Apple Senior VP of Marketing, Phil Schiller, was quoted by the New York Times in an article on the removal of 5000 sex-based app from the iTunes App Store:
“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.”
To developers who weren't afforded any warning or options to pre-emptively make changes where such changes would have been possible:
“We obviously care about developers, but in the end have to put the needs of the kids and parents first.”
As to why Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit app, the Playboy app, and a few other publication-associated apps were allowed to remain:
“The difference is this is a well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format.”
Key take aways:
- Apple's App Store ratings system doesn't work, since Apple classifies anything with unfettered web access as 17+, parents can't block sex-based apps without blocking Twitter apps, Wikipedia, and countless other non-sex-based apps. Apple needs to redo the ratings system and allow more granular parental control. (Though Safari again shows the ridiculousness of most ratings systems -- anyone and everyone can and will find anything and everything in the ratings-free web).
- This move seems entirely perception-based. Apple likely doesn't believe people will complain about established corporate content like Sports Illustrated [Free/in-app purchase - iTunes link], FHM [$1.99 - iTunes link], and Playboy [$0.99 - iTunes link] where they will about the indie guy who floods the App Store with 3000 variants of the same underwear and swimsuit pics. (Or if someone does complain about SI, Apple can point to its mainstream profile as an easy out).
- Since Apple has shown no signs of wanting to get out in front of these issues and give developers warning before taking major action in the App Store, developers have to come to terms with the reality that making any application that comes anywhere near a) areas Apple may consider their own or b) areas where Apple may consider their brand/image at stake, means constant uncertainty and the risk of being removed at any point. Or they have to consider other platforms and give Apple feedback that way.
Stick to safe, friendly games and helpful utilities and you should be find. Push any boundaries corporate or familial and you could be gone. Which is kind of sad, because Apple seems like the one company who could champion as much creativity, innovation, and boundary-pushing in the App Store as they do in their technology.
Reader comments
NYT: Apple SVP, Phil Schiller on Why Sexy Apps are Out, Sports Illustrated, FHM and Playboy are Still In
Those pancakes look good although I have never had anything buckwheat before (I think). I love the look of uber-healthy foods these days. In the past I would scowl, now I rejoice and drool.I will have to try that technique with my dog also. We thought he didn't bark either for the first two years of his life (I guess being the last of his litter to be adopted will do that to a pup) so when he started last summer, we were all shocked but in a delighted way. We love when he barks. I think it is hilarious. When I speak to him, he always turns his head as if he totally understands what I am saying...which I actually think he does. He is a super smart dog. Aw, I love him so very much.
Glenne Baxter is the author of articles relating to recreation and leisure in sharm el sheikh .
I agree with Apple's move. I've downloaded about 5 or so boob applications and there was nothing interesting in ANY, let me say it again ANY of them. They were, though, exactly the kind of apps I would have downloaded when I was 12. So apple cleaned it's app store and iPhone ecosystem before boob apps for 12 year olds becomes representative for them.
As to the big ones, they are indeed an established brand, but this is not, in itself a reason to keep them on. In a weird way PlayBoy and FHM are degrading to women in a much lesser and subtler way. Let me explain: while the restricted boobs apps are promoting the idea of the woman as a toy, FHM & Playboy are promoting a certain behavior patter for women and a cult of the woman. As far as I am concerned there is not that much difference between the Bible or Koran and Playboy and FHM, they both promote certain behavior patterns.
@Oboewan
With Nintendo, there is a clear set of rules in place, and Nintendo works with developers to clear up any ambiguities BEFORE the development occurs. Apple also has rules, but they are -- at best -- nebulously defined, and as we see here (even with good intentions) Apple can pull the rug out from under you not only after you have finished all your work and investment, but also after your product has been on sale. With no discussion. No recourse. No appeal.
Apple is different than Nintendo. In this case, far, far worse.
I have an interesting point that needs to be made re: app store lockdowns: How hard is it to develop for, say, DSiWare? I tried to check, but Nintendo makes you give a secret handshake before they'll even tell you what the SDK costs. They lock down their platform. Why should Apple be different?
@AnonymousOne:
This certainly wasn't an act of "cleaning it up". This was simply a response to complaints and nothing else.
Steve Jobs is an atheist, yet he allows "The Holy Bible" app, and other offensive nonsense into the App Store where young minds can become delusional. So, while it may appear he is cleaning it up, he is not.
Maybe bouncy boobs should also be removed from every female walking around. Ya know, sorta "clean 'em up". :|
@AnonymousOne
I would "buy" your grocery store analogy if it weren't for the fact that apple requires us to shop at their store. In the real world, I can go to Farmer Jack if Kroger doesn't carry an item I want.
I still think the best soloition is to allow devs to distribute their apps wherever they want. If your app is to be sold in Apples' curated store, you must comply with the rules they set. If you want/are willing to have your app distributed thru a different channel, be it your own web site or a diffrent store, then diffrent rules would apply. Then, if an iPhone OWNER wants to take a chance on an app from a different channel being safe, they pays their money they takes their chances.
As far as the current controversy is concerned, I don't believe for a minute that the decision to keep Playboy, S.I., and FHM was made for any other reason than the fact that these companies can afford a high caliber of lawyer.
Joe
I believe we will all agree to disagree on the issue of the removal of the questionable content. That said the app store is an apple service. As such apple has every right to control it how they see fit. The senseless arguments here seem to imply developers have a right by law to distribute their apps through apple's app store. This is simply not so. This argument would imply a grocery store is required to sell a particular product because the manufacturer wants to sell it in their store. If you don't like apple's decision that is fine. If you cannot live with it then move to another platform. We seem to forget that while we may own our iphone we DO NOT own the app store. Apples does.
In regard to why some material was allowed and other material not. I have to say the quality of the app store was being hammered by an enormous amount of questionable fluff. I am not here to argue the moral issue of pornography, soft porn, etc. I am simply saying when i hit the Entertainment section of app store and see nearly a dozen questionable apps in the top fifty each of which is Babes it makes ranking system useless. as others mentioned these are not high tech apps and require the least programming skill to be honest. no innovation. but apps that are new from developers who have spent countless hours of development are being pushed down in ranks simply because of the sheer volume of questionable content that was in the app store. i applaud apple for taking a stand and cleaning it up.
as far as fhm, playboy and the likes i believe this content could have a home in the app store. it may seem hypocritical and admittedly perhaps on some level it is. however i believe the idea behind the decision was to reduce the sheer volume of the amount of fluff. further it has a lot to do with the name. Scrolling through the app store and seeing Bouncy Boobs 50 times is far more offensive than seeing FHM. and before you play the hypocritical card be honest with yourself. going to the beach and seeing a woman in a bikini is completely different than seeing a woman in bikini at at strip club. parents are not running their kids away from the beach. but no parent would be caught dead with their kid in a strip club (most anyway). Bouncy Boobs presents a completely different context than FHM. Bouncy Boobs implies offensive material. The name sets a purely sexual content. If the developer wanted to argue it was art then why not call it such. It is indeed a fine line. but fhm, playboy, sports illustrated were never looked at as porn from the beginning. other groups such as hustler, etc. pushed themselves as such.
I don't think Apple is being arbitrary by including magazine content like SI or FHM -- they're meeting a societal standard that is already established, which is a way of being safe. They won't be in a position to accumulate extra blame by meeting a clear societal standard. Now the societal standard itself is of course arbitrary.
Of course, changing the app store policy suddenly without any warning to developers, in order to address this issue, is being arbitrary in terms of the timing and implementation of a decision.
Well this is a bit disappointing. What if myself and others find religious content on the app store disturbing/offending/whatever, and enough people complain. Will Apple remove those apps as well?
The other aspect of this Apple imposed filtering is the degree to which Apple has let the App store descend to a free-for-all, except when some complaints are raised.
PCWorld has an article http://tinyurl.com/yklj5g3 about gaming the rating system which has been going on for a long time.
If there is quality in the App store, its composed of vanishingly small nuggets floating in a sea absolute rubbish. I can't remember the last time I found anything worth downloading. I've purged 20 apps from my phone in the last week alone just to make it easier to navigate.
I've started a developer's forum thread on this topic at:
http://forum.theiphoneblog.com/iphone-developer-forum/186174-removal-sex...
The app Wobble iBoobs was banned. The first time I saw this app (video at the developers website) I thought "that's great! I can take a picture of my dog and make her snout wobble like jelly!" The technology in the app is a lot of fun. There are no pictures of scantily clad women (or anything else) in the app. But because it's called 'iBoobs' and the dveloper expects it to be used on women's body parts instead of my dog's snout, it's banned. Which points out that Apple's real objection isn't to female body parts (thank goodness) but to apps appealing solely to prurient interest. So the iBoob developers can remove iBoob from the name and describe my dog's snout instead of female body parts and - poof - they can be back in the app store! But really, why should they have to? What of the people who think dog snouts appeal to prurient interest? Instead of the 'computer for the rest of us' we're going to get 'the computer for the moral majority.'
apologies. the above post refers to this quote from Rene.
"However, Apple removing 5000 apps has a chilling effect on developers who consider making any type of un-safe app, maybe even the next great, killer app."
<>
Rene, I totally understand your point of view, but i have a hard time imagining what possible killer app idea might be deterred from 'sexy' apps being removed from the store. lets not forget, that if these apps are indeed good, legit apps, i'm sure they can make necessary tweaks and resubmit.
@ Jerry. if you re-read my post you would see that I dont 100% agree with apple keeping SI, FHM, playboy et el. I just think apple needs more time to develop the correct parental controls that ppl are asking for. The app store is uncharted grounds and it's not a flick of a switch to get proper parental controls on there. give them some time. but for the time being, i know i don't miss any of the 5000 apps removed. and i don't know how scared talented devs are of the app store because this happened.
"Stick to safe, friendly games and helpful utilities and you should be find. Push any boundaries corporate or familial and you could be gone. Which is kind of sad, because Apple seems like the one company who could champion as much creativity, innovation, and boundary-pushing in the App Store as they do in their technology"
You call that innovation? You are full of it, and blatantly showing your bias.
Good on you Apple!
Regarding 'ban them all or nothing' - I think Apple's position (although they're not explaining it very well) is the same position they took on apps that use location data just to serve up location-based ads. If an app uses location data only to serve up ads, it won't get into the app store. In the same way, if the only purpose of the app is to serve up 'objectionable' material, it is now forbidden; Playboy and FHM get to stay because they have other content that's reasonably well-known and considered by users to be valuable besides the racy pictures.
The problem with this is that whether an app uses location data just for ads is something Apple or you or I or anyone who looks at the app code and APIs can agree on: there is an objective standard. But what is 'objectionable' content is not an objective standard.
In the USA, issues of this kind are generally settled by appeal to 'community standards' - a school board in one community can vote to keep Catcher In The Rye out of the school libraries while another school board lets it in. But we don't have separate app stores for Hollywood and Billings, Montana, and no voting mechanism -- except apparently user complaints. But does that mean if enough developers and annoyed users complain about this new policy, Apple would change it back?
Like folks have already stated, first its this, then its something else.. all of the Bravo Apple folks will be the ones later asking why things were brought down.. but most of you don't see the big picture I guess.. as it seems, if you believe it doesn't affect you personally, it doesn't matter.. not understanding, that.. this policy could affect you later.. People should have rights, the devs should have rights.. and its not fair what happened to them.. anyway you slice this, when they have to see big money(playboy, fhm) still getting to make money.
Again I say, 'Bravo Apple!"
This:
“The difference is this is a well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format.”
is not the reason. It's about the $$$$ and the power these companies have in the marketplace compared to the small fry developer. Brings to mind the advertisement where two kids are asked if they want a pony and the first one gets a doll pony then the other gets a real one.
Ban them all or nothing. Playboy isn't accepted just everywhere and there are plenty of people who despise it. Not me, I enjoy the jokes in them.
It is getting harder and harder to stay on the iPhone platform. I love my 3GS, but this kind of stuff, along with many other previously documented shortcomings are really starting to pile up.
It's not that I am upset about them removing stupid sex apps. It's mostly because of points Rene has already made. The App Store is an unreasonable dictatorship which will drive away good dev's.
accomplished nothing *
There were alot and still are alot of bad apps in the app store... it's about time Apple started "cleaning house" Hopefully Apple will look at the quality of apps as well!
http://www.diverse-group.com/menu/blog.html
I find it pathetic that people are worried about their children and their iphones. Perhaps your children shouldn't have an iphone? What a concept. If you are worried about a few half covered boobs on their screen I have a horrible realization for you, They are seeing much worse. They have access to anything on the web still. This accomplished for you horrible parents.
Well, on one hand I don't like being told what I have to look at or which app I have to use. On the other hand, it couldn't go on like this : almost every app category was full of "bikini" and "boobs" apps.
Why didn't Apple make a separate category for this kind of stuff ?
The more I thik about this (OK, the more I stew about this) the more I think Apple has opened up a terrible can of worms. Maybe, given their generally stony silence in the face of public criticism, they will weather this OK, but I think they have really opened themselves up to lawsuits, both frivolous and non-frivolous, that they could have avoided so easily by maintaining their policy of keeping hard-core out while improving parental controls (which may have been more placebo than solution, but still, better than the civil liberties attention they're likely to get now).
I'm offended by all of the "invisible man in the sky" apps which contributes to the delusional beliefs of society, promotes senseless killings all over the world throughout our history, hinders scientific progress, and endangers the survival of the human species.
But those apps won't be banned. Just the ones showing the human body, which the supposed "invisible man in the sky" gave us in the first place. :roll:
@Shotgun to the Face: What impression do you think will be left on 'inpressionable minds' by the sight of a woman in a bikini? Do you have any specific person's mind in mind?
@Austin
so You think it's ok for big corporation to make bad sex apps but not the small ones... ? come on..
It's ok to be against sex apps, but Apple has to be consistent.. looks like they hate smaller developers
Ok wow, why is text all weird :( oh well. I need to cool down.
Fk you Apple! The consumers complain about the se-xy apps and so you pull them all but the BIG name ones...you don't care about the consumers complaining about the apps being degrading and objectionable because if you did, you would have removed ALL OF THEM! The apps you pulled were following the exact same rules that the big name companies were following. Give these developers equal rights, you either pull them all or leave them all. Don't give the big name companies special privilege just because they are that, big companies. All you did was limit their decision to get their bikini, soft-core fix from the vast pool they had, to these big name apps. Great job Apple...Great Fking job at living the definition of a hypocrite.
For me the "threat to innovation" argument is kind of falling flat here. There's nothing original or innovative about an app that throws up a gallery of assorted naughty bits. Galleries like that have existed for as long as digital imaging has been around. I agree it's hypocritical for Apple to leave the syndicated material while removing the rest, and that the rating system must be fixed, buy I hardly believe that removing the boob apps is going to dissuade development of the next awesome medical app. As far as the Safari argument goes, there are controls to disable Safari, and alternative filtered browsers that allow web content control. Please stop saying a bunch of lousy apps are justified because you can find it on the Internet. That's like saying it's ok to carjack someone because they based a video game on it.
In the end Apple needs better parental controls. Remember, the app store isn't just for the iPhone. There are inpressionable minds with iPod touch and soon the iPad.
Well I'm glad they did. I quit shopping the app store when all that garbage took over.
I may not complain via email cuz I don't have time but apparently my protest by wallet was loud enough. I suspect many others protested by wallet also.
It's easy not to care about "sexy apps", which is why it's often at the forefront of these discussions. However, Apple removing 5000 apps has a chilling effect on developers who consider making any type of un-safe app, maybe even the next great, killer app.
And if you don't care about sexy-apps, great. What happens when -- on the iPhone or any platform -- someone decides to remove religious apps or culture-based apps, or apps with any violence (including most games).
Personally I have no problem with an editorial or curated store with Web Apps and other platforms as alternatives, but I'm worried about that chilling effect on devs and slightly disappointed Apple hasn't come up with a better, more elegant way of handling these App Store situations. (i.e. Parental Controls that let you turn off violence or sex and that make those apps then simply not show up in the App Store for you at all).
One man's 'filthy junk' is another man's gold. Apple shouldn't have to be in the business of drawing this line, because it's not their area of expertise for one thing . . . but here they are and I wish them well.
But I'm still not happy about the gentlermen who had his app taken down because he had the word 'boobs' in the application name. We don't really think the word 'Boobs' is pornography, do we? Or 'filthy junk?' But once you strat trying to control what's morally acceptable and what's not, real people start getting hurt, not just the theoretical kids that might theoretically be harmed by the sight of a scantily clad woman . . .
Can you guys make an app for the App Store with push notifications so when real iPhone related material like OS updates come out because this is starting to be pointless. Apple is going to do what they want and our opinions don't really matter. Once a year updates suck. Period.that's the real issue. The App store is a smoke screen. It has brought them time. But time is running out.
Typical response; "We have to protect the children." They should have just played a recording of Rev. Lovejoy's wife from the Simpsons and ended the interview right there.
Apple absolutely did the right thing in banning the pornographic apps. I was beginning to be really horrified that Apple would so cheapen their reputation with the preponderance of filthy junk. Then just as I was trying to figure out how to send my complaint, I saw that they had been removed. Bravo Apple!
The fact that they find it okay to not let some apps in but allow other apps from major corporations is hypocritical at best and just flat out whoring at worst.
Really what Apple needs to do is fix the rating system. I personally think that marking anything with internet access as a 17+ app is ridiculous, as you can simply go through Safari to see the same content. However, I understand their reasoning behind doing so. The key here is middle ground. They either need to fix the rating system and allow the apps they just booted back in, or they need to remove similar apps from the likes of SI, FHM, or whomever. If you're going to ban apps that fit a certain profile, you should ban them all or let them all stay in.
I agree with Keepitreal. I understand there are some frustrations from legit devs with the app store process, but don't lump this into the same category. And don't make the argument that people can find whatever they want on safari, therefore apple should succumb to letting 'adult content' in the app store. That is the most retarded argument ever. Apple has no control over web content, but they have control over the app store. If they are getting complaints from women and parents, then they need to do what is in their power to address those complaints.
As for allowing FHM and playboy on the app store, it's not the best solution and I hope apple looks to make parental controls readily available. Lets remember this is the first dev system this open, direct, and easy. Look how successful it's been. There will obviously be growing pains.
I just think it's a little juvenile to blame apple for being "big bad business" for pulling "bouncin' boobies" from the app store.
Are there real problems with the app store approval process? yes. is this one of them? no.
If a developer does not know when a boundary he's pushing intrudes into the immoral, then good riddance. Apple cannot control what people get through Safari, but they can control their own sphere. Good for Apple.
I didn't even know people downloaded those app s. I downloaded one once and it was so pointless I deleted it within a minute. Who can find better pictures oin google images
In terms of handling the dev relationship and diversity of content.
"Apple seems like the one company who could champion as much creativity, innovation, and boundary-pushing in the App Store as they do in their technology."
What a load of rubbish. There was nothing creative, innovative or boundary pushing about "Asian Babes".
Apple made a pragmatic, business decision - and the right one in my book. I guess those "developers" will find a place in the Android Marketplace, but I'll be very surprised if Palm, Microsoft or RIM would do anything different.
Does seem somewhat of an unbalanced slapdash "won't somebody think ofthe children" stance. You would think apple, as te article said, would champion innovation at every oppertunity. Sadly they have become the big bad business scared to innovate incase it threatens their Market. Shame really.
dang I want my Dirty Latina Whores.
Well I am glad that apple has made the decision for me not to buy any of its products. If they were removing all the apps I could see their point but their Corporate Whor*ing to Playboy, FHM makes me sick