Apple's 'Hottest Girls' Flip-Flop Is iPhone App Deja Vu
Apple has again wielded the mighty hammer of censorship on the world's beloved iPhone and its App Store, dictating what content users can receive.
In the case of the Hottest Girls application, it went down like this: The application went on sale on Thursday for $1.99 in the App Store. The application featured photos of topless women. Apple got wind of it, as it was widely reported as the first iPhone application sold through the App Store to feature nudity. Apple was thought to be loosening its overbearing App Store policy. Apple proved the public wrong, and the next day pulled the Hottest Girls application from the App Store. It should be noted that the Hottest Girls application was selling so swiftly that sales had to be put on hold to avoid crashing servers.
And, yet again, Apple's removal of the Hottest Girls app from the App Store comes with a reminder from Apple that it has a strict policy against selling applications that contain "inappropriate content."
"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," Apple said in a statement. "This was a direct violation of the terms of the iPhone Developer Program."
Apple's removal of the Hottest Girls application from the App Store shows that Apple has not gotten lax about iPhone applications, despite the public's expectation that Apple will be less stringent now that iPhone OS 3.0 features parental controls so parents can block their kids from downloading adult-themed applications and games.
But why the shock and surprise? We've seen this before from Apple. Everyone who has an iPhone or reads any form of gadget news should've seen this coming. The Hottest Girls application is just the latest victim of Apple's censorship sword.
How soon we forget the ill-fated "Me So Holy" application that in May let users put other faces over an image of Jesus Christ. It only took a short time for Apple to remove that from the App Store and call it objectionable.
And before that, there was the headline-making "Babyshaker" application, a game that showed a crying baby that would only quiet down after the user violently shook their iPhone, essentially shaking the baby to death. That one also had a short lifespan in the App Store, with Apple deeming it to be in poor taste.
With those two applications, there were calls for Apple to loosen its App Store restrictions and let users determine for themselves what's inappropriate or offensive, but it appears Apple didn't listen.
While the Hottest Girls application is the first to feature nudity, it's not the first application to call into question Apple's strict App Store policies. It is, however, just one in a long string of applications that show that Apple, along with being a technology innovator, is also playing tastemaker and determining what's suitable for iPhone users to watch, see and hear.