Apple allows return of '500px' to iOS App Store

Posted:
in iPhone edited January 2014
Photo sharing application 500px has returned to the iOS App Store with new restrictions limiting access to pornographic content.

The application was pulled from the App Store by Apple last week, due to a claimed breach of rules regarding pornographic material. Prior to its removal last week, 500px had been available in the App Store for more than 16 months.

But on Tuesday, 500px returned to the App Store with a new version that aims to address some of the concerns Apple had with the software. The updated version is rated for users ages 17 and up, and it also adds a "Report this photo" button to help filter out inappropriate content.

500px


Version 2.0.3 of 500px also fixes an issue that would redirect a user after logging in. It also addresses a problem that resulted in partially downloaded photos.

Oleg Gutsol, co-founder of 500px, said to TechCrunch that his team has "worked closely with Apple over the last week to address their requests."

The reappearance of 500px comes as Twitter's new six-second-video sharing application Vine was removed from Apple's "Editors' Choice" section of the App Store. On Monday, a pornographic clip was briefly promoted within the Vine app, which was blamed on "human error." Despite the blunder, Vine remains available in the App Store.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 19
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    So what about the Tumbler App? Access to limitless pictures of naked women (or men if you prefer). No age restriction warnings or whatever. Just sayin' :no:

    Or even OMG ... Safari! /shock horror
  • Reply 2 of 19
    You're forgetting the iPhone itself! It has a camera that you could record porn with accidentally.

    Apple should do something about this and automatically remove offending sequences!
  • Reply 3 of 19
    nagrommenagromme Posts: 2,834member
    Good work, Apple! The App Store doesn't need to be cluttered with apps able to display images freely to people who choose to view them. What it needs is more brutal bloody gore carried out by child gamers!

    Just two problems, Apple: 1) Your hands-off policy when it comes to the web. You allow the entire Internet to be accessed in Safari! Safari is a dinosaur and should be eliminated in favor of all-violence no-human-bodies browsers.

    And 2) Your iTunes movies and TV shows. Don't those need to be censored even more than apps? Get on it! You're good about offering the streaming mindless gore people want, but where are you when it comes to deleting skin from critically acclaimed films? No need to remove the entire movie, just cut to some stock footage of tropical fish, or maybe a church sermon. We can't be trusted to choose what we view, and we know we need your help! Don't abandon us, Apple!

    Parental Controls and content ratings are not enough! Because we can CHOOSE what content to allow! Hint: we want choice when it comes to violence. We don't want choice when it comes to nudity.
  • Reply 4 of 19
    nagromme wrote: »
    Good work, Apple! The App Store doesn't need to be cluttered with apps able to display images freely to people who choose to view them. What it needs is more brutal bloody gore carried out by child gamers!

    I don't recall any system that requires you to validate with Apple that you are a adult so nothing is stopping you from downloading any app you want. Well not from Apple. Mommy and Daddy turning on restrictions and limiting you is not Apple's fault. Nor it is their fault Daddy caught you searching for titties and turned off Safari.
  • Reply 5 of 19

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post



    So what about the Tumbler App? Access to limitless pictures of naked women (or men if you prefer). No age restriction warnings or whatever. Just sayin' image



    Or even OMG ... Safari! /shock horror


     


    Quote:

    Originally Posted by lightknight View Post



    You're forgetting the iPhone itself! It has a camera that you could record porn with accidentally.



    Apple should do something about this and automatically remove offending sequences!




    Apple allows parents to enable parental controls on the device blocking certain apps and Safari. Because of the previous age rating of 500px it was impossible for parents to block it without blocking out all app downloads. With Vine and now the updated 500px app, parents can block the use of the application without blocking the entire app store.

  • Reply 6 of 19
    Victory.
  • Reply 7 of 19


    Originally Posted by sirpopealot View Post

    Victory.


     


    There wasn't a battle; it's not a war.

  • Reply 8 of 19
    nagrommenagromme Posts: 2,834member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by charlituna View Post





    I don't recall any system that requires you to validate with Apple that you are a adult so nothing is stopping you from downloading any app you want. Well not from Apple. Mommy and Daddy turning on restrictions and limiting you is not Apple's fault. Nor it is their fault Daddy caught you searching for titties and turned off Safari.


     


    There is some chance you are misunderstanding something :D

  • Reply 9 of 19
    philboogiephilboogie Posts: 7,675member
    The updated version is rated for users ages 17 and up, and it also adds a "Report this photo" button to help filter out inappropriate content.

    Well, that's a good thing. Apple cannot possibly filter out everything on their own, so user input will be appreciated. Needed even, just imagine where GoogleMaps would be without user input.
  • Reply 10 of 19
    welshdogwelshdog Posts: 1,897member
    Is it really possible to shield kids from porn imagery on the Internet? I don't look at porn, but I know it pops up regularly when searching or clicking a link. Plus how bad could the so called porn in 500px have been? Wasn't it just art photos of naked models?
  • Reply 11 of 19
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    crisss1205 wrote: »


    Apple allows parents to enable parental controls on the device blocking certain apps and Safari. Because of the previous age rating of 500px it was impossible for parents to block it without blocking out all app downloads. With Vine and now the updated 500px app, parents can block the use of the application without blocking the entire app store.


    Well that's OK then. So long as the kids never have access to some other unblocked source ... cough cough.
  • Reply 12 of 19
    asciiascii Posts: 5,936member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by nagromme View Post



    Just two problems, Apple: 1) Your hands-off policy when it comes to the web. You allow the entire Internet to be accessed in Safari! Safari is a dinosaur and should be eliminated in favor of all-violence no-human-bodies browsers.


    Safari just proves they don't have the attitude you say they do in the first place. Even before any content issues came up, Safari was there for app developers who did not want to follow the other app store rules, such as UI guidelines, the answer was "We're not stopping you making a web app." And the answers to the pornographers is the same "We're not stopping you making a website."


     


    The Web is the wild west, the darkest jungle (hence "Safari"), the red light district of the Internet, they just want to keep it in Safari and not make the whole Internet like the web. It's a shame what happened to the web in my opinion, the original designers I'm sure had something more like Wikipedia in mind for the whole thing, not what it ultimately became: an ad infested, porn infested, virus infested wretched hive of scum and villiany (sorry Appleinsider, you are the exception of course).

  • Reply 13 of 19
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,309moderator
    welshdog wrote:
    Plus how bad could the so called porn in 500px have been? Wasn't it just art photos of naked models?

    There are quite a few that cross over into what would be regarded as pornography, such as:

    http://500px.com/photo/23737775
    http://500px.com/photo/12502421
    http://500px.com/photo/4829939
    http://500px.com/photo/4592439
    http://500px.com/photo/4567687
    http://500px.com/photo/22858779
    http://500px.com/photo/7638575

    That's pretty much as the same as Playboy, which wasn't allowed in the App Store:

    http://gigaom.com/2011/05/20/playboy-bypasses-the-app-store-a-model-for-other-digital-magazines/

    So if they allow 500px in, by all rights they should allow Playboy in as a native app too and then along with that, Hustler and Penthouse. But then of course comes the deluge of pornographic apps and many will border on hardcore and get banned and people will cry 'unfair censorship'. They'd be best to stay off that slippery slope.
    Or even OMG ... Safari! /shock horror

    You keep coming back to this but you can also download coprighted material illegally with Safari like ebooks. Does that mean they should allow apps that offer copyrighted material to download without paying for them? You can watch porn movies with Safari, should they actually host and stream porn movies in the movie store? Just because a service can be found via a browser, it doesn't mean Apple should promote the same service in their App Store.

    Same goes for other apps that search web content and not privately hosted content.
  • Reply 14 of 19
    zozmanzozman Posts: 393member


    WTF, what if i wanted my porn on there.

    you can google image smut, so silly, having porn native in app is different.

  • Reply 15 of 19
    habihabi Posts: 317member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by lightknight View Post



    You're forgetting the iPhone itself! It has a camera that you could record porn with accidentally.



    Apple should do something about this and automatically remove offending sequences!




    Yea! They could use the same algorithm that is used for scanning papernotes(money) with a camera/scanner/printer! If it would identify genitals in the camera it couldnt record pictures/video...image


     


    Time to patent apple!

  • Reply 16 of 19
    habihabi Posts: 317member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post



     Just because a service can be found via a browser, it doesn't mean Apple should promote the same service in their App Store.



    Same goes for other apps that search web content and not privately hosted content.


    But the line should be the same for software that search content from the net. If a web browser means that you have to rate it 17+ because you might find offending material then the same should apply to all other software on the appstore that searches for content on the web. (eg withdrawing the other similar internet search app and allowing the browser is just hypocrite)


     


    The line should also be consistent with different app developers and not allow favoring some contentproviders.

  • Reply 17 of 19
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,309moderator
    habi wrote:
    the same should apply to all other software on the appstore that searches for content on the web. (eg withdrawing the other similar internet search app and allowing the browser is just hypocrite)

    If say the flickr app has similarly easy acess to adult content, it should fall under the same rules but that has to be demonstrated to Apple for them to make that judgement call.

    I don't think it's Apple's agenda here to annoy their customers, quite the opposite. They received complaints from customers, which they agreed with. If other apps are violating the guidelines, report them if you want them to be removed too. The staff at Apple can't possibly check every photo on every service in every app.
  • Reply 18 of 19


    Yeah, this kind of censorship just doesn't make sense.  Either apply your rules universally or just let people think for themselves.  This inconsistency is not portraying them in a very good light.  If they want to be seen as the "Safe" platform, then do it and lock everything down so no children or adults can accidentally ever see porn.  If they can't or won't do it, open it up.

  • Reply 19 of 19
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,309moderator
    If they want to be seen as the "Safe" platform, then do it and lock everything down so no children or adults can accidentally ever see porn.  If they can't or won't do it, open it up.

    The platform doesn't have to just be one of the two extremes. It fits in between just like almost every distribution platform in the same class.

    To suggest they 'open it up' is like suggesting that XBox Live is opened up for people who steal games and who want porn streaming to their XBox or sex games. What would they gain by promoting themselves to thieves and smut peddlers, a good reputation?
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