Female iPhone App Developer's Business Decimated By Apple's Controversial "Sexy App" Purge

Released on: February 24, 2010, 5:53 am
Author: Jacqui Holland & Jeff Wolverton
Industry: Entertainment

Two person app development team have their apps pulled from the App Store while similar apps from big magazine companies stay up.

(Culver City, CA) February 24, 2010 -- "Hot 'N Funny" has been making iPhone apps for eight months, finally making money when Apple shut her down. Playboy, Sports Illustrated, and Maxim however, get to keep their similar apps up.

Jacqui Holland and her partner Jeff Wolverton have had seven apps removed from the app store, including the popular "Pocket Ex-Girlfriend" and "Pocket Hotty", all featuring Jacqui as various scantily clad comic characters. Apple removed them all, most in the "sexy apps" purge of the last few days (you can see them on www.ForbiddenIphoneApps.com) Apple claims the burlesque comedy apps of HotNFunny.com were removed due to "overtly sexual content", which it previously approved, but now says has to go. All of the Hot 'N Funny teams apps had no nudity, no pornography and were rated 17+. Apple does continue to allow bikini pictures from big magazine companies such as Playboy, however, and sexual content such as Cosmopolitan's "Sexual Position of the Day" app.

Jacqui & Jeff are both former standup comics. Jacqui is also an working actress who appeared in "My Best Friend's Girl" in a scene with Kate Hudson, and Jeff is the screenwriter who wrote the Academy Award-winning short film "The ChubbChubbs!" as well as a creating visual effects in two of the Spider-Man movies. The two met in the standup comedy circuit and formed an alliance last summer to make comedic short films, then quickly switched to iPhone apps. After months of altering their apps to adjust to Apple's ever-changing standard, their business was beginning to take off. Apple first allowed pasties, then said no, but bikinis & thongs were okay. Several Hot 'N Funny apps would be up, then down, then back up, sometimes with the same content. Hot 'N Funny is now one of the many that have been decimated by Apple's purge of erotic iphone apps.

As both an app developer and the central model of the apps, Jacqui has a unique point of view on the apps Apple says we "degrading and objectionable" to women, and believes Apple decision to let similar apps from the magazine companies remain (now devoid of competition) has more to do with the impending iPad release and it's platform for magazine distribution. She points out that she and Jeff altered the "front screenshots" of their apps many times at Apple's behest, but Playboy and Sports Illustrated's remaining apps show exactly the amount of skin in the images Jacqui was forced to take down.

For additional information on the news that is the subject of this release (or for a sample, copy or demo), contact Jacqui Holland or Jeff Wolverton or visit www.ForbiddenIphoneApps.com. You can also include details on product availability, trademark acknowledgment, etc. here.

About Hot N' Funny:
HotNFunny.com creates comedic posters, cards, short films, phone apps and parodies.

Contact Details:

Jacqui Holland: Jacqui@MsHotNFunny.com 818-521-7971
Jeff Wolverton: Jeff@JeffWolverton.com 310-902-8055
http://www.ForbiddenIphoneApps.com