For those of you who are easily offended, stop reading right now. Otherwise, well, you have to know where to draw the line, and Apple apparently does. Flatulence is in – jiggling breasts are out. That is the message behind Apple’s banning the newly minted iPhone iBoobs application, while iFart has rocketed to become the #1 in the iPhone appstore (the applications store).
iBoobs was an iPhone application that allowed users to shake their iPhone, and watch a pair of bikini-clad breasts jiggle. Apple pulled the application, saying that it contained “objectionable content.”
Contrast that to the equally newly minted iFart application, which causes your iPhone to emit a noise that sounds like flatulence. iFart has quickly acheived near-cult status; in less than two weeks it has zoomed to become #1 in the Apple iPhone store.
So why is it that Apple approved rude body noises, but banned breasts?
Joel Comm, CEO of InfoMedia, the company which released the iFart application, posits that “Apple is attempting to navigate their way through the app approval process with great caution. Just as they applied a review process to flatulence apps, they now have to figure out where to set the boundaries on fiction and “adult-themed” apps like iBoobs. It’s their store. They have the right to accept or reject whichever apps they want. However, I think Apple realizes that developers suffer from lack of clarity. Hopefully they will come up with a categorization method that will allow most apps to peacefully coexist.”
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Or maybe iBoobs was just too unPC, while iFart is just, well, tasteless.
Tasteless or not, InfoMedia has hit a home run with iFart. Concludes Comm, “As for iFart, we knew we had a hit the moment we conceived the idea this past summer. It’s a shame it took so long to see the light of day, but global flatulence supremecy was always within our reach. I’m thrilled that iFart Mobile is bringing laughter to so many people.”
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After 300 million downloads, surely the territory is no longer completely uncharted? If they don’t have a good idea of what’s selling and what’s not, or of what’s objectionable and to what proportion of the customers, then someone at Apple needs to take a course and learn how to analyze sales.
I have enough confidence in Apple to believe that they are doing that analysis, probably on an hourly basis, so this territory is well-charted.
The fact that it’s only 6 months old is so significantly offset by the number of downloads that it is definitely not a factor. Companies in business for 10 years with 1 million downloads do not have better-charted territory by virtue of longevity.
Quantity vastly outweighs time for this sort of thing. The number of sales, not the time taken to achieve them, is what’s important and 300 million downloads provides mountains of data to mine.
“They [Apple] have the right to accept or reject whichever apps they want. However, I think Apple realizes that developers suffer from lack of clarity.”
That about sums it up. Keep in mind that the App Store is not even 6 months old, has 2.5 million downloads a day and has seen more than 300 million downloads total. This is completely uncharted territory, and Apple, like any other company, can make mistakes.
It’ll get ironed out… pot shots are just a byproduct of their unprecedented success.