We’ve been a bit baffled by the system Apple has in place when it comes to ratings for applications in the App Store. Is it allowing apps with nudity? Not allowing them? Allowing them with a 17+ rating? We’ve talked to some developers willing to break their NDAs because they think the App Store approval process in general is messed up, and would like to see Apple do a better job handling it. So here’s how the ratings system currently works for the App Store.
The Ratings
When you go to submit your app through iTunes Connect, one of the steps takes you to a ratings matrix that you must fill out. This contains 10 questions listed under “Apple Content Descriptions.” For each of the 10 questions you must say “None”, “Infrequent/Mild”, or “Frequent/Intense.” Depending on what answer you give for each of these, the rating of your app in the upper right corner will change. These ratings go from “4+” to “9+” to “12+” to “17+” to “No Rating.”
That last one is key. If your app gets the “No Rating” label, a warning written in red appears underneath it stating that: “This content will not be sold via iTunes.” So what triggers such a rating? Well, not a lot. Basically, it comes down to the final two questions in the 10 question matrix. Let’s run through them in descending order:
- Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
- Realistic Violence
- Sexual Content or Nudity
- Profanity or Crude Humor
- Alcohol, Tobacco, or Drug Use or References
- Mature/Suggestive Themes
- Simulated Gambling
- Horror/Fear Themes
- Prolonged graphic or sadistic realistic violence
- Graphic sexual content and nudity
As I noted, those last two are the keys to getting your app banned. But there’s a few interesting things about this. First of all, you may notice that these final two are not capitalized in the same way that the other questions are. That suggests to me that Apple added them at a different time than all the others and possibly even in a rush.
Second, you’ll notice that there’s a question about both “Sexual Content or Nudity” and “Graphic sexual content or nudity.” What’s interesting about this is that apps with “Sexual Content or Nudity” are still allowed — even if you select “Frequent/Intense” in that field. You’ll get a 17+ rating, but your app will still be allowed. However, if you click even “Infrequent/Mild” in the “Graphic sexual content and nudity,” your app is banned. I’m not sure what the difference is between “intense sexual content and nudity” and “mild graphic sexual content and nudity”, and neither do a lot of developers.
The Gray Area
And while you might think that since apps can be classified as having frequent/intense sexual content or nudity, that an app with topless girls would be okay. But apparently, it’s not. In Apple’s words:
Apple will not distribute applications that contain inappropriate content, such as pornography.
So, then what exactly is frequent/intense sexual content or nudity that is allowed? One developer we spoke with believes Apple may be intending that for applications to feature things like sexual education. If so, that is hilarious. Why would only people over the age of 17 be allowed to look at such apps?
The questions that pertain to violence are just as bad — maybe even worse. I understand that there’s a difference between cartoon violence and realistic violence, but both of those are allowed. How “frequent/intense realistic violence” differs from “mild prolonged graphic violence”, seems again like a pretty big gray area. Yet one is allowed, and one isn’t.
And not only is one allowed, “mild realistic violence” carries only a 9+ rating. “Intense realistic violence” carries only a 12+ rating. Apparently, the jump from “intense realistic violence” to “mild prolonged graphic violence” means skipping over the 17+ rating entirely, and going straight to banned. That makes no sense.
That’s the key point to all of this: The ratings range from making no sense to having way too much gray area. Apple is expecting developers to rate their apps correctly, but if it simply doesn’t allow anything in the last two categories to get through, of course those developers are going to wiggle their apps into the “safe” categories. Any why shouldn’t they? A lot of those definitions appear to be the exact same.
And that’s probably why we’re seeing a lot of apps that aren’t supposed to get through, slip through the system. Flat out: The system is broken.
When the Hottest Girls app got through, just look at the rating that was attached to it:
Rated 17+ for the following:
Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity
Frequent/Intense Mature/Suggestive Themes
That seems like a reasonable rating for an app with topless girls. But apparently, Apple wanted it rated under “Frequent/Intense Graphic sexual content and nudity” — meaning it wouldn’t have been allowed in the App Store. (Though, to be clear, according to Apple, the app in question was tricky and added content to the app after Apple approved it. But it was just more topless girls, and so the main point remains the same.)
And at the same time, Apple is letting in apps that say they have topless pictures right in the title of the app. If it’s aiming to ban all of them, it’s doing a pretty awful job.
The Hypocrisy
Perhaps my favorite thing about all of this though is the hypocrisy that is staring back at each one of us who have an iPhone or iPod touch. Load up iTunes on the device, you can buy any number of movies that have plenty of nudity, sex, sadistic violence, prolonged violence, and any combination of them. Yet if you want an app that has any of those, forget about it.
I can understand why Apple would want to restrict mature apps before it had parental controls in place for them, but now it has those in place — there should be no reason why an adult shouldn’t be allowed to get an application with nudity in it if they want. Especially if that same type of content is available on the device through movies in the iTunes store. (Not to mention through any number of websites using the Safari browser.)
I understand that the store is run by Apple and it has the right to accept or reject whatever content it wishes, but again, this is about an absurd gray area for developers and hypocrisy. The gray area, I believe, is making app screeners lives a living hell, and all of us have to suffer for it. I can’t tell you how many emails we get from developers complaining that their apps have been in Apple’s approval queue for weeks or months with no response. Some of these developers are hoping to make a living off of these apps, yet Apple is backlogged in the approval process because it has to check for things like a certain level of nudity in an app, rather than letting the rating system do its job.
Apple hasn’t responded to multiple attempts to contact it on this matter. Frankly, I don’t think it knows what it really wants to do in this regard. Judging by its own rating system, it wants to allow “Nudity” with a capital “N,” but not “nudity.” Or maybe it’s that the nudity can’t be “graphic.” But how are topless pictures graphic? And if those are graphic, what is non-graphic nudity? Maybe it means that it wants to allow for “tasteful” nudity, but again, that’s a big gray area. Is Apple — and by Apple I mean app screeners — now going to be arbiters of taste? As if they needed any more to do.
I think what Apple really wants to see is the image below. And that’s too bad.
This brings back the age-old question of “How do you define pornography?” There is no algorithm for that.
True. But there might be an app for that.
Seriously though, I agree with that, BUT Apple has a parental system in place and has a rating set up to allow for nudity to be rated 17+. So I do not see why it has this convoluted mess that currently is the App Store rating system.
And it’s not just the nudity, but the violence too. The whole thing is just weird and makes no sense.
Maybe I am just behind the curve, but I never understood 17+ as compared to 18+. Is pornography 18+ but nudity only 17+ by law? The rules here seem so arbitrary. Makes you wonder if the Federal government is now running part of the App store. At least that would explain the delays and mismanagement.
What about that new nipple recognition software?
Yes, Apple needs to first define for itself what is pornography, nudity and graphic nudity. Maybe, after defining for themselves, they should explicitly say what they expect from developers of apps.
I’m sure they do not want to be cross with their users by completely barring nudity or porn from their apps. With parental controls intact, they can effectively implement valuable, stringent measures to clean up the mess in the approval process of the apps store.
If they do a proper cleaning up, they can avoid so many criticisms of approving/disapproving wrong apps.
Hope Steve Jobs finds a new solution to resolve this Apple store issue.
This is a bit off topic, but how does the app store on the iPhone work in reference to the Featured tab. For instance the “New” tab that is shown on the “Featured” tab shows an application called Shazam. This application has a release date of July 7, 2008 (as noted on the application download page). Now I’m not sure what Apple’s definition of “New” is, but I wouldn’t call almost a year ago new. This is only one example, but it doesn’t take a long time to discover other non-new applications listed under the New category. If anyone could enlighten me on this process, it would be much appreciated.
It’s new because Shazam just released an update to the app. So it’s a new version of an old app. Shazam is a great app by the way.
Did they decide not to hire enough people to sort through the app approval process manually? If so, then that’s a pretty bad idea.
a bit off topic.. but you guys had to “talk to other devs” of apple apps? why don’t you guys have a few real devs on yoru staff/team for legitmacy?
back in the day, byte mag, or pc-world had actual tech buys working for them..
this would seriously explain the fact that you guys don’t know the actual tech at a level that’s more depth than the usual marketing blurbs…
guys .. instead of buys…
this is a blog, not a serious magazine
I think you’re confusing a full blown tech publication with a blog, which runs with much leaner staff. Why pay for a programmer to be on staff, when you can call or e-mail ones you know and ask them?
And if someone was a full time developer, when would they have the time to work for Techcrunch?
The logical holes in your idea are massive.
1) We do have devs on staff.
2) This article has basically nothing to do with tech, it’s about a ratings system. So I’m not sure what you’re actually trying to say.
3) PWNED
It seems to me that apple has so much screwed the process that they are on the brink of getting sued themselves, if a number of developers band together.
Apple is benefiting directly from the free work offered by thousands of developers, yet they keep being arbitrary on their approval process. It’s not just pornography, look at the recent rejections of phonegap apps.
Apple needs to do a lot of work on its App Approval System to make it more efficient and accurate.
Wasn’t Hottest Girls booted because they changed their content to nudity AFTER they were approved sans-nudity from Apple? Apple felt that they snuck the content into the store rather than took it in through legit channels, which is why it was booted out.. it’s not an inconsistency, in that case they’re just keeping control of their approval system – right or not.
Yes, that’s in there. But there’s a few issues bigger than this that I go into. The biggest is that Apple said following the removal it will not allow any “inappropriate” content in the store, but has a rating system that allows for nudity.
Can we quit obsessing about iPhone and move on? This article had no value.
That’s what your mama said last night
…to you.
I found it interesting and I don’t have an iphone.
Of course this is what you will get from Apple. I’m still trying to understand how they can persuade people to use their App Store and give them 30 percent. Just think what will all the bloggers and editors would say if Android and Windows Mobile wanted 30 percent of all apps.
because Apple store can generate 1 billion downloads while the other stores all together can’t.
The same way Google does with Adwords. When you think about it, paying 30% to publish on the most successful platform may not feel like much to many developers.
Most platforms for selling software prior to the AppStore wanted 50-60% of your revenue. The AppStore has be brilliant in the 30% category because it raised that bar across the software distribution world.
The app approval process has turned out to be a bag of hurt for Apple. Well, a relative bag of hurt, as they still have 50K apps and over a billion downloads.
I don’t know if they can ever really get around some of these issues, as they’ll likely never give up control of the App Store. Even with parental controls, Apple still determines what’s “suitable.” Contrast that with the iTunes movies which are independently rated by other boards.
Very interesting article.
How many times do we have to talk about Apple’s app store approval??? or even the iphone in general?? seriously do we care that much? do we have to cite every time someone’s app is not approved? Do we care how is the process is?
This is such rehashed stuff.
I care that much, seeing as though I plan on porting to the iPhone, so yeah… I do care about the process. Idiot.
Don, it’s called a headline. Read it. Decide. Move on and leave us alone. Idiot.
“I must read every story I must read every story I must read every story I must read every story I must read every story I must read every story I must read every story and take time to tell people what they’re reading is worthless.” Idiot time waster.
I don’t think it’s hypocritical to have different standards for passive and interactive content.
Watching sex on the screen is not at all the same experience as simulating it in a game. (And I don’t mean seeing it in a cutscene, but actually getting to um.. use the controller.)
Okay, even if that were true, pictures of topless girls I would argue is much less of an “experience” than watching nudity in a movie.
This is of course would be a USA adult/pron rating. Variations exist wildly around the world as do the age of models allowed etc. etc. Not to even mention the US 2257 regulations, violations to which could land Apple directors in Jail. It’s been fairly toothless so far, but Apple would be a nice juicy target for your DOJ.
It’s possible Apple sees the “or” as an “exclusive or”, which means either Sexual Content or Nudity, but not both at the same time. Which means you would be able to have a game with “Sexual Content” in the conversations or you could have medical applications with “Nudity”, but not applications with topless girls as it contains both.
Wait, the NDA still exists???
For some aspects, yes.
Well, darn. There goes my plan to port MacPlaymate to the iPhone…
Does this mean by the one category, that non-graphical nudity is okay. How does one obtain that?
Google for: ASCII Art
Yeah! What is non graphical nudity ?
I found out last night, after enabling the parental controls on my teenagers’ iPod Touches, that the Facebook and MySpace apps are apparently rated worse than 17+.
I set up their iPods to allow 13+ and below, and Facebook and MySpace disappeared.
I then set them to allow 17+ and below, and the apps were still missing.
Only after I reenabled “all” apps, did Facebook and MySpace reappear.
Are they really the worst apps available through the app store?
Apple could really do itself some favors by allowing parents to override the parental controls somehow so that we could allow specific apps, but still keep other apps from being installed.
For instance, I have no problem with my kids using MySpace and Facebook, as I keep a pretty close eye on what they’re doing there. However, I don’t want them, or their friends (who have a tendency of messing around with their stuff), downloading some of the other apps of which I don’t approve.
The whole concept of the app store ratings really makes no sense, unfortunately.
Huh, that’s interesting.
When Apple updated the ratings to include the new graphic/intense/bukakke attributes it required developers to re-rate their apps. If you look at the MySpace app it still says “Not yet rated”, which means no one at MySpace has rated the app in iTunes Connect yet. The parental controls automatically screen those.
Maybe Facebook and MySpace deliberately chose 17+ to be consistent with their Website age policies.
Facebook’s age policy is 13+.
Seems to me that a big part of the problem is that Apple is trying to “calculate” a rating. Why not let me as a parent define how much violence, language or nudity that I want to allow my child to see rather than choosing a rating and then trusting Apple to decide what’s 17+?
Ditch the single rating system and give us more granularity.
Very interesting.
When the hottest girls app first appeared to be approved as a developer I immediately started working on some of the more adult themed ideas I’ve had. Not because those are the apps I want to build but because just the bikini apps are already crowding out more serious/creative apps with just slideshows of girls in bikinis. In the few hours it was up this app shot up the rankings. With porn or just nudity allowed no doubt within a month the Lifestyle and Entertainment categories would be filled with these and my more legit apps squeezed out. I know other developers for whom this is their livelihood would do the same. The App Store’s limited category interface and lack of social features make those category rankings critical.
While I don’t agree with the approval process or the glaring contradictions in the ratings system I was relieved to see that the app was rejected. Porn is already easy enough to access. And most of these apps are pulling from a server anyway, so people are basically paying for a browser that can only pull limited content.
If there has to be adult content maybe the answer isn’t ratings, but a category, so developers don’t have to feel like they have to produce those apps to compete. I think Apple knows that if had not pulled this app the App Store would look like Adult Friend Finder in about a month.
Or maybe even a separate App Store entirely, basically the Cinemax App Store. Similar to the idea of the Gold App Store for more expensive, but high value apps that get buried by .99 apps. It’s difficult to create a single channel that contains content for 4 year olds, but also in some cases porn, because no rating system would be good enough. Especially for an App Store that serves a global audience.
I’d have to fill out a 50 question form for each market. In France, full frontal is cool, but in Saudi Arabia, I can’t show ankles. The entire definition of porn itself is completely subject to cultural interpretation. “Written material or images intended only to arouse”. In some countries that would ban bikini apps.
Apple is a so called “underdog” monopoly
Would an image of Jesus on a cross be considered a graphic violence?
That is a very good point that most would simply gloss over under the banner of religion.
So many appholes at Apple.
Apple has become like Blockbuster Video and Wal-Mart with their corporate censorship. I’d be surprised if iTunes sells uncensored Eminem.
Only one song comes to mind whenever I consider making a purchase through iTunes: Jailbreak.
Don’t they already have that? Adult / Censored version?
Maybe parental control was just meant for bikini pictures and tease. While on the other end, Apple can monopolize the sales of nudity and sexual content via iTunes.
“According to Apple, the app in question was tricky and added content to the app after Apple approved it. But it was just more topless girls, and so the main point remains the same.”
The new girls had bigger boobs O_O
What’s funny and ironic is that Apple was started by free sex and drug stoked hippies back in the day when it was cool to do both.
And now look at them…
A bunch of NAZI Prudes trying to regulate morality but clueless as to how to go about it.
Figures…
That’s Apple.
My view is if people want pornographic material they should be left to get it from other sources than the app store. Personally I don’t want to see it, it’s got nothing to do with being prudish, I just don’t want to be exposed to it while browsing the app store. Let those desperate for a w@nk jailbreak their iPhones and get it via Cydia or whatever, or better still, get a girlfriend and do it for real rather than fantasising over mere imagery.
yeah, well. apple sucks, didnae ye ken?
also stop whining you want “more granularity” or “better controls”. that’s just NOT what apple is. apple is all about making the easy super-easy and the hard impossible. apple sells appliances for the technically challenged. that’s their whole schtick.