CUPERTINO, Calif.—Less than a week after the scorched-earth decision by Apple to purge its App Store of upwards of 5,000 apps construed to be too sexual, the fallout among developers, content producers, marketers, and other stakeholders as well as interested observers shows no sign of abating. If anything, it seems to be heating up.
Along with the reactions that range from perplexed to outraged, there also is increased speculation that Apple is planning on having an “Explicit” section in the App Store.
“A developer writes to us and says this might all be academic soon: ‘Looks like Apple are adding a category called Explicit to the App Store,’” reports Cult of Mac, which provided a screen grab of the category on the Apple site. “The developer adds: ‘It’s available for selection when adding a new app to iTunesConnect although I can’t see any sign of it in the actual App Store yet.’”
The category was subsequently removed by Apple, but Gizmodo later reported that an iPhone developer told them that Apple had confirmed the removal of the ‘Explicit” option, saying that they are nonetheless considering the category, but with the caveat, "It’s not going to happen anytime soon."
While the mystery surrounding what Apple has in store for adult-themed apps continues, people within the adult industry and without continue to express their dismay over the decision. ME, for instance, reports that Cherrysauce founder Julia Dimambro is fuming over the purge.
“It’s hypocritical,” she said. “It seems Apple [is] happy to continue with what they consider to be big respected brands such as Sports Illustrated and Playboy. However, their whole reasoning for pulling all adult apps was because of the complaints they claim they were receiving from women. If this is the case, where is the difference between a bikini or lingerie-clad Playboy model, and one that doesn’t come embedded in a branded app?”
ME also spoke with another company upset with the decision. “Steve Shields from Katina Leisure tells ME that the ban is already having an effect on adult content providers. ‘We just lost 150,000 unique affiliate visitors a day from a single client who had all of [his] Apple apps pulled with no warning,’” he told the site.
In the adult realm, Pink Visual’s Director of New Business Development, Liam Colins, gave Apple a piece of his mind.
“Apple has taken their brand control beyond normal standards, and this is one basis of their remarkable success,” Colins said. “When they are attempting to control and dictate what is viewed, listened to and utilized by consumers on devices they purchased and pay for monthly, however, it becomes an act of censorship, pure and simple. Mobile porn exists, it is prolific and it is desired by many of Apple’s customers. To pretend that people will not watch porn or seek out sexual content on their iPhone or iPods is delusional corporate revisionism.”
Colins, like Dimambro, took umbrage with Apple’s decision to leave certain apps available for purchase while virtually identical apps were left alone.
“The fact that they left Playboy and Sports Illustrated up indicates that this action is not only hypocritical, but that it is based more on corporate strategy than on any deeply felt scruples or actual consumer complaints,” Colins said. “Do they seriously expect people to believe that a kid seeking out inappropriate content via the app store would try searching for ‘Sunny Leone’ before searching for ‘Playboy’?”
Colins said that his quarrel is less with Apple’s policies than the way in which those policies have been expressed, explained and enforced.
“I recognize that iTunes is Apple's medium for distribution and they can choose to sell any product they like for any reason, but they don’t give consumers an alternative, which makes this act censorship,” Colins said. “It’s a sad state of affairs for a company that brought us the 1984 commercial that changed the face of personal computing. The crackdown is even more tragic when one considers that Apple could have opted to implement parental controls and age verification protocols that are already present in iTunes. Instead they opted for a draconian policy and punishing partners who had invested in their product—simply because they could.”
While accusations of hypocrisy have to be of concern to Apple, its tarnished relationship with app developers must be the greater worry, and with good reason. Most developers prefer platforms that welcome them, and Apple is already facing increased competition from open-source systems like Android. In other words, don’t be surprised if that ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ Explicit category is suddenly back for good in the near future.
It’s one thing for Wal-Mart to pretend that sex doesn’t exist; it’s quite another for the creator of the iPad to pretend likewise.
