I’ve posted several times about Apple’s continued hypocrisy and my love/hate relationship with their products. Like most people, I love their design and I’m glad they’re pushing the industry but I have always hated their closed culture and hyper controlling attitude.
Full disclosure I used to work at HP (who is now a client). Microsoft, T-Mobile (who sells Google’s Android phones) and HTC are all clients. But my wary feelings towards Apple have been around long before I worked in tech. I’ll take choice and glitches over design and limitations.
MG Seigler, TechCrunch’s editor and self proclaimed Apple fanboi, has a post about Apple’s latest move to block porn from the app store. I think this is a fascinating move by Apple. My personal stance on morality is that first I believe everyone has their own free agency to do as they see fit and it’s not my business. Second I personally dislike anything that’s addicting. This goes for drugs, alcohol and pornography. (Yes porn’s addicting). So while I want to applaud Apple for this move, it’s not any type of moral victory, as MG points out.
Problem number one is that while Apple is removing most of these sexy apps from the App Store, it’s not removing all of them. So who gets to stay? Big publishers like Sports Illustrated and Playboy. In fact, not only is Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit 2010 app not being removed, it’s being featured in the App Store. Both it and the Playboy app clearly violate the new rules of the more prudish App Store, yet they get to stay.
The TechCrunch post has well over 100 comments as I write this and is trending on many news aggregation sites. Apple has struck a nerve. Now anyone who has studied technology adoption understands tech’s dirty little secret: Porn
VHS, BluRay, broadband adoption (what pictures and videos do you think people so desperately wanted to look at in the late 90′s), and search can all thank their success, in very large part, to the porn industry. That’s why Apple’s stance against porn seemed so interesting.
Google and Android have no such qualms about porn and several commenters to the opportunity to proclaim their “love” for Android. I also have to doubt Microsoft’s Windows Phone Marketplace will follow Apple’s lead here. It is still in it’s infancy and won’t really see it’s potential until Windows Phone 7 comes out and Microsoft typically takes a hands off approach to content and partner development.
Ultimately I have to think this is a move towards Apple to placate publishers. As MG points out Apple hasn’t removed Apps with similar types of content from Sports Illustrated and Playboy. Again from TechCrunch we see a hint at the future in Apple’s response?
As Apple VP of Worldwide Product Marketing Phil Schiller explained earlier to the New York Times, it’s because they’re well-known companies known for that content. Yet, he also cited women being upset about feeling degraded and parents being upset about kids having access to sexy apps as the main reason Apple is cracking down on them. The omission of the fact that parents probably also don’t want their kids downloading the Playboy app, or that some women might also find the Swimsuit app degrading is laughable.
I imagine that Apple users will get their porn, especially with the iPad coming out. It’s just going to come from established (and struggling) publishers.I just wonder how much longer developers and users will put up with Apple?
[UPDATE] Yep, thought so: New “Explicit” Category in App Store Could Herald Return of Sexy Apps
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