Steve Jobs Recommends Android For Fans of Porn 909
hansamurai writes "After being asked about the App Store's recent ban on 'sexy apps,' Steve Jobs responded, 'We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone. Folks who want porn can buy an Android phone. You know, there's a porn store for Android, you can download nothing but porn. You can download porn, your kids can download porn. That's a place we don't want to go, so we're not going to go there.' Apps such as Playboy's and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition are still available on the App Store, however, as they come from 'more reputable companies.'"
Like the sound of this (Score:5, Insightful)
Stupid argument (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it my imagination? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it my imagination, or is Steve being more douchey than usual?
I don't need (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay (Score:5, Insightful)
Steve Jobs responded, "We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone. Folks who want porn can buy an Android phone. "
Well, I don't see that porn is particularly harmful to children, especially compared to the violence in media and games sold on the iPhone, so I don't know why one would be a moral imperative and the other would not. I actually think this is marketing, designed to appeal to parents who want their kids kept safe from the evils of... umm... boobies?
But that's okay. If he's recommending an Android phone, I'll probably take him up on it when I purchase a smartphone.
You're all missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
This is marketing-speak for "We're going to be opening the Apple Porn Store very soon. You think the rigid curves of our multi-touch sensors are cool? You ain't seen nothing. Wait for Steve Jobs to say, 'And one more thing.'"
Smart move. (Score:3, Insightful)
Jobs simultaneously drags the android through the mud while claiming a moral high ground for the iphone. what's Google going to do? Trying to defend pornography will be an uphill battle going to a place "where we don't want to go".
nicely played.
Re:Ready Pitchforks! (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's better worded like this:
'After being asked about the App Store's recent ban on "freedom to use your property as you see fit," Steve Jobs responded, "We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep freedom away from the iPhone. Folks who want freedom can buy an Android phone. You know, there's a lot of freedom for Android, you can use it anyway you want to, you paid for the hardware, it's yours. You can download porn, your kids can download porn, it's totally free and up to you to do what you want. That's a place we don't want to go, so we're not going to go there." Apps such as Playboy's and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition are still available on the App Store, however, as they come from "more reputable companies."'
Re:I don't need (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll get an iPhone if I want Jobs dictating what I get according to his tastes. Since I don't, I got a Droid and I can get (or not get) what I want.
You have to wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, there's a porn store for Android, you can download nothing but porn. You can download porn, your kids can download porn.
How does he know?
let me fix that..... (Score:5, Insightful)
After being asked about the App Store's recent ban on "sexy apps," Steve Jobs responded, "We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn out of the app store to keep the moronic soccer moms off our ass. Folks who want porn can just use safari and browse to it like a normal person. You know, there's plenty of porn available on the iPhone, and plenty of gay porn hookup apps that soccer moms won't even notice. You can download porn via the browser, or any number of "respectable" apps from companies that make us a lot of money like Playboy and Sports Illustrated , your kids can download porn on their iPhones faster than we can attempt to block it, so we just come up with some lame ass story for the soccer mom's and they buy it because they are fucking pathetically stupid. That's a place we don't want to go, blocking safari, because we know kids will find their porn via browser anyway, so we're not going to go there."
Re:Okay (Score:4, Insightful)
Wanting to prevent your children from seeing pornography and wanting to prevent your children from seeing breasts are two completely different things.
Re:I don't need (Score:5, Insightful)
But I guess Apple want's to parent your kids for you too. New from Apple, the iDad! Never again will you need to know anything about your child's life, simply let the iDad do it for you!
Re:Smart move. (Score:5, Insightful)
"We let our users choose what to download."
Hmmm...
Getting scary (Score:5, Insightful)
"We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone."
Apple's only moral responsibility is to let their users do whatever they feel like, and they have failed.
The "Apple cult" image tossed around as a joke and an insult is becoming more and more true every day. You can't simply buy a device from Apple - you have to buy their device, their software, their platform, and their tastes, desires and morals too, and once you do, you can't separate any of them. This isn't vendor lock-in, it's religion.
Re:Smart move. (Score:4, Insightful)
I dunno... In Google's shoes, I'd respond to this with a one (and a half) sentence press release, something to the effect of "44% of all internet searches look for porn, and 97% of all households have searched for porn-related terms more than once. Android - For people who value freedom"
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
I was going to say, that's the best marketing the Android could have hoped for. "It does everything ours does *AND* can do porn." The adult industries have been a driving force for centuries, and Apple making a pseudo-clean environment isn't going to change that at all.
Re:In other news... (Score:4, Insightful)
You know, we joke about it, but whatever the porn industry backs usually ends up being the winner in format wars.
Blu Ray, VHS...
The only favour you're doing is helping droids, not iPhone customers.
Jobs is making porn -he's really starting to blow. (Score:2, Insightful)
I gotta jailbreak my phone that I bought just so a) I can put the music on it that I want, b) it can't be turned off remotely or apps uninstalled without my say-so, c) it can have a video camera without a $$ upgrade - that's all bad enough. But I knew that going in.
But the way Jobs is going about deciding what CONTENT I get to have? WTF is that?
Sign me up for an Android when my contract with AT&T is done. That is, if I don't just switch the iPhone to Verizon anyway - another attempt to control my choices that Jobs can blow me for.
Re:Is it my imagination? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's your imagination. Specifically, you were imagining that he was not at least this douchey all along.
Re:I don't need (Score:1, Insightful)
Then buy an Android phone. Thats exactly what jobs just told you you should do.
I know, why dont we sue apple and force them to sell porn, then we can do the same thing to Wallmart and the hallmark store and Toy R Us.
Re:But Apple does not provide them (Score:5, Insightful)
Are those android porn stores owned by Google?
Personally I wouldn't care if they did, but somehow I doubt they do.
Re:American pornophobia (Score:5, Insightful)
In short, it's not that I don't think my kids could handle porn, it's that everyone else couldn't handle the idea that my kids were exposed to porn.
Re:Getting scary (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Ready Pitchforks! (Score:3, Insightful)
We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone
I wish some people would take some responsibility and stop buying Apple products because they support the immoral values of billionaires. Stooping to popular opinion and Fandom usually, at the most has led to mediocrity, and sometimes lynch mobs. If Steve Jobs thinks that sex is immoral then I hope he doesn't engage in it himself.
Re:Smart move. (Score:3, Insightful)
The iPhone. You know, for kids!
Re:But Apple does not provide them (Score:5, Insightful)
The anti-porn rhetoric from the head of a politically liberal, gay-friendly company is pretty weird, to say the least.
Re:Getting scary (Score:1, Insightful)
Apple's only moral responsibility is to let their users do whatever they feel like, and they have failed.
No. It isn't. Their moral responsibility is to maximize shareholder profits which they have succeeded in doing, beyond expectations. They have decided to not appeal to fringe geeks and nerds but to instead appeal to the affluent mass market in order to meet their moral responsibility. That moral mass market would prefer if "porn" was not readily available on their consumer electronic devices.
_YOU_ may not like that but Apple's shareholders, to whom Apple answers, likes it quite a bit.
Re:I don't need (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Smart move. (Score:5, Insightful)
Simple, you don't answer the porn charge directly. You instead talk about how Android is about user choice and user freedom, rather than what putzfuck Jobs decrees "acceptable" for you to use.
Re:I don't need (Score:1, Insightful)
And guess what, there isn't a damned thing you can do about it. Doesn't that just chap your ass? (or would that be too porny?)
People getting all up in arms about Apple or Walmart not selling things they don't want to sell are just as full of shit as people getting pissed off at hustler selling porn that (some) people want to buy.
Re:In other news... (Score:3, Insightful)
In other words, as GP says, you are using an illegal method to transfer licensed content to a playback medium not covered by the original license.
Wrong thinking (Score:4, Insightful)
He's not going to get techies this way.
But he's not going to lose the iPhone-is-neato customers, and he's not going to lose the if Apple made a toilet I'd buy it crowd. Those groups either don't care that they're restricted, don't know they're restricted, or actually want to be restricted.
He's saying this for consumption by the media. It's a nice buzz-bit. "Android is for porn." The media will repeat it because it's pithy and uses a titillating word. And the folks who have no clue about restrictions will repeat this to themselves when they go to buy a phone. Wives will insist that husbands buy iPhones for themselves and for the kids.
This is not Jobs being stupid. This is both genius and an indication that Jobs is very, very afraid. His control-everything system depends on him being the master of really the only very good phone/tablet system. There's another system and pretty soon it'll be good enough to make his look less revolutionary. He needs another way to keep his silo full.
Re:Walmart (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a moot point anyway. Because the iPhone _does_ allow porn. Playboy is porn right? Safari can view porn right? So he's basically full of shit claiming some moral high ground. It's a joke and that's what we're laughing at. So I'll get off your lawn, if you come and join the fun.
Re:Store (Score:3, Insightful)
Apple is simply saying they will not sell apps that contain porn.
Unless the porn comes from a reputable company like Playboy. As a parent, knowing that my child is getting his porn from reputable companies takes a lot off my mind.
Re:Then jailbreak it. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's also helpful to tell people why you won't buy one when you have the opportunity.
You: "Ya know mom, I wouldn't get the iPhone. They prevent you from doing things you want to do with your hardware."
Mom: "Like what?"
Re:Is it my imagination? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it my imagination, or is Steve being more douchey than usual?
No, it's not [bnet.com] just your imagination.
Re:so... He's saying... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, an iPhone/iPad isn't exactly the most macho-looking bit of hi-technology, is it?
Every time I see a woman carrying an iPhone, it seemed to be bulked up with big chunky covers and accessories, presumably because otherwise it just looks too girlie.
If you look at it, and track back the design vocabulary of the back and the rim and the little round button, the design ethos is essentially classic ladies jewelery. The silver-backed iPod Touch looks like what you'd expect a Chanel silver-backed ladies' hairbrush to look like with the bristles removed.
It's all a bit Paris Hilton.
Re:I don't need (Score:5, Insightful)
Then buy an Android phone. Thats exactly what jobs just told you you should do.
That's what I did. This doesn't mean that I shouldn't call Steve a dick when he's acting like one.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't need (Score:4, Insightful)
Nobody gives a damn really that Apple doesn't sell porn. Google doesn't sell porn themselves either. What they care about is that Apple a) doesn't sell porn and b) has made it so that they are the ONLY source of apps on the platform. Essentially resulting in the situation that there simply is no legitimate way to get adult-themed applications on the phone - even if you want them. Web based, sure. Videos you transfer, sure. But apps? Nope. You're SOL.
Nobody cares that Wal-mart does sell porn because the smut shop down the street is a perfectly fine alternate source. HOWEVER, if Wal-mart was legislated to be the absolute only source where one could legally buy physical goods, then people would have a much more valid concern if they refused to sell porn (or chocolate, or ammo, or purple footballs, or any other good which people want but are being purposefully prevented from accessing on the simple whim of a company).
Re:Okay (Score:5, Insightful)
Nipples are far worse than depictions of brutal murder. Don't argue with the MPAA.
Re:Walmart (Score:3, Insightful)
Hooray! I can bitch and moan then. Censorship is one of the many reasons I don't go to wal-mart. They won't sell Cosmo but they will sell you a gun. They censor their music. They break unions. They treat their employees like crap.
Thanks for the invitation to complain. I didn't know you could do that on the internet.
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
I was going to say, that's the best marketing the Android could have hoped for. "It does everything ours does *AND* can do porn." The adult industries have been a driving force for centuries, and Apple making a pseudo-clean environment isn't going to change that at all.
Perhaps. But Jobs was definitely trying to inspire some FUD (in this case, fear) against the Android when he said "You can download porn, your kids can download porn..."
Re:But Apple does not provide them (Score:5, Insightful)
Jobs didn't say "Apple won't sell porn" he said "We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone". He's mad.
Re:Getting scary (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:In other news... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:In other news... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Ready Pitchforks! (Score:5, Insightful)
Your analogy is ludicrous. How would you explain away not having Flash functionality?
Re:Ready Pitchforks! (Score:5, Insightful)
What really grinds my gears (Score:3, Insightful)
Look, it is my well educated opinion that Playboy, soft-core BS, swimsuit calendars/photoshoots, and basically the societal desire to objectify women through "moral" sexualizations causes MORE harm than XXX hard core pornography does. Why? Because it's insidious and sends terrible messages to people and messes with their psyches. It's OK to objectify and look at women sexually as long AS LONG AS THERE'S NO SEX INVOLVED?! But, wait, isn't that the point? Oh, no, it's better to get guys hot and bothered with teases and pics of scantily clad women everywhere and then tell them "SEX IS BAD!!!" than it is to show them videos of ACTUAL SEX and saying, "Meh, it's just sex." REALLY?? This is the moral stance??? It's OK to have Janet Jackson sing about sexual topics, dress sluttily and grind her body against a man in a mock sexual ritual but "HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!!! 0.5 SECONDS OF TIT JUST FLASHED ACROSS MY TV SCREEN!!!" That messes with people's heads and gives them warped ideas about sexuality and women.
So Steve Jobs can keep his "moral" porn and I'll hang on to the stuff that doesn't pander to me and send me mixed messages about what's right and wrong, what's ok and what's dirty, and enjoy the wisdom of knowing IT'S ALL ABOUT SEX without pretending "sex but not sex" is somehow better than just sex without all the BS.
Its all about money (Score:3, Insightful)
>> Playboy's and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition are still available on the App Store, however, as they come from 'more reputable companies
Ahh so kids seeing "reputable" porn is OK then ehh Steve? ... Obviously this actually has nothing to do with porn and all to do with licencing revenue.
Re:Ready Pitchforks! (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to disagree. I'm far from a Microsoft fan, but they've never prevented me from running software on their products because they disagreed with the content or subject matter.
They don't care what you're doing, as long as you're doing it on their platforms. (Although I've never owned a Zune or even seen one in person).
Apple, on the other hand, wants to completely control what you think and do when using their products.
It's comical but Apple's trying to make sure 2010 and beyond will be like 1984.
Re:Ready Pitchforks! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:But Apple does not provide them (Score:5, Insightful)
The anti-porn rhetoric from the head of a politically liberal, gay-friendly company is pretty weird, to say the least.
What has "gay-friendly" got to do with it?
Re:Ready Pitchforks! (Score:3, Insightful)
Speaking as somebody who isn't interested in living within Apple's Walled Garden or cashing in my privacy with Google, neither phrasing reads like anything but propaganda.
You guys really should listen to yourselves. "Be free! Do as I say!"
Re:Getting scary (Score:3, Insightful)
They have decided to not appeal to fringe geeks and nerds but to instead appeal to the affluent mass market in order to meet their moral responsibility. That moral mass market would prefer if "porn" was not readily available on their consumer electronic devices.
I hate to hit you with this, but the overwhelming majority of the population, both male and female, consume porn to one degree or another, and it is the "moral" minority who consume it more voraciously [newscientist.com] than normal, healthy people who don't hold fucked up bronze age beliefs that sex is bad. (Amusingly, online porn purchases slightly decrease on Sundays.) The market Apple is appealing to isn't moral, it's just hypocritical, not unlike the stridently anti-gay politicians who frequently turn out to be gay themselves.
The majority may claim to be above porn, but this is the same majority who also claim to be above masturbation, contrary to every reputable study ever conducted, which finds that non-masturbators are a tiny minority, especially among men.
_YOU_ may not like that but Apple's shareholders, to whom Apple answers, likes it quite a bit.
Sounds like you like it. I rather expect that most of Apple's shareholders will like anything that increases their profits. If that happens to be Steve Jobs' messiah complex, so be it. If, on the other hand, they thought there was a good way to monetize the iPhone's use to tap into the multi-billion-dollar porn market without hurting existing iPhone sales, then it would be Apple's moral responsibility -- your words, not mine -- to devote considerable resources to making sure that fisting videos were available with the tap of a finger, now wouldn't it?
But that's how morality goes, isn't it? Any time you hear someone talking loudly about it, you can bet you're dealing with a hypocrite.
Re:Walmart (Score:5, Insightful)
I do not like to be told what I can buy and what not. And I do not shop as Walmart as I do not shop as Aldi or any other discounter which treats their personnel badly. But there is a big difference between Walmart and Apple. Walmart is a store, and I can go to any other store I want when the products from Walmart are not satisfactory. But when I have an iPhone, I can only go to Apple to buy apps. And with iTunes I can only shop at iTunes-Music-Store. This is like Ford having a discounter and you can only drive to the Ford-discounter with your new vehicle, but not to Walmart or any street market.
Re:Okay (Score:4, Insightful)
You are telling me that a large percentage of the population find this [wikipedia.org] pornographic? I find that very hard to believe. Most people understand that the difference between mere nudity and pornographic nudity is context.
Re:He really stepped it up this time. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Okay (Score:4, Insightful)
Every time there is an article related to pornography there are dozens of posts along the lines of "ZOMG BOOBIES!!!" attempting to portray those who want to block pornography as fragile people who think the sight of female breasts will ruin children.
There are perfectly reasonable people who have no problem with children seeing Venus de Milo, breastfeeding mothers, or people sunbathing nude, but want to prevent children from seeing pornography.
Re:Ready Pitchforks! (Score:4, Insightful)
So get yourself a fucking Nokia already.
You do know that Apple and Google aren't the only game in town.
In the phone market they aren't even the biggest.
Fascism (Score:3, Insightful)
The real news... (Score:2, Insightful)
erotic bakery (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sure Steve (Score:3, Insightful)
is is absolutely absurd. Apple has zero interest in blocking what you can view in Safari (or Firefox or whatever you browse with). This is solely about the apps in the App Store. Nothing more.
You're looking at it wrong. You see, WHY is this about the App Store? Because Apple has enough leverage here that they can be the only source of applications here, which means that they can skim a bit of profit off of every app sold that works on the iPhone.
They don't have that leverage in the general web yet, but you can bet they'd like to, and they've already proven what they're willing to do with that leverage. If for example, there were sufficient iPhone users out there, it wouldn't be too much of a strech for Apple to move their platform to an opt-in method. You go to sites on a segregated Apple internet, and the sites there pay Apple for their presence there. Facebook coughs up a bit of money each month or they can't be accessed by iPhone users. Essentially, the same type of lock-in as with the app store.
The reason there is simple: profit motive. They don't currently have the ability to do this from a PR standpoint at the moment, but their past behavior has removed any doubts from my mind that they would if they could.
Re:But Apple does not provide them (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ready Pitchforks! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is absurd. The only thing they are controlling is the apps on their store
Oh, so I'm free to get my iphone porn apps form other stores then?
Re:Jobs redefines "responsibility" (Score:3, Insightful)
He obviously thinks that they can sell more phones by employing a marketing message built around morals. This post nailed it. [slashdot.org]
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, the caves that had the women with boobies were probably the most popular ones.
There was an interesting piece on the History Channel (I believe) about the brothels of Pompeii.
An awful lot of our history has been determined by either sex or driven because of sex. Occasionally people try to deny this, but in the end it is what drives humanity. Well, humanity is a bit narrow minded, it's what has driven any organism that thrives. Without these instinctual urges, an organism would be a dead end on their evolutionary path.
Someone will probably want to go all religious on this, so let me beat them to the punch.
Re:Ready Pitchforks! (Score:1, Insightful)
You mean except for XBox and Windows Phone 7 right?
Re:Slashdot is out of touch with reality (Score:4, Insightful)
Slashdot is seriously out of touch with reality regarding Apple.
So it is ok for Apple/Jobs to be self-righteous and sanctimonious, as long as they are profitable? What if they starting losing money, would you then find his words offensive? Perhaps some people find it offensive purely on the basis of it restricting your liberty with hardware you paid dearly for.
What are you, a stockholder or just a tool?
Re:Walmart (Score:2, Insightful)
But Steve also physically forbids you from buying apps in other stores. This situation is only comparable to being able to walk to the porn store next door if in that scenario Steve has a hired thug standing outside it preventing you from shopping there.
No, but he's a hypocritical fuck. (Score:5, Insightful)
Steve Job, today's "moral apostle" on the iPhone, is the same hypocritical fuck who fathered a girl and denied it [cnn.com], yet proclaims his moral superiority to the rest of us because of porn? Steve Jobs doesn't give a flying fuck about porn. It's just more pandering to the Disney crowd. There's nothing wrong with that, but it would be nice if he had the balls to admit it.
Re:This just in! (Score:1, Insightful)
Steve Jobs thinks sex is immoral? And the fanbois follow "I think this is a good feature and opinion. We are a lot more productive if we don't engage in any fun activity such as sex. I am not having sex, so no one should be!"
Apple devices are like the combination of forced opinions, ban on alcohol, tobacco, sex, open source and freedom, and Apple and Steve Jobs being a tyranny and a dictator. Still fanbois think it's "think different". I take back the "it's marketing and PR" - it's also propaganda how you should be living, almost like a church.
Re:Jobs redefines "responsibility" (Score:2, Insightful)
So your claim is that businessmen have no moral responsibility? That their fiduciary responsibility trumps whatever moral responsibilities one may have? I don't think so. We're all people regardless of where we work.
I'm not saying that moral responsibility is relevant to pornography on the iPhone, it may or may not be; but your statement is eerily similar to the excuses made by executives who have abused monopoly power, sold faulty or poisonous products, cheated their employees, cheated the IRS, and outright lied. Being involved in a business venture doesn't exempt one from their moral responsibilities.
Re:Smart move. (Score:3, Insightful)
(By the way, Steve Jobs is the same guy who denied paternity while his daughter and former girlfriend lived on welfare. I don't think he has any solid footing on the moral high ground.)
He later acknowledge, and this was in the late 70s. I don't know which world you live in, but the one around here has this thing called "change", and sometimes it applies to the minds of people as much as to the physical reality.
Casting doubts on the morality of someone for something that happened 30+ years ago is just stupid. Talk to us again if you can find a case like that from this millenium.