Apple Pulls 'Overtly Sexual' Apps from the App Store

As of last week Apple has started removing "overtly sexual" applications from the App Store. The list of applications that have been removed have not only included novelty apps and adult themed slideshow apps, but also a number of games including Daisy Mae's Alien Buffet. This graph provided by AppShopper shows that on a typical day, about 100 apps are removed from the U.S. App Store. This includes forcible removals by Apple as well as instances where a developer has chosen to remove an application from sale.

On Thursday, February 17th, however, this number shot up to 932 removals and peaked at nearly 4000 removals on Friday, February 18th. The high number of removals has continued over the weekend as Apple continues to clear out these newly blocked apps.Jon Atherton at ChilliFresh found out that over 5000 apps were affected, which corresponds to AppShopper's stats as of Saturday, though the higher than normal rate of removals seem to be continuing. So far, the removals represent about 3% of the total number of apps in the App Store.

Jon Atherton, the app developer of Wobble, has posted what he says are Apple's new rules regarding sexual content in an iPhone app:

I have spoken with Apple, and the following are the new rules:

1. No images of women in bikinis (Ice skating tights are not OK either)
2. No images of men in bikinis! (I didn't ask about Ice Skating tights for men)
3. No skin (he seriously said this) (I asked if a Burqa was OK, and the Apple guy got angry)
4. No silhouettes that indicate that Wobble can be used for wobbling boobs
5. No sexual connotations or innuendo: boobs, babes, booty, sex - all banned
6. Nothing that can be sexually arousing!!
7. No apps will be approved that in any way imply sexual content (not sure how Playboy is still in the store, but ...)

Keep in mind that these rules have not been verified or posted by Apple, and Atherton has been on a roll recently of trying to drum up as much press as he can about Apple's changes to the App Store policy on sexual content.

I am glad that Apple has made these changes (pulling "sexy" apps). I'm sick of seeing a "Hot Asians" app show up in every category (from Entertainment to Productivity to Utilities). The "sexy" apps were getting out of control, and they started to show up so much it was making it even harder to find good apps in the App Store.

Feel free to share your thought with us about Apple’s strategy.