David Carnoy's detective thriller "Knife Music" uses the word "fuck" as a verb. After submitting his work to Apple, Carnoy was surprised to find it rejected, because his book isn't heavy on the sexuality.
To date, Apple's policy toward adult content or otherwise "objectionable" content has been mixed. Apple's terms of service do not prohibit adult content, instead warning users that they may encounter objectionable material.
Apple has proven to be slightly more adult-friendly than many other mainstream outlets. Its iTunes store applies an "explicit" tag to adults-only content, and adult writer Violet Blue maintains a podcast called "Open Source Sex" that's available though the iTunes podcast directory.
But content that skews closer to outright porn hasn't lasted long in the App Store. An adult application called Wallpaper Universe was initially approved for the store, only to be taken down soon after.
“This looks like a corporate decision. Someone blew the whistle on this and that is why it got pulled down,” Harvey Kaplan, executive vice president of wireless development at BustBox Media Inc., told XBIZ.
Software developer Alex Brie, who submitted author Carnoy's book to Apple, said that Apple's entire approval process may be flawed. He speculated that Apple is using an automated program to approve or reject most submissions, and that most likely, that program is calibrated to reject four-letter words.
Other spicy applications have gotten the hook from the Apple brass, including one called iBoobs that uses the iPhone's motion sensor to generate a digital pair of breasts that jiggle when shaken.
But is there hope for a red light district in the App Store? Based on Apple's previous treatment of adult content, it's hard to say. On the one hand, no less than Steve Jobs himself declared that the App Store would include no porn or obscenity, but in response to an app called "Pull My Finger," an Apple developer said that the App Store would soon offer a "not safe for work," aka NSFW, section.