Developer Says Apple Emailed Explicit Porn with App Rejection

APPLE VALLEY, Anywhere—Apple pissed off a developer this week when it let him know the app his team had submitted to the Apple App Store had been rejected by emailing a pornographic picture to his office along with the rejection. Rather than the rejection itself, it seems it was the manner of communication that irked Carl Smith, from nGen Works, who recounted the episode yesterday in a blog post headed, "Apple's Porn Policy: Do as we say, not as we do." Apple apparently did not email the explicit image of a "guy masturbating" for pure shock value, says Smith, who explains via Medium, "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. Then send us some pictures and say take a look at these! Except they said, 'Please see the attached screenshot for more information.' So with no warning… "CLICK — Well hello there handsome!" Despite that generous explanation, Smith still has a problem with the obvious hypocrisy exhibited by whoever sent the image, complaining, "Apple sent us pornography without trying to mask it and with no warning of what we were going to see. This means they exposed employees of my company to things Apple themselves said was objectionable. How is this acceptable?" He then mentions a few obvious methods they could have used to deliver the message, including blurring or pixilating the genitalia, or at least letting them know what they were about to see! "But no," he exclaims, "they just sent porn to our employees without warning. Porn that our employees found offensive. Which brings up the question: Who’s responsible? "If an employee had sent porn," he continues, "we would fire the employee. If a client had sent porn, we would fire the client. But when Apple sends porn you can’t fire them without changing your entire business model. They are in a position of power." So, in addition to the hypocrisy, Smith also seems to have an even bigger problem with an implied power play that only adds insult to injury, to which he responds. "So as an employer my choice is to not work with Apple and by default fire all of the iOS devs. Or do nothing and hope it doesn’t happen again. At which point I have now made a statement to my employees that Apple is allowed to send us porn because they are the gatekeepers to our prosperity. Neither of these choices are acceptable. "Instead I am going to try and get Apple to change their policy," he continues. "I don’t think for a second that anyone at Apple thought it would be fun to send us porn. More than likely this is part of a policy of sending screenshots of violations to help app developers fix problems and get in the store. But in this case it (forgive the pun) exposes everyone to an uncomfortable reality." What Smith had the class to refrain from mentioning is the fact that porn can also be surfed directly from iPhones, iPads and iComputers in all their expensive and routinely upgraded variety.