Apple bans boobs, babes and bikinis from App Store (updated 2x)
Summary: Apple has completely banned apps with pictures of women (and men, yuck!) in bathing suits (bikinis and one-piece) and pretty much any images of boobs, babes, booty, sex, skin and even silhouettes.
Its far from official but a slightly more clear picture is starting to emerge of Apple's new morality rules at the App Store. After dropping the hammer on apps with "overtly sexual content" on Friday, Apple has tightened the noose even tighter on purveyors of iPorn.
Apple is working overtime this weekend, already deleting over 5,000 boob, babe and bikini apps as if the Queen Mother herself was dropping by for a visit.
Jon Atherton, developer of the popular Wobble app, spoke with Apple about the change in its policy and discovered that the new policies about sexual content in iPhone and iPod touch apps may be even stricter than originally thought.
According to Atherton Apple has completely banned apps with pictures of women (and men, yuck!) in bathing suits (bikinis and one-piece) and pretty much any images of boobs, babes, booty, sex, skin and even silhouettes – including the one in his screenshot above.
Better go grab those SI Swimsuit 2010, Playboy and Kim Kardashian apps before Apple's thought police shut them down.
I wonder if Apple will use the famous kill switch to delete the apps from people's devices?
Update: One explanation for the Apple crackdown could be that although Parental Controls are available in iTunes 9, they aren't synced to the iPhone and iPod. But still, wouldn't it be easier to improve the Parental Controls feature rather than shut down a whole category of apps? Shouldn't developers at least be given some sort of notice of the new rules before their apps are removed?
Update2: The developer of Manga Strip Poker tells me that his app was removed but that his competitor Sexy Poker 2009 is still on sale. Saying "maybe it is because it is a Gameloft title?"
After the jump, Atherton's 7 "New Rules" of the App Store...
1. No images of women in bikinis (Ice skating tights are not OK either)
2. No images of men in bikinis! (I didn’t ask about Ice Skating tights for men)
3. No skin (he seriously said this) (I asked if a Burqa was OK, and the Apple guy got angry)
4. No silhouettes that indicate that Wobble can be used for wobbling boobs (yes – I am serious, we have to remove the silhouette in this pic) PLEASE NOT THIS IS AS BAD AS OUR APP GOT – CALL THIS “overtly sexual”?? I DON’T
5. No sexual connotations or innuendo: boobs, babes, booty, sex – all banned
6. Nothing that can be sexually arousing!! (I doubt many people could get aroused with the pic above but those puritanical guys at Apple must get off on pretty mundane things to find Wobble “overtly sexual!)
7. No apps will be approved that in any way imply sexual content (not sure how Playboy is still in the store, but …)
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Talkback
Strange
I am against porn but people make choices.
It doesn't really matter what you are for or against
you just paid $199-$699 for doesn't belong to you,
this is it.
iPhone: It Just Works (for Apple, not for you,
haha!!)
Right.....
Every store has the right NOT to sell porn.
grip, it's Apple outlet they can sell what they see fit.
Agreed : respect Apple's freedom (you have no choice anyway)
people wanting them to peddle porn (or is it a higher motive of "freedom").
Their sounding more like Nazis all the time.
So who does your blackberry belong to Zealot???
Do they let you do anything you want with their device and still offer support and a full waranty? Yeah... Apple doesn't either.... Do they let you install your own OS and Apps??? How many Apps did you say you get to choose from???
Yeah... Guess you didn't think that one through... Pick any phone... hacking it voids support... Do you own it??? Same answer applies to an iPhone brainiac...
Apple Idiot.
I wish you cretins would smell the fresh air and get your noses out of SJ backside. This is a farce, who cares whether it is about porn, Boobs (Stop laughing Apple Fanboy they are only flesh and blood), or what ever.
This is corporate ownership game, being told how to think, act, spend money, and fight for apples idiocy. Most of all this makes you, as an apple consumer,lose total dignity by giving your thumbs up to such a ludicrous and laughable concept of puritanic, moral over-lordship.
Now lets all prostrate ourselves to the mightier than God, all controlling prat that is Steve Jobs and Apple.
More madness than a bottle of bats bums.
Take care all, and lets enjoy the self destruct that is Apple.
No *Apple* makes choices and the loyal sheep pay for it
There is plenty out there.
Seriously? iPods and iPads in the classroom?
And iPads in the classroom? for what? Not even discussing the obvious 'fragile' factor, what good would an iPad do? Teach them to use the internet? something a device (netbook) can do for 1/3 the cost? along with all the other things a netbook could teach them that an iPod can't?
The only content Apple should be disapproving is such that affects security of the device. Adult, explicit, etc., content? That's [i]my[/i] decision on whether I want that on my device or to be able to look at whatever, it's not Apple's job or right to filter. Imagine the outcry if MS started filtering "content" on their o/s? Or, what if your ISP started filtering content, based on what they think you need? For the sake of the kids and schools?
At a school, content filtering is the job of the school administrator. At home, it's the parent's job. Not Apple's.
What's next? blocking content for cigarette smokers?
OK
I am still going to side with Apple on this. As a parent myself I don't need devices that make me feel like I have to work harder to do my job of parenting TYVM and I will be spending my dollars accordingly.
You may need to think that through......
I am assuming
We know netbooks have a relatively high failure rate. The "fragility" issue for the iPad is, as yet, unknown. Yes, the glass screen can break if subject to a direct blow, a netbook can suffer a hardware malfunction as well if subjected to trauma. No doubt there will be start-ups that specialize in "iPad screen replacement" in addition to the Apple store.
No webcam of course, that may be a plus at this time ;)
Of course, "cheapo netbook"...
kid's bag falls off the seat on the bus. In
fact, the chance of it breaking in the first
place is a lot lower too. My eeePC 900A has
fallen off my desk a few times in college and
takes almost no damage. An idevice, however,
is a lot more fragile, even with a case you
still have a spinning hard drive. Plenty of
schools have experimented with personal
platforms in school, of any type, but a full
rollout is a lot less common and it'd take a
lot more durability on apple's side before the
ipad would look like a viable option in
education. Even if the school sees it as a
smart move, the parents who have to pay for
their kids' accidents (and those who can't
afford to) don't.
Yo!
memory--as do all iPod touch models. However, cheapo netbooks
have spinning hard drives, with all those vulnerabilities you worry
about...
Kinda
The difference that I would maybe
And the 3rd offense thing your school has, umm, yeah I could see them on the 3rd round instituting a suspension or something, confiscation of a device permanently constitutes theft.
iPod Touch and iPad in the classroom is real.
content for this platform. There is one company
that makes scientific probes that connect to
the iPod, and their software displays graphs of
collected data. The data can also be synced
with a PC so that PC based software can work
with it in an educational setting. The nice
thing about the iPod, is that it could be taken
into the field.
The iPod and iPad are full computers - not
music toys. Education understands this and will
use this potential. Plus, they are VERY CHEAP, compared to laptops.
Thinking out of the box, reaching children in a
technological age and they will learn. Pens and
Pencils "old school" will not be able to teach
our children as they have evolved away from it.
Our children are not like our parents, because
they are in a different age. The difference
between the Industrial Age and Technological
Age. Mostly thank the Internet.
Gee, technology in the classroom........
Your remarks remind me of the old policy of no calculators in the classroom that was discredited in fairly short order. In the best schools students were taught to 'calculate' using mental math tricks, paper and pencil and calculators.
Mental math has the advantage of speed. Anyone with a minimum of training can handily reach a reasonable approximation of the answer to most any arithmetic problem faster than most people can set it up on a calculator or complete it with pencil and paper.
Pencil and paper gives you much greater accuracy plus they are available in virtually any environment and the 'batteries' never run down.
Calculators are fast, accurate and capable of even complex math.
All three are 'tools' any student should be competent with by 8th grade.
Computers are tools as well. While most school work can be accomplished using a stick and clay tablet, paper and pencils with erasers is much more efficient and computers are the next step in the evolution of classroom tools.
I doubt if many schools are going to adopt an $800 'tool' in the immediate future, but then very few bought $2,000 computers in the early days either. The ones who did buy them and who got past the agenda of teaching everyone to program them, soon began finding ways to motivate students, educate them and actually demonstrate improved results as defined by better grades, higher learning levels (college level studies in high school), increased graduation rates and a higher success rate among students progressing to college.
As for the right of Apple to 'filter', I believe they have every right to determine what will be offered through their 'app store'. Just being offered there implies approval of Apple.
Until they start 'filtering' what I can access through the Internet and Internet apps, I have no issue with their controlling the offerings of their store. It is the same logic that I would have no objection to your restriction on what materials you allowed into your home.
(Should you ever decide you can restrict what materials I may allow into my home we will get into a real fight.)
I may not agree with their choices, but I respect their right to make them.
They are not restricting either one of us. We have neither need nor obligation to purchase their products. So what is the impact of their filtering on me or you. None that I can see.
In their position, I would be likely to make very similar choices for the simple economics of offering these types of applications could have a very negative impact on my sales and acceptance into any market populated by children.
Get the idea I feel you are way off base here? I do.
Absolutely, but...
However, you have a price point misunderstanding. The regular
retail pricing for the iPad starts at $499 and the only model over
$800 has the "cellphone" capability and the max 64 GB memory--
doubtful a school system would choose that model.
And, as you well know, Apple discounts for schools.