Apple bans boobs: summing up today's news

What Apple giveth, Apple taketh away. At least that's what it feels like to Jon Atherton, the wildly successful developer of Wobble, an iPhone app that allows one to attach "wobbly bits" to a photo of a woman's breast so that they jiggle when one shakes the screen. (It's quite unrealistic, I might add, though around 970,000 people are using it.) But now the jig is up for Atherton's boob business since Apple has outlawed all sexual applications from its store, according to TechCrunch.

According to the BBC, women and parents complained to Apple, saying that the apps were too degrading or risque, and Apple responded with the loosely-defined ban. Atherton's company, ChilliFresh, posted a list of the no-no's online, which includes no images of women or men in bikinis and no sexually arousing pictures. ChilliFresh claims that more than 5,000 apps have been banned. But for some reason, Playboy's and Sports Illustrated's sexy apps remain.

TechCrunch has rushed to Atherton's defense, citing the slippery slope argument that Apple could ban, well, anything, including songs with sexy lyrics on iTunes: "Apple is now one of the world’s largest gatekeepers to content, with a store that encompasses music, video, applications, and soon, books and magazines. And it’s shown before that it’s a totally inconsistent hypocrite when it comes to which content it’s willing to sell. Have exposed breasts in an R rated move? Sell it! Jiggling boobs in a silly iPhone application? Banned. Apple previously blocked an iPhone application that allowed users to access the Kama Sutra. What happens if it gets too many complaints about iTunes making it too easy to purchase books and magazines with sexual content?"

Over at Heartless Doll, Andrea Grimes isn't quite so nettled, saying, "Fine, Apple. Way to kind of stand up for not offending women, I guess...Apple deleted this content because of customer complaints, but we don't know if that's women complaining that these apps are sexist and stupid, or if it's a result of parents complaining that their kids have access to sexy apps. I suspect it's more likely the latter."

And I Blame The Patriarchy worries about feminists being blamed for censorship: "...Apple has elected to scapegoat those pesky women complainers. That’s right. Humorless, Puritanical feminists supposedly whined so loudly about being offended and degraded by iBoobs that Apple just couldn’t ignore’em, and out went Wobble faster than you can snap a G-string...Which, if it were true, would be the first time any major corporation has ever listened to feminists about anything, let alone pornography." -TLF