Developers Sneaking Porn, Profanity Onto iPhone Via Easter Eggs

Leander Kahney ()

iphone_apps

CC-licensed iPhone homescreen screenshot by Blake Patterson.

Developers are sneaking Easter Eggs into their iPhone apps to get around onerous App Store restrictions, Brian Chen at Wired.com reports.

Programmer Jelle Prins’ song lyrics app Lyrics, for example, was initially rejected by the App store because it included songs with naughty words. Apple bans profanity, pornography and basically anything adult and fun.

But the Lyrics app will include swear words if you go to the About page and swipe downward three times. Up pops an option to turn off a swear word filter.

“Lyrics has slipped in a quiet ‘Screw you’ to Apple’s App Store gatekeepers — albeit one mumbled behind their backs,” Chen writes.

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15 comments »

About the author

Leander Kahney

is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac, and author of three books about technology culture: Inside Steve’s Brain, the New York Times bestseller about Steve Jobs; Cult of Mac; and Cult of iPod. Leander has written for Wired, MacWeek, Scientific American, and The Guardian in London. Follow Leander on Twitter @lkahney and Facebook.

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Posted in Apple, iPhone, News, Software |

  • Darcy Taranto

    There was the google one… Swipe down and you get Bells and Whistles in the Settings menu…

  • smallerdemon

    F*c&ing “Duh.” Apple’s App Store probably seemed like a great idea at the time, but it became bloated and diluted with crap very quickly, and Apple hasn’t been remotely able to review and approve apps with any regularity or consistency at all. Horrible things have made it through, legitimate wonderful things have not (largely based on it impacting Apple’s own revenue or the revenue of AT&T).

  • http://www.grinningidiot.com The Idiot

    I still have no problem whatsoever with Apple censoring their marketplace.

  • http://www.pureiporn.com iPhone Girl

    This is pretty funny, glad to hear developers are having a little fun and thumbing their noses at the App Store gatekeepers.

  • Ryan

    Well, it did. Until you posted this…

  • Brandon

    Last time I checked the biggest seller of porn in the world was AT&T. I wonder if Apple realizes this? Will they ban AT&T? Oh, wait, crap now we don’t have an iPhone platform…

    • http://cultofmac.com Leander Kahney

      @Brandon. Where’d you see that info about AT&T and porn? Any detailed stats? Can you post a link? Tx.

  • Bernard

    Leander. I just typed at&t and porn in google and it came up with loads of results. So i dont think its that secret

    • http://cultofmac.com Leander Kahney

      Google? What’s that? Just kidding. Guess I’ll have to do the legwork myself.

  • Paul

    Personally, I’m grateful for Apple’s stand against pornography and inappropriate language. Not only for myself but for my kids and their Apple gear as well.

  • http://www.Chasing-Eden.co.uk Tetra

    It would have been quicker for you to google it than type that message…

  • Margerine

    well now that you let the cat out of the bag, I guess people are going to have to get their iphone porn from sites like http://ipinkvisual.com

  • David

    Well as a teen, I think porn and cursing should be allowed but Only in apps that you hav to pay for

  • http://danbasto.com dan

    What happens to the developer once their Easter egg is found by Apple? Is the creator of ‘Lyrics’ blacklisted now that this is public info?

  • dubz

    This all started when that one app got banned from the appstore then they turned around and made an webapp version at http://www.onetapporn.com