It appears as though Apple is making some drastic changes to the iPhone App Store apparently eliminating 5,000 applications or about 3% of the iTunes App Store in an ongoing deletion that started February 18th.
Now before San Franciscans go crazy thinking that Yelp is gone from the iPhone or iBART has suddenly vanished, you can calm down. Those aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Instead, Apple’s purge is related to the company’s change of policy in regards to sexual content on the App Store and the 5,000 applications that have been removed all were flagged as inappropriate.
One of those applications was called Wobble iBoobs and I am still waiting for someone to explain to me how that application was downloaded 970,000 times. Anyway, that application’s developer started this whirlwind of events by stating that through conversations with Apple, the company had eliminated his application and about 4,999 others. The reason?
Well, men and women wearing bikinis are inappropriate as are words with a sexual connotation and obviously Wooble iBoobs fits that category.
Backing up his claim is the fact that AppShopper.com data is congruent with what appears to be happening:
That number was supported by tracking from AppShopper.com, which found that more that nearly 4,000 applications were removed last Friday, Feb. 18. While the level of removals is typically about 100 per day, the total remained uncharacteristically high over the weekend.
Oddly enough, applications like the Playboy app and Adult Sex Life are still available.
Hopefully some harmless applications don’t get mixed up in the process but this should be a welcomed cleansing of pointless clutter that sometimes makes it hard to browse the iPhone App Store. It also is probably a cleanup for next month’s release of the iPad.
If you want one of those San Francisco, there is a rumor pre-orders might be going down on the 25th but if not, be sure to go here, find the closest Apple Store to you in SF and get down there in March.
For more info, contact Adam: admillios@gmail.com
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