A socially conservative media watchdog group says a wealth of pornographic apps are currently available for iPhone users. The "Dirty Fingers Screen Wash" application is just one of a host of apps pulled from iTunes for inappropriate material. But some argue that Apple hasn't gone far enough.
Looking for porn? Get a Google phone*, Steve Jobs said recently, defending Apple's role as moral watchdog following complaints that a political satire app had been flagged as pornography.
But some say the iPhone is anything but PG, and they're questioning how much effort Apple is investing in keeping itself clean.
The socially conservative Parents Television Council (PTC) thinks a wealth of salacious apps are currently available for iPhone users -- things like "My Vibe," which converts the iPhone into a vibrator, and "Love Positions Free," which has drawings of couples having sex. The group has publicly demanded that Apple stop providing porn to children -- and clean up its act.
But Apple's CEO Steve Jobs disagrees, saying that hard-core porn is verboten on his family-friendly iPhone. "We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone," the man in the black turtleneck recently told a customer, according to TechCrunch.
As part of that responsibility, the company has removed many apps from the iTunes store that it deems inappropriate, including "Dirty Fingers Screen Wash," in which girls in bikinis "clean" the inside of the iPhone's screen, and "Tight Body Perky Boobs," a collection of photos of young women.**
Apple has recently placed a ban on sexually explicit applications that are available to consumers. Can you guess which apps have been banned and which are still available?
RELATED LINKS Police Seize PCs of Editor Who Posted iPhone Prototype Pics The 5 Best Apple iPad Apps Google Says Apple Rejected Voice Application "Folks who want porn can buy an Android phone," Jobs said, referring to the adults-only app store available for the Google platform that powers the Android.
SLIDESHOW: Banned or Active? Can You Guess Which Apps Are Still on iTunes?
Still, the pro-family activists think Apple isn't doing enough. In recent weeks the PTC successfully lobbied Apple to remove some blatant pornography from the iTunes store, including an application called "Shawna Lenee Private Dance," which featured a porn movie star and former Penthouse vixen fondling herself.
"I do not see Shawna Lenee Private Dance on the App Store," Trudy Muller, a spokeswoman for Apple Computer, told FoxNews.com. "I can't find it on the App Store. Are you seeing it?"
But the company had no comment on other risque apps that still remain available on iTunes -- or for sale outside of the iTunes store, where developers can feature even more explicit sexual themes. Among the apps available:
* Truth or Dare - Dirty (Two Girls Edition), produced by Todd Wiseman, which sells for $2.99. iTunes describes the app as containing "intense sexual content/nudity" and "rofanity/crude humor." Users are cautioned that they must be at least 17 years old to download this game.
* My Vibe, an application produced by Sawhorse Enterprises, which converts the iPhone into a vibrator that can be placed on the userâs private parts, and is described by a user on iTunes as an "app that makes my toes curl."
* Passion, an app by Chris Alvares that sells for 99 cents and purports to measure oneâs sexual potency by the sounds made during sex. The app is activated by grunting sounds or a shaking bed.
Gavin McKiernan, the PTC's grassroots director, said Apple executives assured the group that the content on its App Store would be clean, and he hopes that any remaining pornographic applications or the many sexually-themed "wallpapers" still available are "there by mistake, possibly."
"Apple needs to maintain its corporate social responsibility," he said.
McKiernan said Apple executives told PTC that when "Shawna Lenee" came out, they had been "misled" as to its actual content. "They responded quickly and pulled the app," he said.
But he notes that there are very few controls on an iPhone, and parents cannot monitor the content that their children or teenagers have been viewing during the day on its Internet browser. "Thereâs no way to filter it," McKiernan said. "And you canât stand over the shoulders of the kids, like you can with a PC, while they are online, or track their activities with the browser history."
Parents can monitor App purchases via credit card bills, and since the installed apps are all visible on the iPhone, parents can readily spot check which ones their kids have bought and used. But there is no way to lock out websites or applications deemed appropriate, as there is on a computer through software or the parental controls built in to some operating systems.
Some industry watchers say the iPhone needs to install sophisticated filtering technology to help parents monitor their kids.
"Itâs up to Apple, since obviously itâs a ton of money for them," said Michael Hussey, founder and CEO of search engine PeekYou.com.
The PTC says it is also concerned about lewd apps being developed and distributed for other mobile phones and has been in touch with the carriers and developers about their concerns. But they are less worried about other brands because Apple is the key brand in the youth market.
Some app developers, meanwhile, question how Apple decides what qualifies as pornographic or lewd. "Our company went through the mill trying, failing, and eventually succeeding in getting our âpick up lineâ app on the iPhone," says developer Rob Frankel. "And it had nothing obscene or prurient attached to it."
His app, "Little Wingman," generates clever phrases to be used as conversation starters in bars.
Frankel told FoxNews.com that it took him "over nine months to bank up against Appleâs heavily fortressed iTunes department before theyâd even consider re-evaluating. In the meantime, graphic and sexual applications were selling like hotcakes."
Frankel concludes that "Steve Jobs, et al, liken themselves to Justice Potter Stewart, who remarked about porn, âI know it when I see it.â Which is to say, Appleâs evaluation procedure and standards, are, at best, arbitrary."
Though some of the material available on the iPhone may be pornographic, it may not be technically obscene, and can be legally distributed as long as it is not intentionally targeted at kids -- a key distinction, says attorney Christopher Leibig, of Swerling, Leibig and Moseley.
"Porn that is not obscene is protected by the First Amendment, and it can be distributed," Leibig told FoxNews.com.
First off, of course it is on Fox News.
* That's pretty damn cocky to tell consumers to go buy your competitor's phone.
** This kind of censorship is disgusting. So, answer me this: Why in the hell are doing with iPhones? I'm sorry, but a smartphone is for an adult.
I know upwards of twenty people, all kids, who have smartphones.
Society doesn't seem to agree with you.
I have a normal phone because I'm poor. But I sure would like an iPhone . . . .
Anyways, very few things on the App Store are truly porn. More like softcore porn. Not truly porn. Not even really that.
Kids can get porn on the internet anyways by using Google with one word: porn. Search it, and you get every porn website on the internet. Kids are very easily exposed anyways.
I just gave them an idea to shut down the internet, didn't I?
His a conservative douchebag thats campaigning hard in California. His trying to win the elections in one of the most liberal states by advocating restrictions on illegal immigration...
I know upwards of twenty people, all kids, who have smartphones
I know plenty of kids with smartphones, that isn't the point. The point, in my opinion, it is a tool for adults. Yes, they also have iPod, I know this. It really boils down the parent. It is up to them to parent their children and control what they do and how they connect to certain portions of the internet. Our adult tools should not have to be catered to children who should not be using them.
Anyways, very few things on the App Store are truly porn. More like softcore porn. Not truly porn. Not even really that.
I will give you that. But, this watchdog group is forgetting that a lot of websites, including XXX ones and Armor Games have mobile sites. (Yes, porn and Armor Games in the same sentence!) These sites can be accessed through safari just like an application.
Kids can get porn on the internet anyways by using Google with one word: porn. Search it, and you get every porn website on the internet. Kids are very easily exposed anyways.
I just gave them an idea to shut down the internet, didn't I?
This is basically what I thought of when I read the first post. It's everywhere, advertising, movies, tv, video games. Good luck avoiding it all, to do so would require you to cut your children off from the world, which would cause more problems than a little nudity ever would.
I'd like to get the opinion of people from outside the united states about this censorship issue. I feel that because america tries so hard to censor things it just calls more attention to it. If porn was left alone, it wouldn't be the issue like it is now.
I'd like to get the opinion of people from outside the united states about this censorship issue. I feel that because america tries so hard to censor things it just calls more attention to it. If porn was left alone, it wouldn't be the issue like it is now.
American censorer: Hey everybody, this video of sexually perfect people f**king each other over and over is wroooooooooong! Don't look at it!
Masses: We didn't know stuff like this was even around before!
*most of the masses go to porn*
. . . liek dis?
Yesh.
I do agree. Calling something out as wrong calls attention to it.
Here's something to help. These kids with smartphones need their parents to download an app like Mobicip and delete Safari. That will buffer at least a little bit.
** This kind of censorship is disgusting. So, answer me this: Why in the hell are doing with iPhones? I'm sorry, but a smartphone is for an adult.
I'm sorry but this is a generally ignorant statement. Apple is in control of the app store and therefore has a right to censor it in any way they want to. Google on the other hand doesn't have much of a presence in the Android Market which gives developers the option to create pornographic content if they want.
It almost seems like you want to force Apple to allow porn on the App Store which the violent opposite of censorship which is just as bad no?
I'm sorry but this is a generally ignorant statement. Apple is in control of the app store and therefore has a right to censor it in any way they want to. Google on the other hand doesn't have much of a presence in the Android Market which gives developers the option to create pornographic content if they want.
The question is not whether Apple has the RIGHT or not. Of course they have the right to do almost anything they chose to with their products. The issue is about censorship.
It almost seems like you want to force Apple to allow porn on the App Store which the violent opposite of censorship which is just as bad no?
Also you want porn? It's called Safari.
This is not a personal issue. In fact, I would actually watch porn if it was geared more towards my gender. But it isn't, so it doesn't appeal to me all that much.
"My Vibe," which converts the iPhone into a vibrator, and "Love Positions Free," which has drawings of couples having sex. The group has publicly demanded that Apple stop providing porn to children -- and clean up its act.
But Apple's CEO Steve Jobs disagrees, saying that hard-core porn is verboten on his family-friendly iPhone. "We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone," the man in the black turtleneck recently told a customer, according to TechCrunch.
What, and detract from the responsibility of parents as the guardians of their child's moral upbringing?
Censorship is a government's way of saying "we don't trust you to fulfill your role, nor do we trust ourselves to help you do anything constructive about it."
