VAN NUYS, Calif. – A mere three months after being approved for placement in Apple’s app store, the “Cutest Girls” app developed by adult entertainment studio Pink Visual was among the estimated 5,000 “overtly sexual” apps purged from the app store late last week.
Although Pink Visual is renowned for its iPhone-optimized websites and web apps, including its flagship mobile site iPinkVisual.com, the studio has experienced “almost nothing but vexing frustration with respect to the app store,” said the company’s Director of New Business Development, Liam Colins.
In comments issued today, Colins, came out swinging at Apple’s purge, and the policies that led to it.
“Apple has taken their brand control beyond normal standards, and this is one basis of their remarkable success,” Colins said.
“When they are attempting to control and dictate what is viewed, listened to and utilized by consumers on devices they purchased and pay for monthly, however, it becomes an act of censorship, pure and simple. Mobile porn exists, it is prolific and it is desired by many of Apple’s customers. To pretend that people will not watch porn or seek out sexual content on their iPhone or iPods is delusional corporate revisionism.”
Colins also took umbrage with Apple’s decision to leave certain apps available for purchase, like the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition app and apps authored by Playboy, despite having content virtually identical to that of apps that have been removed.
“The fact that they left Playboy and Sports Illustrated up indicates that this action is not only hypocritical, but that it is based more on corporate strategy than on any deeply felt scruples or actual consumer complaints,” Colins said.
“Do they seriously expect people to believe that a kid seeking out inappropriate content via the app store would try searching for ‘Sunny Leone’ before searching for ‘Playboy’?”
Colins said that his quarrel with Apple is not with the company’s policies, per se, but in the way those policies have been expressed, explained and enforced.
“I recognize that iTunes is Apple’s medium for distribution and they can choose to sell any product they like for any reason, but they don’t give consumers an alternative, which makes this act censorship,” Colins said.
“It’s a sad state of affairs for a company that brought us the 1984 commercial that changed the face of personal computing. The crackdown is even more tragic when one considers that Apple could have opted to implement parental controls and age verification protocols that are already present in iTunes. Instead they opted for a draconian policy and punishing partners who had invested in their product – simply because they could.”