John Paczkowski

Recent Posts by John Paczkowski

Sexually Frustrated? There’s an App for That [UPDATED]

iphone_naughtybitsThe parental controls included in iPhone 3.0 have opened up a rich and fertile frontier in Apple’s App Store: Porn. An app called “Hottest Girls,” which previously featured pictures of women in their skivvies, this week began featuring ones of ladies wearing quite a bit less. “We uploaded nude topless pics today,” says app developer Allen Leung. “This is the first app to have nudity.”

But far from the last, I’m sure.

A few weeks back, this sort of update never would have made it into the App Store, but now that the device supports age restrictions for applications, Apple (AAPL) has adopted a more permissive stance toward
“objectionable content.” Browse the Hottest Girls page on the App Store and you’ll find the following warning:

“You must be at least 17 years old to download this game.
Rated 17+ for the following:
Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity
Frequent/Intense Mature/Suggestive Themes”

“Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity?” Interesting. It would seem then that Hottest Girls isn’t just the first app to boast nudity, it’s also the first to set up shop in what may become the iPhone’s red light district. It will be interesting to see to what uses the adult entertainment industry can find for the iPhone’s accelerometer….

UPDATE: Apple seems to have pulled the app. It still appears in the iTunes store, but it’s apparently no longer available for download.
hgpulled

UPDATE: The developers of Hottest Girls claim the app wasn’t pulled; it sold out. “The Hottest Girls app is temporarily sold out,” they explain. “The server usage is extremely high because of the popularity of this app. Thus, by not distributing the app, we can prevent our servers from crashing. Those who already have the app will still be able to use our app. To answer the question on everyone’s mind: Yes, the topless images will still be there when it is sold again.”

UPDATE: Apple now says it was indeed responsible for pulling the app.

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Just as the atom bomb was the weapon that was supposed to render war obsolete, the Internet seems like capitalism’s ultimate feat of self-destructive genius, an economic doomsday device rendering it impossible for anyone to ever make a profit off anything again. It’s especially hopeless for those whose work is easily digitized and accessed free of charge.

— Author Tim Kreider on not getting paid for one’s work