Apple Adult Content Purge Encouraged By Developers

Apple has been purging some adult-themed content from its iTunes App Store at the urging of both customers and developers.

"Whenever we receive customer complaints about objectionable content we review them," an Apple spokesperson said in an e-mailed statement. "If we find these apps contain inappropriate material we remove them and request the developer make any necessary changes in order to be distributed by Apple."


Letters that Apple has sent to creators of adult-themed apps state that customer complaints prompted the company to change its policy and to ban "overtly sexual content" from its App Store. One of the posts states that Apple's parental controls don't work as advertised.


Developers have been making similar complaints to Apple, but their concerns are also related to the volume of sexually-themed apps, which can represent as many as a third of the apps in certain iTunes App Store categories. It's a clever tactic because Apple has a process in place to deal with bugs and the company has a special bug reporting form that's limited to registered Apple developers. A complaint filed through regular feedback channels may have a hard time standing out among the thousands of spam messages and questions Apple receives daily.


Though Apple does not make bug reports public, a site called Open Radar hosts an open Apple bug database for the convenience of the developer community. Some developers choose to cross-post their Apple bug reports so that the information is available to the developer community. "Unlike music and movies, these apps typically have icons, names and screenshots that border on obscene just by themselves. "Apple sells movies and music on iTunes that have more explicit content than some applications that are rejected. Additionally I truly feel that all content (other than content which is manifestly illegal) should be available for iPhone users.


If Apple is unwilling to sell that content, the distribution system should be expanded to allow applications to be sold in other ways."

Application mobilization tools are both more effective and more confusing than ever.


Apple may be censoring adult-themed apps, according to developers to claim their more explicit offerings have been pulled from the company's App Store in recent days. 18 report on TechCrunch, developer Jon Atherton received an e-mail from Apple stating that one of his applications contained "content that we had originally believed to be suitable for distribution. However, we have recently received numerous complains from our customers about this type of content, and have changed our guidelines appropriately."


The purposed Apple e-mail, signed by "iPhone App Review," went on to add: "We have decided to remove any overtly [adult] content from the App Store, which includes your application…Thank you for your understanding in this matter."


Throughout Feb. 19, online reports seemed to indicate that a number of explicit apps had indeed been pulled from the App Store. While Apple has a history of pulling apps that incite popular protest, it also is notoriously quiet about policy changes. A clause in the iPhone SDK agreement states that "Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind." The next month, Apple also pulled "Me So Holy," an application that attracted protests over its supposed religious insensitivity.


Apple has also been pulling apps for other reasons. That growth will likely pressure Apple further to weed out developers who attempt to flood the store with useless applications or otherwise attempt to rig the system. Apple has been encouraging developers to download the new iPhone SDK 3.2 beta in order to create programs for the iPad, which Apple is predicting will launch within the next two months with more than 140,000 applications capable of running on its 9.7-inch LED backlit multitouch display.


However, Flurry also noted that the retention curves for aggregated iPhone and Google Android applications were nearly identical, while IDC also predicts a massive rise in the number of developers designing programs for Android devices. That suggests that competition between Apple and Google within the mobile space is only beginning to heat up.

Tag Blogalaxia: apple adult content purge encouraged developers Puritanical Apple Bans Certain Apps from iPhone