CUPERTINO, CA — Apple may want its users to think “different,” but it doesn’t apparently want them to think about sex; not even in its softest and most un-different sense.Nonetheless, for a brief time, a barely softcore iPhone and iPod app managed to find its way into the Apple App store this past weekend.
Alas for those who might have enjoyed paying $5.99 for the opportunity to download and install Wallpaper Universe from FunMobility on their impressively expensive tech toys had less than a day to take advantage of it before it was removed from the company’s virtual shelves.
Apple is notoriously conservative when it comes to which apps it allows on its famous all-in-wonder mobile device, and although Wallpaper Universe is not specifically an adults-only bit of ware, the snapshot selected to promote it walked a bit too close to the wild side for the eagle eyes that monitor the company’s review process.
The fact Wallpaper Universe even made it online has caused some to wonder about Apple’s infamously complex reviewing process. After all, as some online pundits observe, Google’s voice search application has languished in the bureaucratic maze long beyond its usual few weeks — yet Wallpaper Universe suffered no such complications, in spite of its eventual swift fate.
For those wondering, FunMobility is a familiar Apple App producer of ring tones and wallpapers. Had it used a different promotional icon, it might have added this wallpaper offering to its iPhone list of accomplishments. Unfortunately, the accompanying image depicted eight chat-like snapshots of young women’s faces, cleavages and/or full, bra-and-panty wearing bodies. Each photo was accompanied by a suggestive username and chat comment, some of which were decidedly of the nudge-nudge wink-wink variety.
Ironically, visiting the WallpaperUniverse.com website is a more sobering affair, with free AIDS Awareness Day wallpapers being the promotional theme. A trip to the FunMobility.com site indicates that MTV, Dreamworks, Major League Baseball, Warner Brothers, VH1, Comedy Central, United Media, and Nickelodeon are only a few of the wholesome wallpaper options available to those who download the app.
Regardless of whether one considers Wallpaper Universe or its promotional image selection to be too saucy for iPhone users, the fact it appeared for even a few hours calls the entire evaluation process into question.
For instance, some wonder why the latest version of CastCatcher was refused, in spite of its earlier versions being offered, while BdEmailer’s approval created an app functionality duplication, which Apple has traditionally refused to allow. More importantly, will the inconsistency of Apple’s review process eventually allow a not merely buggy but genuinely malicious piece of code onto its iPhone shelves and, in quick order, onto its users’ phones?
