Playboy’s non-app is just one week away as Jobs remains oddly silent.
In the history of all-time great warnings, it’s not exactly “The British are coming!” but some would argue that it’s not far off.
One week ago, like a modern Paul Revere when he once tweeted something about “One if by land, two if by sea,” Hugh Hefner took to his no doubt very impressive and ultra modern computer, logged on to Twitter and let the world know that Playboy would be coming to the iPad. And uncensored, at that!
But surely this could not be? After all, it was just back in January that Apple denied the possibility of an uncensored Playboy app and everyone was left holding their iPhones and staring at a very censored, very boring app.
Oh, but that same speculation back in January turned out to have a kernel of truth to it.
Notice how in the Hefner tweet, he never mentions the word ‘app’ at all. Or App Store, or anything that might give Apple reason for pause. That’s because it turns out that the app isn’t an app at all. It’s a web app. Yes, similar to those wonky apps that loaded in Safari that I remember all too well from the very first iPhone, Playboy has made like LOST’s Man In Black and found a loophole around Apple’s strict no pornography rule. After all, Apple can’t keep you from the entire Internet, can they?
Just one week away from this web app’s big appearance, Apple has yet to comment, but you’d have to believe they don’t exactly appreciate the end-around on their no uncovered ends policy.
After all, Steve Jobs’ famous “if you want porn, go buy an Android” is much more cutting than “If you want porn, just click the Playboy web app or open Safari and get access to a whole Internet full of pornography far more depraved than any that a Playboy app could conjure up.”
And really, isn’t that what that tough talk meant in the first place? Not that I ever would otherwise (obviously!) but in doing the research for this column I found that if you’re willing to put up with the small screen size, you can even find nudity everywhere you look on your iPhone.
While I suppose Apple is free to create whatever content restrictions they like for their own device, I think Plaboy’s workaround for the ban is a clever one. Besides, surely anyone that would spend $8 a month to access back issues of Playboy isn’t doing so just for the nudity. They’ve got the entire rest of the Internet for that. And it’s free.
