If Playboy wants to become a safer brand, the kind of guy magazine that is a male version of Cosmopolitan, akin to FHM, then I suppose the Playboy iPhone app ($1.99) is a step in that direction. But I can’t imagine any guy having a desire to use this iPhone app at all.
For starters, there is no nudity in the Playboy iPhone app. The pictures of the centerfold that are available are more ‘before’ than ‘after’ and any accompanying photo galleries of any other models are also about on par with the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue.
But even pushing that aside, the articles on the iPhone app, Playboy favorites as it were, aren’t even presented fully. Want to read the 20 Questions feature? Have fun getting through about half of it before you’re told to buy the real thing.
Whereas the GQ iPhone app was great because it was basically a digital version of the actual GQ magazine, the Playboy iPhone app is terrible because gives you little bits and pieces of the magazine and then asks you to purchase the real thing. This makes the iPhone app feel more like an ad for the magazine than anything else. Apps should have more value than that.
