Apple's App Store Struggles with Classifying Human Body Content: A Developer's Experience
By
valzevul
Kettled twice. Extra chewy, extra trustworthy.
Summary
The article explores the author's experience developing an intimacy tracker app for iOS and encountering Apple's inconsistent content rating system. The author discovered that their wellbeing journal app was assigned a 16+ rating typically used for gambling apps and unrestricted web access, highlighting Apple's ambiguous classification of human body-related content. The piece examines how Apple's App Store guidelines struggle to categorize content about the human body, vacillating between treating it as health, lifestyle, or sin, revealing deeper philosophical and cultural tensions in technology platforms' content moderation approaches.
Key quotes
· 5 pulledA system that can classify violence with forensic precision still can't decide if the human body is health, lifestyle, or sin.
One day I tried to ship a private intimacy tracker–nothing scandalous, just a journal for wellbeing–and App Store Connect assigned it the 16+ rating it uses for gambling apps and 'unrestricted web access'.
What baffles me is the logic.
Building for iOS sometimes feels like archaeology: brush away enough guidelines and you hit something older and stranger.
I shipped a wellbeing journal and discovered the App Store still isn't sure whether the human body is health, lifestyle, or sin.
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