Do You Care If Your Smartphone Has Porn Apps?

Do You Care If Your Smartphone Has Porn Apps?Microsoft recently announced that adult content will not be allowed in the Windows Phone 7 marketplace—which means 2 of the dominant players in the smartphone market have come out against porn. Do you care?

There’s no question that the move is a slap in the face to the adult industry (whose products, one might add, have probably helped to sell a few smartphones), there’s also the uncomfortable matter of censorship in any form. But are you, the consumer, greatly affected by the ban on adult apps? Do Apple and Microsoft’s puritan attitudes have you running for the more open (and thus pornier) pastures of Google’s Android universe? Or are you content to stay in the iPhone’s walled garden, getting your porn elsewhere? (Because, let’s face it, even without adult content in the app store, there’s still plenty of ways to sexy up your iPhone…if you know what we mean.)

We, for one, are just dying to know.


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  • Sam Adams

    How about ifap.to..

    You don’t need a porn app. It’s called fucking google.

  • Samo

    I love how Steve jobs says there’ll be no porn on his iPad, when it comes with a browser…

    Sex sells, Steve-O!!! Embrace the boobies!

    Edit: I also wish to add that for as long as men are horny (read: breathing), there’s always going to be porn :D

  • hodayathink is walking in the glow of love

    I care about my smartphone allowing me to run whatever I want on it. Porn included. Android could not allow “porn” apps in Android Market and I wouldn’t care, because I can still run whatever I want. Apple (and possibly Microsoft) have a closed wall and want to decide what I can and cannot run. And I hate that.

    And I’m also not over Apple’s hypocrisy of allowing people like FHM and Playboy and SI (swimsuit edition) to have apps while simultaneously banning anything that they deem “adult”.

  • PACKFAN4LIFE

    No. It’s really simple iPads, iPods(move of them), iPhones, Android devices all accept media files. If I need porn movies, images ect. I sync the damn things to it and poof. Porn.

    IDK about you guys/gals, but I usually leave my porn at home. On the road? Nah.

  • Myotheralt

    The internet is for porn: [www.youtube.com]

    The Android Phone is for Porn: [www.youtube.com]

  • Anonymous

    It’s Android only for me, for this reason and so many others.

    That said, I probably wouldn’t have actual porn apps on my phone. Too many people always want to play with my phone, and I don’t necessarily feel like sharing my private joys with them. Still, as Hodaya points out, it’s the principle of the thing.

  • Anonymous

    Yes, we should all be concerned about this, for three reasons:

    First, this is about more than just porn. Apple also has banned apps with satirical depictions of public officials, and apps displaying women in bikinis or lingerie. Apple has already gone beyond banning porn, demonstrating that it can ban any content it wants for any reason.

    Second, as more and more platforms imitate the “walled garden” of Apple’s iDevices, control over content will rest in the hands of a small group of gatekeepers, who will be easy for special interests to influence.

    Finally, what will happen if Apple and Microsoft extend this model to the desktop, replacing OSX and Windows with operating systems that force consumers to buy all applications through their stores? This will give two companies increasing power over what applications and content we can consume. Is this better for us than the present free-market model?

    Sure, you may still be able to get your porn now, but if this trend continues, that may not be true in the future.

  • Anonymous

    Apparently, no one who complains about porn-free apps has ever heard of this newfangled thingamajig called the World Wide Web.

    It’s pretty cool, you guys should check it out.

  • daniel7860

    it would be nice, but it’s not android for me.

  • Shawn Pero

    Interesting question to pose, but it’s being posed to the wrong group. Nobody reading Fleshbot (or for that matter Gizmodo, where I followed this article from) would care about it.

  • despisethesun

    For me, it’s not so much that I need porn apps as I dislike the censorship. If a platform allows sideloading, then I don’t give a shit what the official app store (or market or world or whatever) locks out, I can get my porn or satire or whatever through other channels. But in the case of the iPhone, where there’s no legitimate alternative (jailbreaking’s legality is questionable in some jurisdictions), then they should stay out of the censorship game. I’m an adult, I can make my own choices, thanks. That doesn’t mean there should be no categorisation or ratings to help parents lock out that content that would be inappropriate for their children, but it does mean that if I want to use my phone to access something that some puritanical fuck disagrees with but isn’t illegal, then I should be ok to do it. Because it’s already been shown that porn is not the only thing that Apple wants to keep out of the App Store, and I doubt Microsoft will be any more benevolent.

    Of course, this doesn’t really matter to me, since I’ve voted with my money by not buying an iPhone. If you think Apple’s (and Microsoft’s, or whoever, really) policies are a problem and yet you continue to buy their products, you really have nobody to blame but yourself. It’s not like there are no alternatives.

  • Xeno

    I care. Mostly because I’m against almost all forms of censorship but also because I like boobies.

  • Edge767

    I’m 43. Screw Apple and MS for telling me what I can/cannot put on the telephone I am paying for. I won’t buy their phones as long as they censor content.

  • Cin

    Just to point out, WebOS has no restriction on app content either, so Android’s not the only game in town.

  • The_Geek_Greek

    It’s not about having porn apps on your smartphone. It’s about having the CHOICE to have them or not. The way things are right now where someone else dictates what you should or shouldn’t do is unacceptable I think.
    On the other hand though, having an overflow of porn apps would be unacceptable as well.
    I guess all I’m saying is, everything in moderation.

  • pekosROB

    If you could watch flash video porn on your (non jailbroken) iPhone, then I could see why this would be less of a deal.

    But you can’t. So how else are you to consume your porn if you want? If I can’t access porn on my phone it’s not a dealbreaker, but like many have said you should be able to choose what you put on your phone or device.

    That being said, damn Lux, you’re a hottie and you write about porn and tech. Are there more people like you where you come from? :-P

  • John Hazard

    I can’t vote in your poll because I want porn on my iPhone. I like porn, and I want a safe, secure* way of enjoying it on the privacy and convenience of my iPhone.

    (*by which I mean it can’t be seen by my kids. Or my girlfriend, unless she’s in the mood for such things.)

  • Assassin_Kensei

    This is why smart phones have internet browsers. you don’t need apps.

  • Raziel66

    It’s a big deal for me. I understand why they don’t want adult apps in their respective marketplaces, but at least give me a viable route to take in order to get it. I should be able to put any app I want on my phone.

    Definitely not switching to Android though. No thanks. Google hasn’t done a very good job in keeping the Android versions in sync with each other… some can get OS updates while others can’t. Not a good sign.

  • leg_man

    If you pay for a device, you should be able to do what you want with it as long as you’re not breaking any laws or harming other people. This is the same reason I don’t buy my music from iTunes – I paid for it, and I don’t want anyone telling me what I can do with that music as long as what I choose to do is legal.

    As many have already stated, this is definitely a free speech/censorship issue, but unfortunately there is little legal recourse. The First Amendment only protects us from government censorship and these are actions by two private companies. I find the fact that they are two of the largest companies in the world to be disconcerting.

    While it is true that there are other options at the moment for mobile devices and mobile operating systems, how certain can one be that this will always be the case? Companies are bought and sold and merged all the time, and what happens if Google sees Microsoft and Apple enjoy commercial success under these bans? Wouldn’t it also make sense for Google to institute such a policy if it felt it was in the best interest of the company? It all comes down to dollar and cents, people. It is entirely possible we may see a day when there is no readily available alternative to these “locked” operating systems.

    If Apple can block flash content and place restrictions on downloaded music, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to imagine it could develop an operating system that could block any adult content if Steve Jobs really put his mind to it. If people are so concerned about children accessing this content, then don’t give them a phone capable of accessing it. There’s no reason a pre-teen needs to be surfing the web via 3G or downloading apps in class, anyway. Give your kids a phone with limited capabilities – say, making calls and sending texts – and call it a day. If the kids must have a smartphone, then put some kind of parental controls on content. (I assume there’s some program out there that can be downloaded, similar to ones on computers.)

    This may be about porn at the moment, but there’s no reason this censorship can’t expand into other topics. Would anyone care if Apple were able to prevent you from watching an anti-Apple documentary or reading an anti-Apple book on your iPad? Maybe I’m just contrarian and stubbornly independent, but I REALLY don’t like someone forcing their ideals and beliefs on me like this. I’m an adult and fully capable of using my own brain, thank you.

  • Anonymous

    I don’t own a smartphone, but I really don’t care to watch porn on teeny-weeny eyestraino vision screens. Nor do I feel the necessity to have it ‘on-the-go’.

    Now that said, some people do, and I certainly don’t think they should be deprived of that right, no matter how strange I think it is, and especially considering they pay for it.

  • Anonymous

    Of course I don’t care. An “app” to do the google searches for me? What a waste of money! Also, I don’t really watch porn… It just sort of happens all randomly… Curse the furries!

  • Anonymous

    This is all much ado about nothing. As other commenters have said, you can browse porn sites to your hearts content, you just use the browser on the phone (in the case of the iPhone, it’ safari). You can download porn, you can view it, etc. The fact that you can’t download and buy a dedicated application for it doesn’t stop you and in fact saves you money. So this is really no big deal.

  • Boris Gershman

    Honestly I can see why Jobs and now Microsoft want to go this way. I’m the proud owner of a new HTC Incredible and its kind of disheartening to scroll thru the app store looking for legitimate apps and games and have cheap “sexy girl” apps all over the place. I love the openness of the appstore, but I wish I had atleast an option to turn them off. I mean, what about kids using this phone for example? Or if you’re showing your boss the app store or something like that.

  • Anonymous

    Android has flash, so I dont mind.

  • OmegaSin

    I guess Google is my top dog right now.

  • Robb Nunya

    As long as I can filter out the crap, I’m ok with it being there. I say crap because the Android market is deluged with “Sexy Asian Wallpapers #3344” and the like. I’d like the market on the phone to allow default filters, so that I could just put -Sexy, or better yet, filter out an author.

  • Anonymous

    Now, I’m all for freedom and whatnot, but I can completely understand Apple’s decision to censor the porn apps. (This was brought to my attention while reading comments on another site, and it makes perfect sense, to be honest.)

    Apple takes a cut of the money from the apps it sells. This means that if adult apps are being sold on the App store, Apple is taking a cut of that profit, and essentially making money directly from pornography. Yes, they’re doing it to protect their own image, but that’s entirely understandable. It’s not that they think that allowing people to see porn with Apps is necessarily bad, it’s that they don’t want to literally be profiting from the porn industry because that would be harmful to their image.

    To those people who really do want to look at porn on their smartphone (and I don’t understand why you’d want to look at porn on such a tiny screen), there’s always the web browser that’s included. And that’s free.

  • conshmillo

    In six months it will be all html5 and porn will be everywhere, so it does NOT matter.

  • bookwench

    I dislike censorship and have nothing against porn. I may never use the feature, but damn, I don’t want some company trying to go all moralistic on me. My ethics and morals are my business, not my phone’s, and I don’t like my technology acting holier-than-thou.

  • freetobelee

    i can’t imagine a native application can offer anything more than a website or webapp in the way of porn.

  • Josh_Geyer

    On the one hand, I hate the puritanical attitude of americans regarding sex and nudity.

    On the other hand, have you ever tried to jack off to porn on a 4″ screen?? Seriously, you’d kind of have to be a weirdo for porn to be a deciding factor in your cell phone purchase….

  • Jerome Pearson

    It’s not about morality at all. It’s a dead simple financial equation. The money to be made from porn apps is not as great as the tainting of the Apple brand as anything less than family friendly that would occur if porn apps were offered. It’s the porn industries fault for having poor content. Porn is so fragmented and unoriginal these days that Jobs can afford to snub them.

  • Asha L Kydd

    What a joke. If people don’t want porn apps, then they just don’t purchase them. It is really that simple.
    Microsoft doesn’t need to go out and advertise that they offer porn apps to have them.
    I personally have no interest in porn apps for my smart phone, but I know that I would be less interested in a product that is already known for censorship.

  • piggythewonderdog

    Much has been said about how the adult industry has been at the forefront of technology. Adult media was influential with VHS, with the Internet, etc.

    But the adult industry has not been present in the development of smartphones and tablets, because of the powerful grip of proprietary content controls initiated by companies like Apple and Microsoft. The adult industry is a follower, not a leader here, despite the millions in potential revenue.

    So it’s time for the adult media companies to be proactive. I would think that the marketing opportunities are tremendous, as well as the technological.

    A while ago, I posted an idea that I had about an iPad app for the adult industry that would’ve been hot. [fleshbot.com]
    (Lux agreed, and maybe she can pitch it to some VIPs).

    Why doesn’t the adult industry come out and aggressively embrace adult-friendly smartphones and tablets that aren’t owned by Apple or Microsoft? Why aren’t the porn moguls working with smartphone/tablet manufacturers who might actually *want* the massive amounts of revenue for the taking?

    Of course, adult firms do need to develop apps that take advantage of the unique technological features of these devices. If say, Android, or whatever Palm/HP has coming out is open to adult apps, the smart thing to do is for the adult industry to co-market and embrace these products, develop unique adult-oriented apps, taking market share away from Apple & Microsoft.

    Then the discussion isn’t about censorship anymore, it’s about capitalism.

  • NotEnglishSpeaker

    I dont wanna porn, I dont usually see porn and the only porn app i have in my android is just used to show that i CAN HAVE IT.

    But I really care about the freedom to be able to intall whatever i want in my phone.

    That means no censorship in App Stotre and being able to install something outside the App Store.

    It´s not about porn is about freedom (and the feeling that IM the owner of my phone)

    That´s why i never han an (R.I.P.) Ipod, I wanna plug an USB cable and be able to copy whatever i want without having to hack.

  • Anonymous

    There’s certainly a lot to be said for choice and, like many commenters mention, the freedom to put what you choose on your phone (really, the biggest problem at stake with the iPhone). I can get with Microsoft’s decision not to allow adult apps on their marketplace, but I don’t see any convincing reason why you shouldn’t be allowed to get apps onto your phone from /other places/.

    It’s not like I get all my PC software from the Microsoft Windows Store, right?

    I’ve no idea if Windows mobile phones need to be jailbroken like iPhones do, but if they don’t then that’s really not a big deal. MS have the right to choose what content they provide, you get the right to choose what you put on your phone… everybody wins. If Hustler or Playboy or XTube want to put apps on your phone, they can advertise on their own sites, so there’s no chance you’ll be exposed to pornography unless, you know, you’re actually already consuming it in the first place.

    The thing I don’t get is why Apple has a problem with that *shrug*

  • hodayathink is walking in the glow of love

    I just clicked the “Later Discussions” link on Fleshbot for the first time ever. I’m almost so happy I could cry.

  • Lazarus511

    I wouldn’t want a porn app for my phone. But it pisses me off when someone else tries to make that decision for me.

  • leviathan

    I care but I was given an iPhone and I plan to keep using it.

  • eJeremy

    I got a spam text message yesterday…WTF? I DON’T want spam on my smartphone. I DO want the option to appreciate Adult Entertainment apps if I so choose.

  • amowls

    Um, you can still view porn on your phone, you just can’t buy a porn ap.

    BOOHOOOOO you can’t pay for porn, THE WORLD IS OVER.

  • Mr.Gawn

    I think…… if you want to wipe your ass with your phone, you should be allowed…

    meaning… it shouldnt really matter what others are doing with their phones (to the point that its legal of course)… Ot each his won…

  • drunkexpatwriter

    My general feeling is that my phone when not being used for phone calls is used for looking at stuff when I’m out and about. Am I really going to look at a sasha grey video in my neighborhood cafe?

    I look at porn when I’m at home and if I’m at home I’m going to look at it on my computer which has a much, much bigger monitor.

  • drunkexpatwriter

    I’ve been thinking about this a lot since it was first posted and have decided that while I think it’s irrational for Jobs and Gates to keep porn aps off the phones they sell, I think they have the right to be irrational in that way.

    The reason being that when the aps are sold through their stores they are, essentially, the people selling them and people shouldn’t have to sell stuff that squiks them no matter how irrational the squick is.

    I say this even though I’d love it if they did allow porn apps, because it’s something that I’d be able to get my clients to pay me to write ad copy for.

    But, I think I have to stick to the squick factor because my clients stick to their squicks and I stick to my own.

    I’ll give you an example. One of my clients owns rent boy agencies in New York, London, Paris, Rio and Bangkok.

    Every few weeks he gets at least one female contacting him who either wants to have sex with one of his rent boys (this is less common) or watch two of his rent boys fuck each other (much more common.)

    He turns them down because when he first brought up the idea to his workers a bunch of them were like “no way am I going to have sex with a girl watching and probably masturbating.”

    This squick is irrational but he decided it was good business to keep his employees happy and now won’t even consider it.

    On an even more regular basis he’ll get clients contacting him for transsexual escorts (chicks with dicks) and while he could easily offer that (particularly in Thailand) he won’t do it – because the idea grosses him out. Again, this is not a rational reaction, but it’s his business and his choice.

    And, I can say for myself that I honor my own personal squicks. I’ve written gay bareback sites, water sports sites, transexual sites, rape fantasy sites, posed as a “male chastity belt mistress” online and told dudes they needed to be locked up because their dicks are too small.

    But, I’ve turned down every single scat and CBT site I’ve been offered because the idea of shit in a sexual context or getting kicked in the balls squicks me the fuck out.

    Again, I’ll tell a guy that he deserves to be pissed on and have his cock locked away forever, but I won’t tell him he should be shit on and his wife should kick him in the balls.

    There is no rationality to my decision, but determining how I will make money is my decision to make.