App Store to Change Its Admission Standards once iPhone OS 3.0 with Parental Controls Drops

Article by George Norman (Cybersecurity Editor)

on 06 May 2009

The App Store has just recently made the news because it did not approve an update to the Nine Inch Nails iPhone app, on the grounds that it contained “objectionable content”. Several other apps have been denied access to the App Store for the same “objectionable content” reason, which in some cases was justified (like the Baby Shaker app), while in others it was pure nonsense (like the NIN aforementioned NIN case – details here).

According to Section 3.3.12 of the iPhone SDK Agreement, iPhone apps “must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple's reasonable judgement may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users.” But all this is about to change once the iPhone OS 3.0 is made available to the masses.

In rejecting an iPhone app called Newspaper(s), Apple stated that the reason for doing so is the fact that one of the newspapers presented in this app displays a picture of a topless woman. While the naked woman is enough cause to give Apple reason to invoke the “objectionable content” rule, this might not be the case in the future. In the rejection email that Apple sent to the Newspaper(s) app’s developers, it mentioned the fact that the iPhone OS 3.0 will have a parental control feature and when the operating system is released, it “would be appropriate to resubmit [the] application for review”.

With built-in parental controls in the upcoming iPhone OS 3.0 (the most recent release is iPhone OS 3.0 Beta 4), this could mean that the all-or-nothing policy currently employed when approving apps for the App Store will be dropped. With parental controls using a 4-tier rating system (4+, 9+, 12+, and 17+) it is reasonably safe to assume that users should prepare for a deluge of iPhone apps designed to cater to your lust!


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