Pornographic content is forbidden in the Apple App Store, but Apple seems to be OK with sending porn to developers who submit their apps for review, according to one who received an inappropriate pic.
“It turns out Apple thought the best way to tell us our app could be used to surf porn was to surf for porn using our app,” Carl Smith, a Florida developer for nGen Works, wrote in a blog post on Medium (NSFW link).
The email, which Smith shared with ReadWrite, appears to be from the Apple app review team and includes an attached photo of a man’s genitalia, but no warning of the enclosed content. This is the kind of thing that can create a hostile work environment for nGen employees whose jobs necessitate reading emails from Apple.
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Smith suggested a number of alternatives he thought Apple could have used to indicate a concern about explicit content. The team could have sent nGen Works a search term to try, or even warn in advance what the emailed photo was of. Instead, Smith said the developers who opened the email had no warning that it would be graphic.
“What I want from Apple is for them to address the issue and put a policy in place that prevents an App store reviewer from sending pornographic images as an example of a issue,” he said. “They could have easily masked out the bad part of the photo or told us a phrase to search. At the very least warn someone before they open the attachments that they aren’t safe for work.”
“Specifically, we noticed your app contains objectionable content at time of review. Please see the attached screenshot/s for more information,” the Apple review team email reads, before offering a downloadable file that turned out to be the genitalia photo in question.
Smith said solution is hypocritical of the company. Of course nGen’s app, which allows users to enlarge, save, and search for Instagram photos, would be capable of browsing any photo that exists on Instagram already.
“This is a double standard,” Smith told ReadWrite. “If I type bad words into Safari I am going to see bad things. So I think Apple needs to address that.”
Smith said he doubted Apple’s “upper echelons” would approve of this action, and encouraged readers to spread the word.
We’ve contacted Apple for a comment on this allegation.
Photo via Shutterstock
