not a image store, APPS is apps and images are images. I think Apple did what was correct, and who knows there might be a place soon where you can go and get as much as you want. Gosh if you use safari or bing or firefox and type in a suggestive search you will get tons of moives and images, FOR FREE, so what is the big deal. Apple made some money, the developers made some money and now its over. Move on, use a search engine and quit paying for half of what you can get 100% for free. The human body is great too look at, some of them are, and the reality is, I want APPS if I want images or movies I can find them, for FREE,,,,free, this is crazy. I am a developer and I am tired of trying to compete with a developer who can put up 20 new apps a day, my APP gets buried in all the non app stuff. I dont care about the content, but they are NOT apps, they are just pics and you can get them for FREEEEEEEE.
Good for Apple, now maybe serious developers can get more APPS out there that are not just images. The developer who stated it was hard to make thumbnails, and landscape or portrait, BULL SHIT. Get real, there is nothing hard about that, you are not a developer you are an image presenter. You can use the same code forever to show images. Get real, use your supposed talent to do something more than show pics. I dont care that your money ability was taken away, I am pleased by the elimination of this noise, lets get to making good apps and let the games begin anew.
Babble off
Comment by m c hammer — February 3, 2010 @ 10:01 am
Proud mother test lol My mother is a biker like me so yeah all my nudie apps she was damn proud of!
The alternative is selling the apps on Cydia less hassle and you get paid instantly through your paypal account…
Comment by grumpyB — February 4, 2010 @ 5:21 am