September 18th, 2009 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Platforms: iOS | No Comments »
App Store developers OutboundCicy has put an open letter to Apple on it's website to complaint about the difference in nudity regulations for movies and mobile games on iTunes.
The company complaints that movies like American Pie are approved while they show a lot of nudity while they are not allowed to put topless girls in their apps. Browsing the music library of iTunes, it seems the Bloodhound Gang approves it as well; “Hooray For Boobies“!
Dear iPhone Developer Program, and dear Apple,
With the launch of the new iPhone OS 3.0 and the "parental control" in your upload procedure you request a self evaluation of the product and there's the explicit possibility of marking it with "Sexual Content or Nudity", "Mature/Suggestive Themes", and the possibility of a "Frequent/Intense" label raising the age rating to 17+.
What does this self assessment mean?
In our app we considered what Apple already sells on the iTunes Store, movies like "American Pie". American Pie is on sale in iTunes with a "Rated R"
We created an app with some silly comedy scenes, with a bit of malice maybe. The most exposed is a topless like in the movies we mentioned, but nothing that can be considered obscene or pornographic as in violation of Section 3.3.14 from the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement.
Are there two scales to evaluate apps and movies? isn't the auto-evaluation confusing for the app producers? We believe that at this time a lot of developers are wasting time and money since the introduction of the parental controls and this is Apple's responsibility.
Please forgive the tone of this email but you need to see the developer's point of view for once.
We'd like to have a clear answer on this matter, to share it with other developers and avoid the same situation for them.It's for this reason that we chose, as a protest after Apple first refusal, to send our application again with the censored scene covered by black stripes.
Outbound City
