Apple's head of worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller says the company's new restrictions on sexual content in the iPhone App Store arose after the company received many complaints from parents and women, according to The New York Times.
“It came to the point where we were getting customer complaints from women who found the content getting too degrading and objectionable, as well as parents who were upset with what their kids were able to see,” Mr. Schiller told The New York Times. He said that Apple had been seeing an increasing number of apps with "objectionable content" in recent weeks.
But the new regulations have been completely inconsistent. TechCrunch found that some erotic apps like Wobble iBoobs, which lets people add realistic bouncing breasts to photos, have been removed, while Playboy's and Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit apps are still for sale.
Schiller tried to explain Apple's judgment to the Times: “The difference is this is a well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format."
The lack of transparency has developers wringing their hands. Wobble's developer Chillifresh has fired back:
Apple has lost any credibility that they had -- this is just BS. So it’s ok for a well-known company to produce and display adult material to our children, but not okay for somebody to show cartoon pics of a female body.