Kenny Hemphill
Apple’s app approval guidelines have so many glaring inconsistencies that we’re none the wiser about what will or won’t be accepted on the Store…
Apple’s change to its developer guidelines for iOS apps generated huge levels of news coverage for what amounted to the removal of restrictions that applied to relatively few developers and that had only been in place for six months.
The coverage, understandably, focused on Apple’s change of mind regarding the use of third-party tools to generate code for apps. The initial ban was seen as a direct attack on Adobe and its Packager for iPhone, which enables developers to build apps in Flash and then have them compiled as iOS apps. Apple didn’t give any reason for its volte-face, but it seems likely that the threat of anti-trust investigations may have been persuasive.
More significant than even that about-turn, however, was the publishing, to developers, of the guidelines for acceptance to the App Store. A quick read of those makes it clear that Apple regards itself very much as a curator of the Store. Gone is the pretence that the approval process is about maintaining quality, ensuring that the Store is free from apps that could harm users or networks, or access parts of iOS that Apple has forbidden.
As we’ve all long suspected, Apple is playing moral guardian, too. ‘We don’t need any more fart apps… If your app doesn’t do something useful or provide some form of lasting entertainment, it may not be accepted,’ read the guidelines.
The company’s opinion on apps it regards as pornographic is even clearer: ‘Apps containing pornographic material, defined by Webster’s Dictionary as “explicit descriptions or displays of sexual organs or activities intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings”, will be rejected.’ And later in the guidelines: ‘Apps that contain user-generated content that is frequently pornographic (for example, “Chat Roulette” apps) will be rejected.’
So, porn’s out, then. Titillation, on the other hand, is just fine, apparently. Take, for example, the Sports Illustrated app, which displays images and video of women in swimsuits. You don’t need to be a genius to work out its target market and how it hopes to stimulate its customers. The App Store has this to say about the Sports Illustrated app: ‘Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity. Frequent/Intense Mature/Suggestive Themes.’ Not pornography according to the Webster’s definition, but certainly in the same ballpark.
That would be less of a problem if Apple stuck to Webster’s definition quoted in the guidelines for other apps. So far, however, it hasn’t. In February, The New York Times reported that Apple had started to ban apps that contained ‘sexually suggestive material, including photos of women in bikinis and lingerie.’ Oddly, or not, the banned apps didn’t include Sports Illustrated. They did, however, include those of a company called ‘On the Go Girls’, which developed a number of apps it referred to as being ‘racier than the Disney Channel, but not by much’. When you read descriptions of the apps in question, it’s difficult to disagree with that assessment. They are, in the main, little more than the app equivalent of a saucy seaside postcard.
Then there’s the thorny issue of violence. It seems, for the moment at least, that while porn and some titillation is out, violence is okay. Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, which has been available for the iPhone and iPod touch since January, and recently had an HD release for the iPad, is about as violent as they come, albeit that the violence and torture is in cartoon form. That, it seems, is just fine for Apple.
You can also, of course, buy movies containing graphic violence from the iTunes Store, and visit as many porn sites as you like in the iOS version of Safari – provided they’re not Flash-based, of course. But, for Apple, it seems, none of that matters.
The company either has a very clear idea of what apps it wants on iOS and can’t communicate that effectively – which would be strange for a company that has demonstrated itself so adept at communicating through adverts, events and the press – or it has a vague, fluid notion of what it thinks it wants, and is making the rest up as it goes along.
Whichever of those it is, the company needs to fix it – and fast. The publication of developer guidelines is a positive step, but it’s just the first step. The guidelines need to be refined, the contradictions dealt with, and the approval process accelerated. Apple doesn’t like developers complaining publicly: ‘If your app is rejected, we have a Review Board that you can appeal to. If you run to the press and trash us, it never helps,’ say the guidelines.
Unless it gets its act together and improves the consistency of the process, those complaints are only going to get louder and more frequent.
