The IT Chronicle

Phil Schiller, head of worldwide product marketing at Apple, pretty much confirmed that in statements he made to the New York Times. He said:

“The difference is this is a well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format.”

Ah, we see. By the way, the Playboy app is still in the App Store as well.

While there is obviously some measure of truth to that statement, some of the apps, such as Wobble (demo below), which have a sort of racy component to them, but don't even specifically provide racy photos in them. Strangely, also, new apps continue to be approved that should be banned, such as Adult Sex Trick, which appears to have been updated just yesterday.

At the same time, as far as why they made this change, Schiller said:

“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.”

OK, so they are not so upset with Playboy or SI.  We get it!

It's an unfortunate truism that a store selling swimsuits would probably have bikinis.  As Gerrard Dennis, managing director of The Simply Group, which operates Simply Beach and six other online stores said, “The e-mail [from Apple] arrived straight to a junk mail folder on Friday and to be honest we thought it was a spam joke. We then checked iTunes to find the app had in fact been removed. It seems like political correctness gone mad. It’s just women in bikinis, swimsuits and kaftans.”

It's true that Apple is playing favorites here.  Apps such as the Playboy app and the Sports Illustrated app are still in the store, despite the fact they are far more titillating than a swimsuit store's app.  

The developer of the Simply Beach application, Exploding Phone, has resubmitted the app to the App Store, this time with an age restriction, hoping the app will be restored.  Andrew Long, managing director of Exploding Phone said, “Being optimistic, maybe a new set of eyes at Apple will realize that the app is a store selling beach clothes and approve it. But we'll have to wait and see.”

At any rate, it's not as though iTunes itself doesn't have plenty of racy material among its videos or even its music. Mobile Safari is able to access plenty of stuff on the web, as well, though famously, not Flash.