Looks like there won’t be any ‘Explicit’ category for apps in Apple’s App Store after all, as the Cupertino company reportedly removed the option from the App Store submission software.
“It’s not going to happen anytime soon,” an Apple representative said, according to a developer quoted by Gizmodo, after Apple removed over 5,000 adult-themed applications from the App Store, and a new ‘Explicit’ category was rumoured to bring them back.
Gizmodo’s report follows another report from PCWorld sister publication MacWorld, who independently confirmed the existence of the new ‘Explicit’ category, after the Cult of Mac blog first reported on the story.
One thing we know for sure though. The ‘Explicit’ category for the App Store was available and developers found it when they had to submit apps in the App Store. What is unclear is whether this category will actually appear in the App Store forefront.
Apple is yet to release a statement on the matter, which leaves plenty of space for speculation on both sides of the issue. Several applications banned from the Apple App Store made headlines over the last year, including the latest adult apps, raising the question on whether Apple should be the nanny of the App Store.
The ‘Explicit’ option is well known to customers of the iTunes store, who had seen it for songs and videos for years now, but why shouldn’t this be allowed in the App Store? The iPhone already has parental control settings for apps in the App Store, but the complaints that led to the removal of the adult content from the store tend to prove that they are not enough in some cases.
MacWorld’s Serenity Caldwell outlines the irony sexy apps in the App Store, who explains that Apple told developers “under no circumstances would the company distribute applications with inappropriate content, yet by February, these ‘sexy apps’ somehow numbered in the thousands before being pulled.”
Apple is clearly using double standards for adult-themed apps, as the company admitted it is selective about which apps it allows in. Many adult apps though, can still be found in the App Store, as my colleague Ian Paul rounds them up.