Another App Store ratings snafu, or Garage Sales are for mature audiences only

igaragesaleapp.com

2 points·akardell··2 comments

In this case (and all the other cases) where an app can be used to gain access to general content on the internet I completely agree with Apple.

People who point at Safari/Mail/etc are missing something - parents can restrict the default apps but they cannot restrict third party ones. For third party apps all they can do is set an age limit.

Thus if your app allows unfiltered internet access, it is given a 17+ rating because there is really no way of controlling what someone may come across.

Now - I do think that there should be separate categories for 17+ applications that are intentionally adult and those that just happen to allow unfiltered internet access, but until that happens this is the best alternative.

You make a good point, but after so many problems with the current system, Apple really ought to introduce a separate category for such Apps. They're explicitly telling customer that that App contains "Frequent suggestive themes" and "Frequent bad language". At that point I would assume that the App was badly named and not really what I thought it was. Those are actually very inaccurate statements about the App.

However, since the integrity of parental controls needs to be maintained, I don't see why it would be so difficult to flag an app as allowing a user unfiltered access to the Internet. The problem I see with the current situation is that the statements being made in the App store are false and misleading, even though they're there for a legitimate reason.

edit: I just re-read your last statement - I guess we're not disagreeing after all. Still, I'm really surprised such a change has still not been made. I don't even follow Apple much, and even I knew about problems like this one long before the recent big updates.

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