Apple pull photo sharing apps: too many nude pictures

500px are a Toronto photo sharing startup and they reported that both of their applications 500px for iOS and ISO500 have been pulled from the Apple Application store due to concerns over nude photos.

Both of the applications are popular, and have acquired over 1 million downloads, according to a report that Techcrunch issued. Apple are concerned about people finding nude photographs too easily.

Both programs were removed yesterday after an updated version of 500px for iOS was in the hands of an App Store reviewer.

The Apple reviewer spoke to Apple and said that the update shouldn't be approved because the software allowed users to search for nude photos. 500px Evgeny Tchebotarev told Techcrunch that the company made it difficult for users to search for explicit images. Techcrunch said “New users couldn’t just launch the app and locate the nude images, he says, the way you can today on other social photo-sharing services like Instagram or Tumblr, for instance. Instead, the app defaulted to a “safe search” mode where these types of photos were hidden. To shut off safe search, 500px actually required its users to visit their desktop website and make an explicit change.”

By default, the software safe but Tchebotarev said ‘Some people are mature enough to see these images'. Apple clearly didn't think so.

Tchebotarev added “We don’t allow pornographic images. If something is purely pornographic, it’s against our terms and it’s deleted.” This means that the nude images, were obviously tasteful, a point verified by Tchebotarev. ‘Its not about pornography, its about fine art'.

The company have had to make adjustments to their software to get it back on the App Store. They are still working on this.

Apple said “The app was removed from the App Store for featuring pornographic images and material, a clear violation of our guidelines. We also received customer complaints about possible child pornography. We’ve asked the developer to put safeguards in place to prevent pornographic images and material in their app.”

Kitguru says: Apple come down with a heavy hand on nude imagery, regardless of whether it can be classed as ‘artistic' or not.

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