“Developer ChilliFresh, creator of the ‘Wobble iBoobs’ application removed from the App Store last week due to ‘numerous complaints’ from users, claimed that a discussion with Apple revealed the company removed more than 5,000 offending applications from the App Store,” Marsal reports. “The total number of removed applications is said to have amounted to roughly 3 percent of the entire App Store.”
MacDailyNews Take: So, for some perspective, since it was so totally lacking in so many quarters for so long: Apple has just thrown out five times the total number of apps available for beleaguered Palm’s webOS today.
Marsal reports, “ChilliFresh claimed that an Apple representative said images of both women and men in bikinis are inappropriate, as are words that have a sexual connotation. Apple allegedly is not allowing applications that can be ‘sexually arousing,’ or that imply sexual content.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We must have missed the press release; when did Apple hire Ed Meese?
Maybe it’s a Lent thing.
Yeah, Grigori; Lent 24/7 for silly prudes who blush when they even <u>hear</u> that other people have access to a harmless little program that makes women’s clothed breasts wiggle.
It must be some gene passed down from the Puritans: “Women make me feel fuuuuuuuuneeeee.”
The ones who are upset are probably the users of these male enhancement thingies they’re always advertising at dinner-time.
Oh my! It’s been this way for more than 4 hours — MEDIC!!!!!
Aww, come on. The USA has to make itself feel morally superior to the rest of the world somehow. Try to understand, you commie bastards.
I’m sick of all the pseudo-intellectual references to “puritan.”
As for the App Store, it’s fine if Apple ditches the CrApps. Without intervention, stupid peepshow apps could make up 50% of the entire store.
The problem, again, is the lack of clarity for developers. What’s allowed? What’s not? The guidelines need to be clear.
I’m an atheist and I have notice several apps with religious themes appearing on the site but it doesn’t make me run screaming to jobsey to “remove that filth from before my eyes!” each to their own. Yes there were too many chick apps appearing but it still seems a bit over the top the way they’ve gone about it.
I guess it boils down to this.
Do you have a choice as to where you can purchase apps. If yes then do so. If not and you want these apps then it raises a number of issues.
1. Is this an example of monopolistic behaviour
2. Could the issue be dealt with another way
3. If it was a game with no sexual behaviour that was being
banned would you feel the same way?
4. Is this an admission that Apple’s ratings system can’t
overcome these issues? If the rating system has problems
then why have it in the first place?
5. If on the basis of the above should you choose an “open
system” phone instead Apple’s iphone/touch?
the new disney apple should by dis
steve gets pixar back
I’m still hung up on Rob’s statement: “I work at a Catholic girls’ school.” Does that make me a pervert?
Yeah violence murder, blood splattering brains …… Ooooooook!
Booooobies in bikinies….. Noooooooo!
Apple is trying to get the Amish to adopt the iPad, that must be it.
Ever heard of an adult section?
For God’s sake, don’t anyone tell John Gruber about this – he’ll be writing about it for MONTHS.
I liked Apple better when it was run by barefoot hippies.
I never saw any of these apps. 5000?? Since i didn’t see them, it is hard to decide whether Apple’s move is overkill. The Apple products accessing the App Store are in the hands of lot of young ones. I don’t think one is a prude simply because they want their kids to be sexualized while they are still children. Apple obviously want to keep the App store family friendly.
@Greg L: We have nude beaches in America too. I’ve enjoyed them myself. A nude beach is a natural and (usually) wholesome environment where you let your whole body enjoy some rays. I can’t say the same for what one can see in some software titles. It’s one thing for kids to see the human body and appreciate its beauty and variations, but they don’t need to exposed to prurient images, sexual objectification, and low brow sexcapades. Let them just be kids for a while. Besides, there are plenty of other sources for sexually related content other than the App store.
In regards to the unisex bathrooms: one of the funniest lines I ever heard was from Paul Lind. When asked if was true that the National Parks were going to allow women to use the men’s urinals, he replied without hesitation, “No, the women won’t stand for it.”
It’s funny because most people think of me as conservative, but I think this is a bad precedent from Apple.
Being a free market capitalist I don’t have any problem with Apple deciding what to put in their store. However, I think not allowing free porn apps would have been sufficient. Also, changing their policy like this affects hundreds or thousands of developers who have invested their money based on the previous policy. It might cause more developers to pause and think about the investment they want to make in the Apple ecosystem, which is bad for us consumers and lovers of the Apple world.
‘Wobble iBoobs??? That would have been funny to see.
In anycase, Apple can choose to do what it wants to sell. For all you censor weenies, if the gov’t told you you had to sell something in your store that you didn’t want to (for whatever reason) you’d be pissed. Wh is this any different.
Apple should put out an Advert to parents….if you want your kids to look at smut, buy them a Palm Pre. They have an app for that….we don’t.
edster,
Unlike you people do not consider me a conservative (or a radical for that matter) but I agree with wholeheartedly.
To others,
Look I don’t have an iPhone or iPod Touch but I am seriously thinking about an iPad (whenever it hits the market). Now would I be buying a sexual app, no I wouldn’t because it just appears somewhat tacky.
However, I do take a strong view over censorship and I was always of the view that this is the preserve of governments and I do feel uncomfortable about a company imposing their moral view on adult buyers.
If there is another source to purchase apps from then there is no problem but when there is only one source to purchase these apps and a company imposes their view then this goes against everything I believe in.
I repeat my point, that whether these apps are at the store or not will not affect me because they’re just too tacky. However, any company, Apple included, that tries to impose their will on someone who is old enough to choose or not to choose to purchase a product then I won’t be purchasing that product and I’m talking about the iPad. Sorry Apple, but as a long term Apple user (17 years) I can’t support Apple on this one.
P.S. Most of this post will be sent to Apple as a protest over this decision.
I’d just like to add that if there was a choice of where to buy apps for an Apple mobile device then Apple taking such a stand wouldn’t be a problem but when the option is jailbreaking or nothing then I have issue with such a policy.
Why not just heavily protect young users from accessing such content instead of such a heavy-handed approach.
It’s time for the whiners to realize Apple doesn’t have to sell every goddamned thing they might want to buy.
Sorry, Apple, massive fail on your part. Not because you *choose* to do this, it’s your store after all so whatever, but because you do it in such a clearly nepotistic, uneven and corporate way.
Hot bikini babes and titillating pictures not allowed? I’d like Steve to get rid of the Maxim, Playboy, and Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition apps as soon as possible then.
Oh? What? Owned by major media conglomerates like TIME INc and Playboy Enterprises? Can’t risk offending those people. Those apps stay while others get the boot. If Apple wanted a squeaky clean Disney store online for apps then they need to apply the rules to *everyone* fairly.
Otherwise it would appear that they’re simply doing to us what we all wanted to do to those bikini babes.
The app store is getting BURIED IN B.S. APPS! Bout time they took a stand on this! Quality control will maintain the quality of the App Store. Nuff junk out there already. The app store can quickly become like Nintendo D.S. Lots of users, and lots of CRAP APPS (cartridges in Nintendo’s case) that “junk up the (app)store(s)”
Its their store, their quality control. I like the fact that we can have some faith in their ability to filter some of the junk apps right outta there!
Apple flags certain music as explicit (meaning inappropriate for people under a certain age).
Is there some technological reason(s) they can’t do the same for apps?
Actually this is just a rhetorical question as I already know the answer is no.
Zach said
“Again, it’s Apple’s right to not sell an app as it is a physical store’s right not to sell a product. If this offends you so much, don’t buy from the app store.”
” If this offends you so much, don’t buy from the app store.”
Yeah, and how exactly are iPhone/iPad/iPod touch owner supposed to do that?
Jailbreak?
JKPinPDX,
Get rid all the “B.S. APPS” not just one group. Get rid of all the junk games that are B.S., religious apps that are B.S. all the cooking apps that are B.S. etc ad infinitum, ad nauseam. My point is where does it stop.
What might be considered as junk to some might not be seen that way by others. So who the hell is the gatekeeper at the app store, who makes the decisions and what are the rules. We can’t answer any of these questions and as for the rules we don’t know what they are either because keeps changing the goal posts.
Addendum to last line:
“…we don’t know what they are either because keeps changing the goal posts.”, should read “…we don’t know what they are either because Apple keeps changing the goal posts.”