Downloader: Is Apple bringing sexy back? New App Store category points to "maybe."

Friday, March 26, 2010

Is Apple bringing sexy back? New App Store category points to "maybe."

You're probably aware by now of Apple's move to purge sexually-themed or suggestive apps from its iPhone app store. 5000 apps disappeared virtually overnight, making the store more kid-friendly and parent-appeasing. One group that wasn't happy with the move was -- no surprise here -- developers. Apple may have just thrown developers a bone, though, with a new "explicit" category for app. The new category appeared yesterday, but was quickly removed again.

Cult of Mac broke the story, and they say Apple is "considering" the explicit app option.

This "explicit" business was only available on the back end -- no high-school-level innuendo intended -- so it was only visible to developers categorizing new apps for submission to the App Store. There's no equivalent front end (yet) where customers can purchase such explicit apps. If Apple were to implement such a thing (maybe with age-verification in place?), it might open the App Store for apps even sexier than the ones we just saw removed.

I wonder whether an age-rating-based ghetto might emerge, though, with the explicit app store getting less promotional exposure than its clean counterpart. Controversial movies have run into this problem, toning down to get an R rating instead of the distributionless NC-17. Will boobie-app developers be forced to compromise their immense creative vision to avoid being made invisible by an "explicit" label? Unlike some of the banned apps, this potential "explicit" rating leaves much to the imagination.
[via Mashable]