Adult Content Reaches the iPhone

The adult industry has been moving Internet forward since its inception.  The driving force behind many of the advances we take for granted today.  Increasing connection speeds were largely driven by the need for adult sites to be able to display large, high resolution images, rich media and video content.  Live streaming was pioneered by the adult video industry as a new way of consuming live adult content online.  It’s not to say these things wouldn’t have come about anyway, but there development was sped up by the investment of large adult content providers.

Now the same could be happening with the iPhone and iPhone applications as the world of adult content reaches their users for the first time.  Thanks to the iPhone’s new operating system which has the important inclusion of parental controls Apple has its first sanctioned app providing adult content.
The application in question is Hottest Girls which previously displayed photos of scantily-clad women. Since the new release, it now comes with fewer articles of clothing and according to the App Store “You must be at least 17 years old to download this game”.

So is this the beginning of something big?  Or the beginning of the end?
If history is anything to go by, the adult industry will undoubtedly speed iPhone application development and release more and more complex and innovative applications, this can only be good for the platform and the future of mobile technologies.  But without a system for filtering of monitoring these applications there is a risk the App Store could become over run with pornography and adult content.  Apple could obviously filter this content, but that would require a lot of work on their part.  The parental control system is surely not enough to keep these applications from reaching minors.
Econsultancy thinks the “question for Apple is how far it’s willing to go.”  And goes on to say it is a question of short term profit versus longevity of the product: “Adult content on the iPhone would almost certainly be a significant profit center but if Apple goes too far and the App Store becomes seen as the virtual equivalent of a filth peddler, all bets are off”.
Whichever way I look at it, it looks like adult content is going to become more prevalent on the iPhone. Apple therefore needs to decide how far it is willing to go, and consider the broader picture of filtering and longevity of their product.

Econsultancy article here