★ ‘Hot Tub’, a Hardcore Porn App for iOS, Hits AltStore in the E.U.

From an AltStore announcement yesterday:

iPhone turns 18 this year, which means it’s finally old enough for some more ~mature~ apps…

Introducing Hot Tub by c1d3r, the world’s 1st Apple-approved porn app!

The screenshots and video previews are blurred-for-obfuscation by default, but Hot Tub’s website makes pretty clear that the content it aggregates is serious porn. Figuratively speaking, they’re not fucking around. Literally speaking, that’s exactly what they’re aggregating — including an in-app “teens” channel.

Describing Hot Tub as “Apple-approved” is cheeky, if we’re being generous, and downright misleading if we’re not. What they mean is that Hot Tub was duly notarized by Apple — an ostensibly technical, not editorial, review that encompasses (using terms from Apple’s own documentation) accuracy, functionality, safety, security, and privacy. I say “ostensibly” there because Apple has, controversially, refused to notarize apps for other reasons, including in November when it rejected for notarization the classic Mac emulator Mini vMac, on the grounds that Mini vMac both violated Apple’s software licensing terms and misused Apple’s trademarks.

But pornography has pretty much always been Apple’s canonical example for the sort of content they do not want in the App Store, and thus — because Apple’s stance is that the App Store ought to be the sole source for consumer software for iOS — the sort of content they do not consider appropriate for native apps. You’ve been able to watch porno on your iPhone since the first day it shipped — a full year ahead of the App Store — by using the web. Apple’s line has always been clear: native apps = Apple-approved; the web = anything goes. (That same line goes for payment processing for digital goods and services as well.)

Back in 2010, MG Siegler (then at TechCrunch) reported on an email exchange between Steve Jobs and customer Matthew Browing. Browing wrote to Jobs:

It appears that more and more Apple is determining for its consumers what content they should be able to receive. For instance, the blocking of Mark Fiore’s comic app (due to being political satire) or blocking of what Apple considers to be porn.

I’m all for keeping porn out of kids hands. Heck — I’m all for ensuring that I don’t have to see it unless I want to. But… that’s what parental controls are for. Put these types of apps into categories and allow them to be blocked by their parents should they want to.

Apple’s role isn’t moral police — Apple’s role is to design and produce really cool gadgets that do what the consumer wants them to do.

Jobs responded:

Fiore’s app will be in the store shortly. That was a mistake. However, we do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone. Folks who want porn can buy an Android phone.

(The man knew how to write an email.)

Fast-forward to the present, and Apple has been citing pornography as one of its reasons for adamantly opposing the EU’s DMA from the very beginning. Last year, after the DMA went into effect, FastCompany’s Michael Grothaus interviewed App Store chief Phil Schiller:

Schiller is quick to point out that despite these new security measures, there are limits to the protections that Apple can provide to users who allow alternative app marketplaces to operate on their iPhones. The company has virtually no control over the content of apps from those marketplaces — even if that content is objectionable or harmful.

“Ultimately, there are things that we have not allowed on our App Store — things that we didn’t think would be safe or appropriate,” Schiller says. “It will not be our decision whether those other marketplaces have the same terms and limitations.”

So yes, for the first time, apps dedicated to pornography can be run on the iPhone. This should be something parents are aware of, because the DMA does not give Apple the legal right to forbid certain types of app stores from operating on its platform, nor does Apple have the ability to prevent a child from downloading such an app store onto their iPhone.

And, lastly, with regard to Hot Tub and AltStore in particular, Apple issued this statement to media outlets, including Daring Fireball, yesterday:

We are deeply concerned about the safety risks that hardcore porn apps of this type create for EU users, especially kids. This app and others like it will undermine consumer trust and confidence in our ecosystem that we have worked for more than a decade to make the best in the world. Contrary to the false statements made by the marketplace developer, we certainly do not approve of this app and would never offer it in our App Store. The truth is that we are required by the European Commission to allow it to be distributed by marketplace operators like AltStore and Epic who may not share our concerns for user safety.

So, no, Apple neither approves of Hot Tub in particular, nor the ability to distribute native porn apps in general. Everyone involved with both AltStore and Hot Tub knows this, but they also know that framing it this way — the announcement came with this banner graphic promoting Hot Tub as “The First Apple-Approved Porn App” — is a good way to get headlines. (The Verge: “The First ‘Approved’ iPhone Porn App Is Coming to Europe” — which aside from the mild clickbait slant, misleadingly conflates “Europe” with “the EU”.) But there’s some undeniable schadenfreude seeing Apple on the wrong end of notarization being used as a tool to convey subject-matter approval. [Update: And now it’s become a thing, where AltStore is sticking to their guns that Hot Tub, having been notarized, is thus “approved” by Apple. C’mon.]

If we want to get nitty-gritty over verbs, I’d argue that Apple accepts apps — like Hot Tub — for notarization, not approves. Begrudging acceptance is more of a thing than begrudging approval.

But, as Apple itself emphasizes in its statement, the DMA requires them to allow it. I’ve seen no celebratory tweets or announcements from European Commission officials celebrating the availability of Hot Tub. Just crickets chirping. When it comes to native iOS porn apps, the EU now has an unequivocal advantage over not just the United States but the rest of the world. You’d think they’d want to celebrate the achievement.