Jess Weatherbed at The Verge has some very interesting breaking news:
The first “Apple approved” porn app for iPhone is rolling out in Europe, via AltStore PAL’s alternative iOS app marketplace. AltStore PAL developer Riley Testut says that Hot Tub, which describes itself as an ad-free “adult content browser,” has made it through Apple’s notarization review for fraud, security threats, and functionality, and will be available for AltStore PAL users in the EU to download starting today.
AltStore and Testut knew exactly what they were doing when they implied an Apple endorsement of this product, presumably based on Apple’s notarization approval of an iOS app. Legally, Apple must notarize apps so long as they are “free of known malware, viruses or other security threats, function as promised and don’t expose users to egregious fraud.” So you can see that Apple’s hands are tied here. Which is why Apple is deeply unhappy with AltStore’s announcement, releasing this PR statement:
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.
But here’s the thing about notarization: Apple has used it in the past, in the EU, for reasons not covered by the above exceptions. It has refused to notarize emulators, and more than once. In the most recent refusal, it cited the use of “Mac operating system software on devices that are not Apple-branded computers.” Which is most definitely cause for all sorts of legal action, but doesn’t actually seem to be covered under the ways Apple is allowed to use notarization in the EU. Notarization is meant to be a straightforward system to protect users from really bad stuff—not another lever for Apple to pull when it wants to prevent anything from getting in the hands of users for any reason.
Which brings us back to Hot Tub. Apple representatives claim that AltStore is lying by asserting that Hot Tub was approved by the company. (Though it’s not great that Apple’s own emails use the phrase, “The following app has been approved for distribution.”) Instead, they claim that Apple’s hands are tied by the European Commission. And yet… the company has used its lever before to protect users from (checking my notes here) emulators of very old Mac models. Seems dangerous.
So which is it? Is notarization a tool Apple can use to bypass all of Europe’s regulations of Apple whenever it feels like preventing users from running MacPaint on an iPad? Or is it something out of Apple’s hands? If Apple chose to exercise its notarization powers to kill the UTM and Mini vMac emulators, but then let Hot Tub through… doesn’t AltStore have a point? It’s hard for Apple to argue its hands are tied if it’s used those hands in the recent past. (I’ve contacted Apple’s PR representatives and asked if they can explain the disparity in policies to me, and I’ll update this story if they reply.)
Once Hot Tub was announced as being a part of AltStore in the EU, an Apple email appeared in journalists’ inboxes decrying the event. This is what Apple has been waiting for all along. It’s an opportunity to portray App Store policies (under assault in the EU and elsewhere) as benevolent and under attack by the forces of evil, including the European Commission, pornographers and child traffickers, and Epic Games. Now it can complain that the European Commission has opened the proverbial floodgates and that any number of disgusting apps will be available to those who choose to download alternative marketplace apps, seek those apps out, and install them.
AltStore knew it would get a rise out of Apple by advertising a porn app as being Apple approved. (And I believe Apple’s guidelines specifically prohibit implied endorsements of alternative marketplaces by Apple, so AltStore may have stepped in it.) At the same time, Apple’s desperately been waiting for the moment it could point at a dangerous app so it can claim that exerting unchecked control over the App Store and taking a financial cut from every transaction is all in the interests of customers.
Like I said, this was inevitable. But I’m not sure AltStore really needed to poke the bear.
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