Apple Now Blocking ‘Overtly Sexual’ Apps from App Store

iPhone developer ChilliFresh posted (via TechCrunch) that they received an email from Apple tonight indicating that their iPhone app Wobble iBoobs had been pulled from the App Store. The email revealed that Apple was now ...

Is Apple Removing Sex-based Apps from the App Store?

Developer Chillifresh sent us a link to their blog post where they claim Apple is removing “all non-PG apps” (read: sex-based apps) from the App Store.

Here’s the email they received:

The App Store continues to evolve, and as such, we are constantly refining our guidelines. Your application, Wobble iBoobs (Premium Uncensored), contains content that we had originally believed to be suitable for distribution. However, we have recently received numerous complaints from our customers about this type of content, and have changed our guidelines appropriately.

We have decided to remove any overtly sexual content from the App Store, which includes your application.

First, we should point out Wobble has no sexual content in and of itself, it applies a “wobble” graphical distortion effects to any photo you choose to import — though the app name is certainly suggestive.

Second, it’s important to remember that users who’ve already downloaded the app can keep using it in its current state, although the developers can no longer provide updates (including updates to make it compatible with future iPhone OS releases).

Third, Apple’s already gotten negative press for rejecting apps and removing an entire range likely won’t sit well with the “let us decide for ourselves” crowd.

Fourth, sex-based apps have been spreading through several categories and there have been complaints from those who’d rather not see them side-by-side with non-sex-based apps.

So, is there a middle ground where Apple could create an “adult” category all its own, there for those who want the R-rated apps, easy for others to ignore? Or are they right to go the Blockbuster/Walmart family-friendly route, and leave the adult content to join the porn content as Web Apps?

Let us know what you think…

Is Apple Removing Sex-based Apps from the App Store? is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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U.S. Trade Agency to Review Apple’s Patent Complaints Against Nokia

The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has been kept busy with claims involving Apple recently, as the company has found itself involved in several high-profile disputes with major corporations over claims of patent infringement. Just a day a...

iTunes App Store Now Supported in Armenia, Botswana, Bulgaria, Jordan, Kenya, Macedonia, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Niger, Senegal, Tunisia, and Uganda

Apple’s iPhone Developer News feed has announced that the iTunes App Store is now supported in 9 additional countries:

You can now distribute your apps to more customers with the addition of App Store support in Armenia, Botswana, Bulgaria, Jordan, Kenya, Macedonia, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Niger, Senegal, Tunisia, and Uganda. Log in to iTunes Connect to view and update the countries where your applications are available.

This contrasts sharply with other platforms where the various marketplaces and catalogs have very limited international presence (i.e. you can’t buy apps in most countries outside the US). The existing iTunes footprint gave Apple and the iPhone and iPod touch a huge global advantage and it’s nice to see they’re continuing to push it.

Now they — and developers (and licensors in some cases) — just need to make more of the apps available internationally!

iTunes App Store Now Supported in Armenia, Botswana, Bulgaria, Jordan, Kenya, Macedonia, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Niger, Senegal, Tunisia, and Uganda is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Apple Seeds Mac OS X 10.6.3 (Build 10D558) to Developers

Apple is rapidly seeding new versions of Mac OS X 10.6.3 to developers as they prepare for its release. The latest version was released to developers today and represents build 10D558. Changes listed are detailed by iPhone in Canada: <p class="quot...

Apple Blocks iPad Shipping Records from Public Access

A company called Trade Privacy (via Fortune) reported today that Apple has successfully blocked public access to their shipping freight import records from public view in preparation for the iPad launch.

As the arrival of Apple’s new...

Steve Jobs Calls Flash: “CPU Hog”, Source of “Security Holes”, Dying Technology, Would Degrade iPad Battery Performance [Rumor]

Noby Noby Boy out now on iPhone, and it’s awesome

Filed under: Gaming, Software, Odds and ends, Apple, Developer, iPhone, App Store, Music

Keita Takahashi is a strange guy. He's most known for delivering the brilliant Katamari Damacy to us on the Playstation 2, a game in which you rolled around a ball that stuck to everything in the world, growing bigger and bigger as more and more stuff collected on it. But after that early success, he's gotten weirder, at one point saying that he didn't want to make games at all, and then releasing Noby Noby Boy for the PS3, an "experience" in which you stretch a tubelike creature named BOY, which in turn stretches another creature named GIRL, out into the solar system with all of other players in the world. It's the kind of thing that has to be played to be understood, and even then, you don't understand it so much as experience it.

Noby Noby Boy on the iPhone is a similar release: while it's an app that comes from a game platform, it's actually in the Productivity section of the App Store. Even though the goal seems to again be to stretch the BOY out as far as you can, while in turn stretching GIRL along with PS3 players ("cross-platform compatibility!" exclaims the ingame Fairy, the most charming and weird help system you've ever seen), it's really just a chance for Takahashi's brilliance to run wild on the iPhone platform. There's more to explore, do and experience in this app than any other $1.99 app I've seen, and while some of it is wacky, and strange, and just plain crazy, Noby Noby Boy is a product of imagination -- both his and ours.

Continue reading Noby Noby Boy out now on iPhone, and it's awesome

Noby Noby Boy out now on iPhone, and it's awesome originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Noby Noby Boy out now on iPhone, and it's awesome originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iPhone OS 3.2 SDK Gives a Glimpse Of iPad Safari

Review: RSSpeaker for iPhone

If you;re fine with short descriptions of a high volume of stories, this text-to-voice news reader is for you. But if you need more than one paragraph of information, you won't be very satisfied with this $3 download

TUAW review and giveaway: Bill Atkinson PhotoCard for iPhone

Filed under: Software, Developer, iPhone, Apple History, App Store, App Review

When it comes to famous names in the Apple pantheon, Bill Atkinson ranks very high in the list. The brains behind MacPaint, HyperCard, the Mac OS menu bar, and a host of other innovative software applications has been a professional nature photographer since 1996, but now he's melded his development mojo with photography and released his very first iPhone app, Bill Atkinson PhotoCard for iPhone.

At first glance, the US$4.99 app looks like yet another postcard app for the iPhone. But when you actually start looking at the details of PhotoCard, you realize that it's much, much more. To start with, the app comes with 150 of Atkinson's fabulous nature photographs that can be used in the creation of postcards. That takes care of the front of the postcard, but what about the back?

Like many of the apps of this genre, PhotoCard has a space for typing in a message to the recipient. It ups the ante with 150 stamps to add to your card (more on these later). There are also 325 little stickers that can be added to the back of your card. Once the card is ready to send, you have your choice of either sending it to the recipient via email or having the card printed on an HP Indigo digital press and then sent through snail mail.

Continue reading TUAW review and giveaway: Bill Atkinson PhotoCard for iPhone

TUAW review and giveaway: Bill Atkinson PhotoCard for iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

TUAW review and giveaway: Bill Atkinson PhotoCard for iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CEOh-Snap: Jobs Calls Flash “Old Technology”, Adobe Calls Apple “Proprietary Lock”

Valleywag claims “people familiar with the meeting” between Steve Jobs and the Wall Street Journal have told them Apple’s CEO once again dismissed Flash as “old technology”, while Bloomberg News reports on Adobe CEO, Shantanu Narayen calling Apple a “proprietary lock”.

Jobs apparently repeated claims that Flash is buggy and crashes Macs, is a CPU hog with security holes, would reduced battery life to 1.5 hours, and was basically old technology, something Apple doesn’t spend time on and historically jettisons quickly, like floppy drives, FireWire 400, and even optical drives on the MacBook Air. Switching to H.264 was said to be trivial, though Valleywag points out it’s fairly non-trivial in implementation.

Narayen, commenting on the record, had this to say:

“Considering the amount of content on the Web that uses Flash — not allowing your consumers to access that content isn’t showing off the Web in all its glory. Apple’s business model is more trying to maintain a proprietary lock.”

Since, Open Screen Project or not, Flash is ultimately controlled by Adobe while HTML5 is an open standard, the “proprietary lock” comment is a tad ironic. Narayen, however, also pointed out that Flash 10.1 was the the “middle-ground” solution Jobs himself asked for following the launch of the iPhone — more fully featured than Flash Lite, not as resource intensive as Flash (Full).

The Apple vs. Adobe, iPhone vs. Flash debate has beaten whole heaping herds of horses to death now, so we’ll just ask you this — do comments from the CEOs, on the record or gossipy alike, inform or sway your opinion in any way?

[via Macrumors, iLounge]

CEOh-Snap: Jobs Calls Flash “Old Technology”, Adobe Calls Apple “Proprietary Lock” is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Ngmoco cancels Rolando 3, says it can’t fit into a free-to-play model

Filed under: Gaming, Software, Developer, iPhone, App Store

Here's some unfortunate news out of Ngmoco: The company tells IGN that while there was a Rolando 3 (the second sequel to the very popular and excellent rolling iPhone platformer) in progress, the game has been essentially canceled, and will never see release in its current form. Why? The second game wasn't exactly a sales success (though Ngmoco's Neil Young admits "it's done fine"), and it was that lack of a big splash that made Ngmoco turn the corner into "freemium," or the model of releasing free games that offer in-app purchases for premium content. They've had a lot of success with their Eliminate Pro shooter, and they want to adapt that model for all games: get a few hits for free, spend some real money on in-app purchases for the rest.

And apparently when they couldn't bring that model over to Rolando 3, they scrapped the title. That's a real shame -- not every game on the App Store has to be a runaway hit, and Rolando 3 seems like a perfect candidate for the "slow burn"; release it at a price of $5 or $6, and just let it sit there as an example of great gaming on the iPhone (and the upcoming iPad).

But Ngmoco has made their decision, and Rolando 3 is no more. They say the series isn't gone for good -- if they can figure out a way to do "freemium" with Rolando, we could see the roly poly guys on the iPhone again. You'd think that paying for a level or two at a time would work just fine, but who knows what Ngmoco's reasoning is on this. If I get a chance to talk with them at next month's GDC, I'll ask.

[via Joystiq]

Ngmoco cancels Rolando 3, says it can't fit into a free-to-play model originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Ngmoco cancels Rolando 3, says it can't fit into a free-to-play model originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple Increases Download Limit For iPhone Apps and Media Content Over 3G To 20MB

Steve Jobs’ Wall Street Journal Visit Reportedly Included Arguments Against Flash

Building on comments reportedly made by Apple CEO Steve Jobs at a town hall meeting for company employees last month, Valleywag claims that Jobs focused a significant amount of effort during his recent visit to The Wall Street Journal on selling news...

TiPb Live #87 — Macworld 2010

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Join Chad, Mickey, Leanna, and Rene for our Macworld 2010 wrap-up, WinPho7s, BlackBerry, and Android thoughts from Mobile World Congress, and iPhone 4.0 predictions! Listen in!

Credits

Thanks to the the iPhone Blog Store for sponsoring the podcast, and to everyone who showed up for the live chat!

Our music comes from the following sources:

• I Called You — iPhone Remix by Pete Leidy
via Sneakmove iPhone Ringtone Challenge

TiPb Live #87 — Macworld 2010 is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Keep your eyes on the Sun safely with free 3D Sun app

Filed under: Freeware, iPhone, iPod touch, App Review

I really love to find cool, free apps, and I have a good one for you. 3D Sun, developed in collaboration with NASA scientists, will alert you to solar flares and storms which can disrupt communications on earth and trigger spectacular northern lights.

Activating the push feature provides instant notification of major solar activity.. Clicking on the app will give you detailed information, as well as a current picture of the surface of the sun provided by the NASA 'Stereo' satellites. You can rotate the view of the sun with your fingers, and pinch in and out to zoom. The 2 satellites don't have a 360 degree view, so there will be a dark sliver where the cameras can't see. Using this app is a lot safer than trying to see these phenomena with the naked eye or even using some of the not-so-safe solar filters that are around.

In addition to the 'live' view of the sun, you can view recent pictures of the sun in different bands of the spectrum, and you'll get a look at the rather fascinating magnetic field lines that are above the surface of our friendly orb.

The app also features a collection of stills and movies showing solar events and events triggered by the sun.

The app is just out, so grab it if you are interested. I'd also remind our scientifically prone readers of the terrific NASA app that Steve Sande reviewed in October. 3D Sun has scads of images, videos, launch information and more, and it's another freebie.

These apps run on the iPhone and the iPod touch.

I think you should go for launch on both of these. A-OK?

Check the gallery for more screen shots:

Keep your eyes on the Sun safely with free 3D Sun app originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Keep your eyes on the Sun safely with free 3D Sun app originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple Increases iPhone’s Cellular Download Cap to 20 MB in Advance of iPad Launch

MacRumors has received reports from several readers noting that the download cap for iPhone applications installed via 3G has been increased to 20 MB, a change that also appears to apply to iTunes Store content. Previously, users attempting t...

Turn Your iPhone Into a Flash Drive With iPhone Explorer

Apple Patent Applications: Front-Facing Camera Depicted on Handheld Device, Rotatable Mouse

A pair of Apple patent applications published today have been generating a bit of attention for their disclosure of Apple's behind-the-scenes work on its products. The first application covers methods for addressing variations in individual digital ...