For a couple of days, the online tech press is shouting about Apple banning nudity out of its iTunes app store.
It became obvious many of the very well intentioned professional editors had to take a clear position against Apple’s decision: IntoMobile, TechCrunch, Wired, Newser, The New York Times to name the strongest.
(courtesy to MARS)
As the Apple’s officials response seems unclear and insufficient, the question that still stands is “Why did Apple do it?”.
The answer came from one of my good friends who’s spending a lot of time and energy in human 3D modelling (the type of characters you can see in the scene above): anybody can sell sex, thus anybody can distract user attention from what really matters for Apple – really cool apps that are making use of both iPhone’s hardware and OS.
In other words, there are at least 2 aspects that matter:
1. A nobody can make money by submitting a simple power point presentation to iTunes, showing porn; you’d say “Good for him / her !”, but it’s not like that, at all. This “nobody” sells only porn and not a specific iPhone app. Which is a “no-go” for Jobs. They have put billions in this platform, so they’re expecting to make money out of it, not of self selling porn.
2. User’s personal shopping money is limited. So, if I want to see what’s new in iTunes, not looking for something specific, I may spend all my money on sex, leaving not a dime on productivity or office apps.
These 2 issues would impact directly on software designers that are really making apps with their brains, not with somebody’s nipples.
“There just seems to be too many of these really simple applications that do nothing but show pictures of girls in bikinis or in suggestive, adult poses. (…) It’s cluttering up the App Store” – says Wally Chang, founder of Donoma Games for The New York Times. He’s just polite.
I’d say porn and flash belong to the same type of threat against Apple: they’re threatening software developers revenue, thus Apple’s revenues.
