The rise and fall of the iPhone peep show
"Sex is everywhere these days," we wrote in an article that nearly ended our career 14 years ago. "There's something about the combination of sex and computers, however, that seems to make otherwise worldly-wise adults a little crazy."
How else to explain the fuss that got made this week over an application called Hottest Girls that enjoyed a brief moment of notoriety — and an even briefer run as one of the hottest entries in the iTunes App Store.
In case you missed it, the story started late Wednesday night when sharp-eyed Apple watchers at Macenstein reported that the $1.99 app, which until that day had served up mostly photographs of young Asian women in lingerie, had changed its format and gone topless.
"And then there was porn," wrote Dr. Macenstein in a post illustrated by a heavily Bowdlerized screengrab of what looked like outtakes from a Sports Illustrated bikini issue. He described the unveiling of the first iPhone app with nudity as "an announcement rivaling the first transmissions from the moon landing in importance."
Never mind that photos like this would hardly turn a head on the magazine racks of Paris — or, for that matter, your average American truck stop — this story had more than bare breasts. It had legs.
Over the next few hours nearly three dozen tech bloggers felt obliged to check out the offerings at Hottest Girls and try their hand at clever headline writing:
- The Register: iPhone grows boobs at last
- Digital Daily: Sexually Frustrated? There's an App for That
- Good Morning Silicon Valley: And wait until it gets the haptic touchscreen
MobileCrunch even ran a poll asking readers where they thought the App Store ought to draw the line. Results: 3% voted for "Bare breasts, nothing below the waist," 18% called for "No nudity whatsoever" and 63% voted for "No limit. If it's legal, who cares?"
Then, early Thursday, the app disappeared and the story got weirder.
"NoPorn: Apple Removes 'Hottest Girls' From The App Store," was the headline of a TechCrunch piece by Robin Wauters. She bemoaned the decision by "someone over at Cupertino" to reject the iPhone's first topless app. "So much for the grand opening of the App Store to all things naked."
But wait! A few hours later TechCrunch's MG Seigler, who is all over this story (his first item coined the term iPorn; his most recent asks who exactly is in charge of the App Store), ran a piece that contradicted his colleague's.
Quoting "Allen the Geek" — the "guy team" behind the app — Seigler reported that it was the developer, not Apple's (AAPL) censors, who pulled Hottest Girls from the App Store. And not out of priggishness, but to keep their servers from melting down under the crushing demand.
"The Hottest Girls app is temporarily sold out," wrote the Geek team. "To answer the question on everyone’s mind: Yes, the topless images will still be there when it is sold again."
One rule of journalism we learned the hard way is not to trust guys who traffic in porn — especially if they use pseudonyms like Allen the Geek. In a headsnapping update, Seigler had to reverse course a few hours later. It turned out Apple PR had contacted CNN.com's Wes Finley-Price and taken responsibility for Hottest Girls' removal.
"Apple will not distribute applications that contain inappropriate content, such as pornography," wrote Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr. "The developer of this application added inappropriate content directly from their server after the application had been approved and distributed, and after the developer had subsequently been asked to remove some offensive content. This was a direct violation of the terms of the iPhone Developer Program. The application is no longer available on the App Store."
This is probably not the end of the story. As long as there is money to be made marketing this material there will be entrepreneurs lining up to sell it. By Friday morning a search of the App Store for "Hottest Girls" couldn't find the original, but did turn up 30 cheesy contenders, from "Sexy Hotties Slideshow- Free!" to "What Women Want."
I'm not a woman and don't presume to speak for them, but I'm pretty sure this is not what most women want.
Absolutely absurd. As with everything else in this country, the prudes will tell the majority how to think, what to watch, what to read, how to behave.
They are small minded insecure people who feel the only way they can be be of value is to force their self serving views on everyone else.
If guys want erotica on their phones they can upload far worse than what this app consists of. This sort of nannying is silly, it's a feel good measure that in the end accomplishes nothing.
I think people are missing the point.
There's a difference between something that can be used for porn but ALSO HAS OTHER USES vs something that has no other purpose.
Someone argued that since Safari can be used to download porn that it's not different than this app. Safari has endless other uses while this app has none.
The argument that Apple has a 'nudity' tag is equally disingenuous. There's a difference between a movie which could have redeeming social value but also has brief moments of nudity (see Doc Hollywood, for example) and an app which has no other purpose.
Again, the argument about violence is also invalid. There's a difference between a game which has some value (not to me, but to game players) and which happens to contain lots of blood and an application which is nothing but pictures of crime scenes (which would not be appropriate).
Apple is saying that they can't control any exposure to nudity, but that they're not going to encourage things which have no other purpose. I applaud their decision.
ex ped; Well said.
Here's the truth though. When Virtuagirl runs an app for Android and not iPhone lotsa guys are gonna buy Android phones. Strippers on your cell phone would mega sell. Remember, beta was superior to vhs, but Sony refused to allow porn on betamax. JVC had no qualms w/ porn and betamax was relegated to the dustbin of history. Mark my words, Virtuagirl will be Androids killer app. It may not relegate the iPhone to the dustbin, but its gonna sell a hell of a lot of phones.
As if this grossly addictive human vice didn't have enough avenues to continue to pollute the minds of it's subscribers…..now you can participate in your own mental decay while riding the bus.
Why does anyone need a porn app on the iPhone or iPod Touch when you load as much as you want in the form of photos or videos? I've got many thousands of all types of photos I could just upload to my iPod and they didn't cost a thing except for the cost of having a premium newsserver. Same with videos. Anyone can go to a site and purchase a pornographic photo DVD and then just upload the photos to their own device. Isn't that just as good to build your own specialized iPhone/iPod Touch porn collection?
I honestly don't see what the big deal is about Apple pulling something that isn't really all that critical and trying to keep its image clean or at least trying to avoid flak from those purist activist groups. I enjoy nudity as much or maybe more than the next guy, but as an Apple investor I don't want anything to cause problems and drive down the share price.
Apple has a legal right to regulate the software that can be placed on the iphone. It wont stop people. "Sex" is the most searched word on the internet according to google. Get your minds out of the gutter people!
To anyone complaining about Apple not allowing porn, you can still get all the porn you want by just going directly to their websites. No need to pollute the app store with this crap… and get a fregin' girlfriend instead of trolling Apple news sites..
How about games with violence? Are those considered offensive content? They are to me. I think that those games should be taken out of the iphone store before an app with a woman who makes a decision to bare it all.
This is NOT PORN!! By legal definition, there has to be sexual activity(whether solo or otherwise). Nudity is not sexual activity. The author of this article needs to pull his head out of his butt.
Question: What's the diff between Apple and China. Seems they are philosophically joined: China/Apple want to censor porn on its computers (PDA's); China/Apple cloaks its movements in secrecy and, China/Apple conceals the true condition of its leader. There is more…you fill that in yourselves.
Why is it that pictures of women (men/dogs/tadpoles) is considered an App? I thought an App was supposed to DO something. Now, if you had an App that could take a picture of any woman (or guy) and have it do a striptease, then THAT would be an App!
Do I think it should be "banned"? No, not to consenting adults. But I wouldn't want my young child to have access to it. So I'd want to see it on a secure site that said "Adults Only", and make sure the only way to download it was with a built-in password.
Apple can choose to or not to distribute apps. It is their store and their prerogative. I would say that calling this app Porn is a little extreme. It is salacious but that is about it. I really think that people need to get over themselves, if you don't like it don't buy it, it not as if every iPhone came preloaded with this app. I think that there are a lot more important issues in the world than if some one gets their jollies from looking at pictures of naked ladies.
110% this should and probably will be allowed at some point.
It just needs regulation.
If I'm spending hundreds of dollars to get this phone and then hundreds of dollars every month for it… it better do every god damn thing I can imagine.
Maybe it is just me, but the iPhone has a full capability internet browser and the user can simply access any porn site on the net. That said, I am not sure what value the restriction on this particular app really accomplishes???
I'm glad they pulled the app. As you can see all that was needed was for Apple to have one so that within a few hours 30 others were already there and that was just the start of it. If they were to have seperate categories for mature apps then thats fine but to mix it up with regular ones was no good. All the good apps would've been pushed farther down the line because people want pr0n everywhere. I'm not a prude but seriously come on…
The difference between prudes and everyone else is that everyone else will allow prudes to be who they want to be.
Apple is making a huge financial mistake here. Sex sells. If people can't get nudity on their iPhones, they will buy different phones. Simple as that!