Did Apple just ban sexual content from the AppStore? | Hacker News Reader

Did Apple just ban sexual content from the AppStore?

techcrunch.com

16 pointsloumf22 comments

I'm annoyed by people saying things without saying things. Passive voice destroys clarity.

I edited it below. Apple does not state nor condone it. My revision is, however, an example how active voice exposes intent.

Why don't we write with conviction? It's not a stretch.

It saddens me we leave weasel words for the occasion we may be held to a position we once had.

As the App Store evolves, we refine our guidelines. Your application, Wobble iBoobs (Premium Uncensored), contains content we believed suitable for distribution. However, we received numerous complaints from our customers about this content type and changed our guidelines.

We decided to remove any overtly sexual content from the App Store, including your application.

Thank you for your understanding in this matter. If you believe you can make the necessary changes so Wobble iBoobs (Premium Uncensored) complies with our changes, we encourage you to do so and resubmit for review.

Sincerely, iPhone App Review

-- original --

The App Store continues to evolve, and as such, we are constantly refining our guidelines. Your application, Wobble iBoobs (Premium Uncensored), contains content that we had originally believed to be suitable for distribution. However, we have recently received numerous complaints from our customers about this type of content, and have changed our guidelines appropriately.

We have decided to remove any overtly sexual content from the App Store, which includes your application.

Thank you for your understanding in this matter. If you believe you can make the necessary changes so that Wobble iBoobs (Premium Uncensored) complies with our recent changes, we encourage you to do so and resubmit for review.

Sincerely, iPhone App Review

I would also add overuse of adverbs. Good to see you removed most of them in your rewrite.

Agreed. I left "overtly" with intent. There is something far more deliberate and newsworthy, IMHO.

Sorry, but I don't think your version adds clarity. I think it obscures clarity in several areas. Perhaps I'm just used to reading corporate-speak :) I also didn't see any examples of weasel words in Apple's original version.

The passive voice, like any literary tool, is just that -- a tool. Apple wanted to sound cold, lifeless, mechanical, uncaring, and exploitative, and the passive voice captures that perfectly without requiring Apple to say "we fucking hate our developers". Theoretically this saves them face, but unfortunately the developers they hate aren't that stupid. Are they?

Perhaps I'm being dim, but I can't see even a single instance in which your rewrite uses the active voice and the original uses the passive. Nor (though this is a more subjective matter) in which your rewrite "exposes intent" that was hidden in the original.

I'm fine with the decision. The Lifestyle section of the App store was tough to navigate without being inundated with smut apps, drowning out anything interesting.

On the other hand, why not just create an 18+ category in the App store, push everything there and if you don't want to see it, don't go looking.

"why not just create an 18+ category in the App store"

Because every app that accesses the web in some way is forced to be rated 18+.

One more reason I'm glad I just bought a Nexus One this week.

No, I'm not going to say Google is god and they've done everything right. And I don't hate Apple: last year I just replaced my PowerBook with a shiny new MacBook Pro. But Apple's mobile story is about control. At least Google seems to be a bit more laissez faire about all this, and it's a lot easier to get apps on people's devices if you don't want to go through Android Market.

Yeah, I just received the same email for my Featured Pinups application.

The sad part is that this application didn't really had anything obscene, it was just a simple application to showcase the featured pictures of the day of PinupLifestyle.com who hired me to build the application.

Meh.

The app in the article doesn't have content at all, but is advertised and named provocatively. I'm sure Apple doesn't care about having apps like this, but just shutting people off instead of warning them and giving them clear guidelines and time to make changes would be much better.

yeah. I'm actually fine with them getting rid of most of those trash apps, but if they want to do selection, then they should put some thoughts behind like "is this sex playing on the sexuality of its content or it's just for real artistic reasons?"

There go my dreams of high-resolution smut-based iPad riches ... not.I don't like the principle but I understand why they are doing it. With a more efficient approval process in place they now can afford to raise the bar & clean up the AppStore. They have to please the masses.

There's an interesting cultural component in all of this: Apple is operating globally but they are navigating with a distinctly North-American Compass. My guess is if it were a European company running this, they wouldn't give up this highly profitable 18+ niche. And I shudder to think what a Japanese AppStore would look like ;-)

Google's stated policy is to also reject pornography applications from the Android Market:

"Nudity and Sexually Explicit Material We don't allow content that contains nudity, graphic sex acts, or sexually explicit material. We also don't allow content that drives traffic to commercial pornography sites."

However this restriction is reported to go way beyond what Google prohibits.

If apple weren't an American company, would anything like this happen? I assume you can still have as much violence as possible and it will still be approved? What is Apple thinking with moves like this? What are they trying to prevent?

What are they trying to prevent?

They are trying to prevent becoming known as the phone which has fart sounds and jiggling mammaries available at the click of a button.

You say that like it's not something they should be proud of.

I personally don't think it is, but my opinion is irrelevant. More relevant is that Apple's brand image is that "We're elegant technology for discerning rich people like you. You deserve us because you're better than people who don't use Apple products."

Low-brow stuff doesn't have a place in this brand image.

Incidentally, I have previously said here that "Check this out dude my iPhone can fart. Your lame phone can't fart, can it?!" has helped to sell iPhones. Now that Apple doesn't need that any more, and wants to move a bit upmarket, they put me in the mind of my favorite lines from Shakespeare (part of Brutus' soliloquy in Act 2, Scene 1 of Tragedy of Julius Caesar):

That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,

Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;

But when he once attains the upmost round.

He then unto the ladder turns his back,

Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees

By which he did ascend. So Caesar may.

(Spoiler warning: Brutus' solution to this is to kill Caesar.)

Yea.. I'm rather surprised by this stupid move. I was expecting them to relax their guidelines over time, not tighten them. Now, though I was actually excited about the iPad, I'm going to invest time into Android. I'll start by porting my "Hot Weather Girls" app, which just got knocked out by Apple.

At least we now know why Apple didn't allow for removable storage:

http://xkcd.com/691/

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