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No Playboy App For iPad, After All
tsamsoniw writes "The rumors that a Playboy app would appear in the Apple App Store were greatly exaggerated. Playboy plans to offer an online service through which subscribers can access past and current issues of the nudie mag — and per Playboy, it will be accessible via Safari and support iPad features (whatever that means). But if Playboy does come out with a native app for iPad, all the nudity will be censored. That should be just fine for the legions of people who indeed read the magazine for the articles. This really shouldn't be a surprise, though: If Apple insists on 'protecting' users of its high-priced gear from pixelated naughty bits in a graphic-novel version of classic literature, it certainly won't let users access the full monty. It's a shame, though: If Apple's customers want access to that sort of content, Apple should allow them to get at it via a native app instead of suffering a potentially buggier, less secure browser-based experience."
and support iPad features (whatever that means)
It means:
- It will be locked down.
- Touch interaction with 'models' will be disabled.
- Page turning will be forced on a 20 second timer to ensure users don't get too 'excited'.
- All images of screwing will be replaced with 'pentalobular interaction'.
- Steve Jobs will read the articles via a quaint brittish accent TTS engine.
- All images will come with an accompanying 'I'm Offended!' reporting link.
- All nipple shots will be replaced with miniature Natalie Portman faces.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
I'd trust a general-purpose web browser to be more secure and less buggy than some made-up "app" any day.
And remember, you paid extra for the blocking of any nudity in apps! Well, other than the web browser of course. But aside from all the porn in the world, you're getting the porn blocking you paid for!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
it makes parents feel comfortable buying their kids iPads and iPhones
now you don't have to like this marketing ploy, and you don't have to like the rationale behind the parent's thinking. but you have to admit it works, it brings in the $, and that's all that matters
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This is bizarre. Playboy is R-rated, not NC-17, and Apple already distributes music that carries the [EXPLICIT] tag. Hell, they sell and rent Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and there's nothing you can see in Playboy that's not in that movie, and nothing they say in Playboy that's not in American Pie.
So once again: Gore, Murder, Violence, Beheading, Rape - Acceptable Breasts, Buttocks, Genitals, i.e...The Human Body = Unacceptable /sigh
Apple does not "block" porn, they just refuse publishing porn themselves. Sure, there is that tiny deal about them not supporting any other distribution methods, but thats a different matter. Truth be told: I would not install a pornographic application on my iPad or iPhone if you put a gun on a kitten's head (if it was my head I'd install and delete it once the gun wielder was arrested.)
The web provides all the porn I could need, and it displays magnificently in the iPad, touch screens are easier to clean than the mouse or the keyboard too!!
"Safe" meaning your company can afford to spend months or even years developing a title for publication, with confidence that it will not be arbitrarily rejected by Apple for reasons which are inconsistent with policies under which other applications and media have previously been approved.
Apple maintains the ability to "kill" (Apple's term) software users install on their own Apple hardware. Apple maintains the control they need to decide on a case-by-case basis who gets to run what program. Apple retains the power to make it hard for any user(s) to watch porn through an application. How Apple uses this power may change over time, denying some users access to an app but allowing others. Apple can apply this power with absolutely no legal ability for the user to gainsay Apple's power, predict who is denied what, or understand for what reason someone was denied complete control of their computer.
We would not stand for this control in any other medium. It should not be up to anyone but the owner of the device to exert control over what they wish to read or run.
Digital Citizen
They know their target audience has no interest in seeing naked women.
They know their target audience gets easy access to the real thing. :P
Agree, but why people do this mess over the iPhone but not over video game consoles? They are even more closed and have been around longer. There do are a few groups working on their jailbreak but you don't hear the huge accusations against THOSE manufacturers. What makes Apple any more evil than Nintendo, Sega (in their day), Sony and Microsoft in the gaming department?
For a number of reasons. The primary one is that Nintendo, Sega, Sony and Microsoft didn't and don't try to portray their devices as all inclusive. No one buys a 360 to surf the net, Microsoft doesn't push the Xbox as an alternative to a computer or claim that their device is perfect for tasks other than gaming. No one buys a Wii to type up documents and Nintendo doesn't market it that way, they market it as a game console. But Apple and their fanboys seem to think that an iPad is essentially a replacement for a laptop for most tasks and not a crippled machine at twice the price of a laptop. They seem to think that it does everything one could ever want with no room for improvement and rather than expanding their line, addressing user concerns and removing the walled garden, Apple (and their fanboys) instead prefer to claim that users really have no problems with them and that what they are doing is some task that they shouldn't do in the first place. A game console is marketed to do one thing, play games, just like the Kindle is marketed to do one thing, to read books. The iPad is marketed to do anything you want to do on a laptop and fails at that goal and is naturally taking backlash because of it.
And "a few groups" working on jailbreaks? The Wii has a thriving homebrew scene with many, many applications and creative programs. And while Nintendo does release a yearly update to block homebrew, it is generally worked around within a few days and you can go back to playing with no loss in functionality. Not only that, but there is full documentation to use Wii hardware with standard PC bluetooth hardware. The 360 has a small homebrew scene but it is limited mostly by Microsoft's banning of people with modified 360 consoles on Xbox live and is, quite honestly, used mostly for warez than legitimate homebrew when compared to things like the DS, PSP and Wii homebrew scenes. Most people don't criticize MS for their stance for a number of reasons, first off the Xbox live marketplace is pretty open and the other fact is that it is their services you are accessing and it is their right to choose to allow you on there or not. The PS3 though is a different story, there has been a number of developments, a number of patches and a number of features Sony has removed from the PS3 simply to thwart homebrew and Sony has been fairly and justly criticized for their actions, but again, Sony never marketed the PS3 as anything more than a blu-ray player, game system and media centre, however, they did market it as being able to run alternate OSes and when Sony removed that feature, many users I believe in the EU were able to get their money back because of Sony's fraudulent advertising.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I hate to burst your bubble, but the Android Market have the same authority. They can remote kill an app just as easily, no?
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/06/exercising-our-remote-application.html
Not only that, but it can remotely delete apps you've purchased off your device, too. Apple's rejected apps, removed apps, etc., but they've never used that power to delete or stop apps from running that you've already bought. Even if you bought an app that was later deleted, iTunes doesn't stop you from reinstalling that app on any iDevice you own. Hell, even iDOS is back in the App Store (with the warning to "not update" for those who purchased it before).
But it's OK when Google does it, and not when Apple says they can do it but hasn't (yet). Just like it's evil when Amazon does it.
Heck, we don't even know if iOS can even do remote deletions. The only capability that comes close is CoreLocation's ability to disable apps, but that only works for apps that use CoreLocation to begin with. Then again, maybe all it does is the app's ability to get anything other than fake GPS data...