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Apple's Problem with Bodies
- Bratmon 11mo agoThis may be a bad global political climate for the "Big tech is bad because they restrict my sex app to users 18 and older" take.
- Spivak 11mo agoI didn't take that message away from the blog at all. They seem perfectly content to be an 18+ app but are musing on the fact that, functionality wise, it doesn't actually have any sexual content. Just the vague suggestion that you might choose to log that information in there. An IRL analogy is probably stores that are happy to let children shop in the vicinity of sexually suggestive items such as condoms, lube, and intimate apparel—you can get these at grocery stores even.
- mslt 11mo agoSeems like people should be of whatever age we consider mature before they start capturing intimate data about themselves on random platforms. If we don’t think you’re able to understand the risks of pursuing your reproductive impulses, do we think you can measure the risks of sharing data about those impulses on a platform you don’t control? Local data or not, if I were the steward of a marketplace I’d use that position to create this kind of teaching moment for pre-developed consumers. If young people had been warned since the mid 2000s of how much of their intimacy they were handing over to Meta, ByteDance, etc. before they started, the world would certainly be better off.
- zahlman 11mo ago> Seems like people should be of whatever age we consider mature before they start capturing intimate data about themselves on random platforms How about we just don't do that capture at all?
- mslt 11mo agoAgreed. But giving adults free will is a principle of the market, so if attempting to prevent the most vulnerable consumers is the best we can get from a compromise, I’m for it
- hapless 11mo agoIt is, quite literally, a diary for your sexual activity Condoms, lubes, and intimate apparel are not threats to children. If you found children buying condoms, lubes, or intimate apparel at unusually high rates, that would be very alarming. But, normally, they are purchasing these products for very lazy adults. There is 0 use case for a person under the age of majority to use this application. It is only usable by a person being abused. Precisely 0 adults have charged children with the mission of f... blogging sexual activity.
- jrflowers 11mo ago> If you found children buying condoms, lubes, or intimate apparel at unusually high rates, that would be very alarming. But, normally, they are purchasing these products for very lazy adults. “Children buying condoms or lube at unusually high rates” is a funny phrase because I don’t think I’ve ever seen a child buy either of those things. What is the threshold between usual and unusual for these purchases in hard terms?
- hapless 11mo agoYou've never seen a kid buy condoms because mom and dad are lazy? I aspire to your lifestyle ;) kids buy condoms for the same reasons kids used to buy cigarettes or beer. It would be super weird to see the same neighborhood kid buy condoms every week, but it's not particularly alarming on a one-time basis. Maybe I am just very old, and I should be alarmed by a one-time purchase. I am relating the basic guidelines from my own youth. It is plainly a bad idea by any standard to provide an application for teenagers to keep diaries of their sexual abuse.
- jrflowers 11mo ago> You've never seen a kid buy condoms because mom and dad are lazy? Not that I can think of, and I’ve worked retail. I’m assuming that ‘lazy parents’ have been buying condoms and lube online for a long time now given the selection and price points available. Like you can get a hundred pack for ~$20 which is way cheaper than what you’d get at a gas station.
- windows_hater_7 11mo agoIn all honesty, I think the front of a condom box which says "for contraception plus STI protection" is less sexually suggestive than an app that has a "Spice Library" where the user can tag activities with tags such as "Anal," "Oral," or "Intercourse."
- Spivak 11mo agoHow about a different angle then since you seem to be of the opinion that words related to sex can't be in the vicinity of children. Book stores. There aren't age ratings for books and a 8 year old is not only free to wander around by themselves near all the smut—from missionary to rape to drugged group sex with hockey boy dragon princes—but they would be allowed to buy them too. The only 'protection' from this happening is the fact that kids aren't actually interested in this kind of stuff. So it gets to the heart of what these age ratings are really for and what kind of things do we actually not want kids around. And it seems like the line is drawn at sexually explicit imagery. And so app stores in a way are kind of unique in that they apply age restrictions much more liberally than the wider world around them.
- NetMageSCW 11mo agoShould pen and paper be restricted to 18+?
- doubled112 11mo agoYour daughter's teacher could write her a handwritten note to stay after class. Won't anybody think of the children? /s in case.
- mslt 11mo agoObviously not, pen and paper is the correct platform for a young person to document this type of data. Not sarcasm, kids should truly just write this shit down instead of using a weird app that’s not accountable to them in any way,
- windows_hater_7 11mo agothe epitome of the slippery slope fallacy.
- hapless 11mo agoPen and paper are not restricted by Apple's "App Store."
- normie3000 11mo agoMaybe I don't read good but I'm a bit confused by the article - it feels like it's avoiding describing what the Silk app actually is for. Is it a sex tracker? or for relationship emotions? or for both plus anything else you want? Or something else?
- thewebguyd 11mo agoYeah, the author really tries everything to avoid calling it a sex tracker but the app store listing right now literally says "Sex, Partner Cycles, and Health" I'm not sure what else they expected? 16+ seems appropriate to me. I can buy the argument for a need of additional categories, though.
- mslt 11mo ago“Partner Cycles” particularly describes a domestic surveillance situation that caters to an audience I’m not looking to spend time with
- procinct 11mo agoI can see their point if it genuinely is just a tracker/journal. It’s effectively just words. Should books that describe sex also be age restricted? As they raised, games with gacha mechanics and violence receive a lower rating. I feel the complaint is less about the app receiving that rating and more the flawed logic around how they are categorized given it’s effectively a health and wellness tracker.
- windows_hater_7 11mo agoBooks that describe sex are somewhat age restricted. Something like Looking for Alaska is rated 16+ by Common Sense Media and not in elementary or middle school libraries.
- hapless 11mo agoIt is an explicit sex tracker that does not restrict usage by children You can imagine why Apple takes a dim view
- hcknwscommenter 11mo agoVery strange article. The author is very upset that an "intimacy tracker" might receive an 18+ rating on the app store. I mean yes, younger folks do it, but the vast majority of potential customers are 18+. Why is this an problem?
- valzevul 11mo agoHi, OP here. Not sure what else to add beyond the first paragraph of the article: > The rating itself is fine: the target audience is well past that age anyway. What baffles me is the logic. I don't mind the 18+ label, even though it's up to the users what they use the app for, whether it's tracking sex, a partner's health, or personal wellbeing. But I do find the history of age ratings and categories in the App Store and the limits they have to be quite hilarious, and figured I might as well write them down.
- mslt 11mo agoHi OP! I’ll share what I mentioned below in hopes of a response from you directly, because I’m genuinely curious to hear what you think: Seems like people should be of whatever age we consider mature before they start capturing intimate data about themselves on random platforms. If we don’t think you’re able to understand the risks of pursuing your reproductive impulses, do we think you can measure the risks of sharing data about those impulses on a platform you don’t control? Local data or not, if I were the steward of a marketplace I’d use that position to create this kind of teaching moment for pre-developed consumers. If young people had been warned since the mid 2000s of how much of their intimacy they were handing over to Meta, ByteDance, etc. before they started, the world would certainly be better off.
- valzevul 11mo agoHey! I don’t disagree that people of any age should think twice before putting personal data (intimate or not) into any platform. My point wasn’t about lowering the age rating. The issue is that Apple doesn’t have a real category for this kind of wellbeing at all. The age gate itself is sensible, but what’s funny is why it exists. It’s not "because we carefully considered how to protect teens’ data", it’s "because in 2009 the Store was drowning in farting apps, and we’ve been patching around that ever since."
- jjbigs 11mo agoOdd article. In a round about way, the strong prejudice against the 16+ articulate by the author seems to be an endorsement of sex for early and pre teen youth. The author can paint whatever slant they choose calling it a "journaling" app it's inextricably tied to sex, downplaying that is disingenuous
- NetMageSCW 11mo agoThat’s exactly what the article didn’t say.
- hapless 11mo ago[flagged]
- ggfdh 11mo ago> The platform will figure it out eventually. I think that’s very unlikely for his app.
- khazhoux 11mo agoHow is he so confused? The app says, right in the subheading, that it’s a tracker for sex. Yeah, Apple doesn’t want to distribute an app for 13-year-olds to track if they fucked that week. And the whole “but guns are ok??” thing is so tired. Yeah, we get it, Americans are prudes and in Europe nudity is no big deal and American cheese isn’t even cheese. We get it.
- hapless 11mo agoI am pretty sure that raping children is a problem worldwide Also, there is an entirely separate set of Apple content guidelines around firearms.
- bigyabai 11mo agoI'm pretty sure your comment history is flagged because this conflation is ridiculous.
- adamwong246 11mo agoIf little Jimmy is having anal sex after school, and then tracking it in an app, I think the app may be the least of your worries
- parpfish 11mo agocategorization difficulties aside... why does an app like this need to exist at all? it seems like you can just use existing utilities. write your journal in notes. put stuff on a calendar if you want to track dates. if you're into making pie charts, make a spreadsheet.
- normie3000 11mo agoWhy do we need any apps beyond excel and word?
- adamwong246 11mo agoI organize my sex life with emacs org(asm)-mode
- rkomorn 11mo agoIs "asim" short for "a simulation"?
- adamwong246 11mo agothe punchline is "emacs orgasm mode"
- rkomorn 11mo agoYes. My punchline is "what's the i doing there?"
- adamwong246 11mo agoThe jokes on me and my bad spelling. Sorry I spoiled the delivery
- phatskat 11mo agoI tried emacs but couldn’t get my head around it - right back to vi(brator) for me
- mcphage 11mo agoLego gives their plant and flower kits an 18+ rating. Which is kinda silly, but I think mostly so people don’t unknowingly buy them as gifts for a kid who’d rather have a space ship or Harry Potter set.
- nemothekid 11mo ago>And yet, from the App Store’s point of view, you can build a game with guns and cartoon violence and happily ship it to kids, while tracking your own body needs a 16+ “mature themes” label. This really isn't an Apple problem, but an American culture problem. This is such a common trope in many forms of media: * You can sell games with gratuitous amount of gore, but implied clothed intercourse gets you pulled from stores. * You can get away with a lot of violence and possible sneak a PG-13 rating, but a single boob gets you rated R.
- hapless 11mo agoWell, no, because Apple categorizes all of these things separately. The world is not subject to MPAA notions about "Sex" or "Violence" -- rather, Apple splits those up into "does this app have any sex" or "does this app have any violence" The author has a problem because what he is selling is an app to track sexual activity in explicit detail, which is a huge privacy invasion, and Apple's normal screens are rather good at noticing that The author of this post is trying to sell an app that is not explicitly prohibited by Apple guidelines, but it is offensive to pretty much anyone who looks at it
- bigyabai 11mo ago> which is a huge privacy invasion, and Apple's normal screens are rather good at noticing that Do you have any better evidence? Apple's App Store screens are notoriously useless; famously, Lastpass had to tell people to stop downloading their app from the App Store after Apple's "normal screen" replaced their app with a trojan horse: https://blog.lastpass.com/posts/warning-fraudulent-app-impersonating-lastpass-currently-available-in-apple-app-store https://blog.lastpass.com/posts/warning-fraudulent-app-imper...
- dr_kiszonka 11mo agoI quite enjoyed the writing style (despite a little wrinkle around context/contextual), but I am a bit disappointed that the article was so light on details.
- hapless 11mo agoit is light on details because the author wishes to invade your privacy in exchange for catering to your perversions
- panny 11mo agoThis is why I chose Android over iOS a long long time ago. I bought the phone. It's my hardware. I should be able to run what I want on it.
- adamwong246 11mo agoWhy is this downvoted? Is this not an accepted fact?
- hapless 11mo ago[flagged]
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- hapless 11mo ago[flagged]
- isodev 11mo agoLoved the post. I think Apple has always been a little too prudish. This was fine when they were the smaller phone maker. Now today, both as a developer and a consumer you’re forced to consider Apple and their limits. I remember when all dating apps had to move away from nudity without obscure hacks via the web. The entire conversation about sexual health and sexuality is now political and unfortunately for teens, their access to it is severely limited by old white prudish people who can’t even imagine a relationship with more than 2 people. It’s never about protecting children though, that’s just a good buzzword they both Apple and politicians use that resonates with their audience without too much explanation. It gives a good feeling of effective policy even if it isn’t. It’s like “wokeness”, the “problem with immigration” and now … age verification.
- adamwong246 11mo agoWhen you live under Apple's roof, you have to play their rules. But also- if you are tracking your partner's intimacy through an app, I think you might be doing it wrong.
- contact9879 11mo agoDamn. What’s with all the personal attacks against the author in this comments section?
- hapless 11mo ago[flagged]
- adamwong246 11mo ago[flagged]
- isodev 11mo agoIt’s such a well written (and factually correct) post, I don’t get the hate at all.
- thaneross 11mo agoAmerican culture still holds puritanical views of sex, and this article crosses the taboo threshold that 15 year olds are having sex.
- paulddraper 11mo ago> Silk–the app I’m talking about, almost reluctantly–is a wellbeing journal in the most boring sense possible. Brother, the App Store listing is literally “Silk — Intimacy and Health Log.” Followed by the screenshots titled “Pleasure Patterns,” “Love Without Limits,” and “Spice Library.” That is not — as you say — “a wellbeing journal in the most boring possible sense.”
- leobg 11mo agoI kept reading hoping to eventually learn whats the app actually does. But it’s one euphemism after the other, plus the occasional wink to “read between the lines”. How can the author complain about Apple binning this app away in a weird niche if he as its maker doesn’t have the guts to plainly say what the app actually, really does?
- tjpnz 11mo ago>If you were around for the early App Store, you’ll remember its optimism: accelerometer-driven beer glasses, wobbling jelly icons, flashlight apps that set brightness to 100% because no one had ever considered the idea before. The ecosystem assumed “content” meant pictures, sound, or the occasional cow-milking simulator–not a user quietly describing part of their life to themselves. I miss when tech was actually fun.
- windows_hater_7 11mo agoThis is almost as bad as the argument the other day about why OpenAI needs to store ChatGPT conversations.
- moi2388 11mo agoIf you don’t want to be classified as a sex app, don’t write a sex app. I’m very glad children won’t get their sexual activities tracked by apps tyvm
- pentagrama 11mo agoSo confusing to read. The author goes extremely deep into details and definitions for every side topic, yet stays vague and euphemistic about the main subject: the app. This is a web article, not something that needs to pass Apple’s review team.
- pythonic_hell 11mo agoDid anyone actually read the article? The problem is clearly spelled out. Apples App Store policies make it incredibly hard to create apps that fall into the grey zone. An intimacy/sex journaling app shouldn’t be something that’s near to impossible to find on the App Store if the person searching for it is a grown adult.