No Nudity: Playboy's iPhone App To Test Men's 'For The Articles' Excuse
from the seriously?--no-boobies? dept
Looking back, I think I saw my first Playboy magazine when I was roughly ten years old or so. That would put us somewhere in the early 90's. My friends and I stopped on our way to school and huddled around each other, all trying to get a glimpse of the in-depth article on Operation Desert Storm and it's long-reaching implications for the Middle East, American foreign policy, and the rest of the world. No...wait...now I remember. We wanted to see the naked girls, because these were the days before wide internet adoption would put roughly all the porn at everyone's fingertips and President Bush's name still made us giggle (it kind of still does, actually). That said, amongst older generations, you would occasionally hear the laughable excuse from men that they wanted their Playboy magazines so they could read the articles, I suppose because Time Magazine, The New Yorker and Newsweek didn't exist (psst! They did!).Well, now it appears we'll get something of a test for that excuse, with Playboy releasing a mobile app for Apple's app store, which of course had to nix all the nipples and vaginas to get it past the tech company's Quaker-like regulators.
This winter, the company, long barred from Apple's digital storefronts because of its pornographic associations, will package a nudity-free version of its content together for the launch of its first iPhone app, featuring lifestyle tips, articles from the magazine and, of course, photos of beautiful women.Those beautiful women will be clad in lingerie, under Apple's strict no boobies policy. Now, here's why this probably won't work. Nobody is going to download this app to see women in lingerie. There's a couple of reasons for this. First, we've long been able to get that elsewhere. Victoria Secret has an iOS app, after all. Also, there's that handy browser option for viewing all the images one could want on the internet. As for the articles, we have a couple of problems. Jumping into the news content business this late in the game and having success in it would require really compelling articles. The good news is that Playboy still has this. The bad news is that all those people who claim their allegiance to Playboy for their articles are full of crap. As the article summarizes:
So, mobile readers will have to actually read Playboy for the articles, with a little lingerie on the side. This could totally work. What could go wrong?The answer, of course, is everything.
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Wait, Playboy has articles?
I'll bet you could replace all the text in Playboy with Lorum Ipsum and sales would be the same...
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Hold it...
Seriously?
You have to disparage the Quaker religion? Are you telling me that Ben Franklin, playboy and innovator, is crazy for getting laid more times on Sunday than his Catholic brethren, equates to Apple's view that nudity doesn't happen?
I mean... Why we gotta diss our Forefathers like that? The brotha be down with kites and lightning, making money, buildin' hospitals for the public and keeping church and state separated.
And now we gotta go and misrepresent on him. Brotha Tim, that be ill yo...
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And yes, we are offended by being compared to Apple's content police. I totally would have allowed "Phone Story".
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Not to be confused with "Like Us on #MyTwitFace"
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And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked
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Mostly because I wouldn't buy a playboy magazine because of all the nudity, but want to read the articles BECAUSE people always joke about the articles.
Don't get me wrong I'm no prude, I just prefer my nudity viewed via an incognito tab in the browser.
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Second, since the app market is not quite new, Playboy probably had an app that wasnt approved, so now they replace the nudes with lingerie stuff. Why do you thing that "everything" could go wrong? And why is the fact that there is already one app that has lingerie the reason that there should not be a second?
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Second, you're completely missing the point of what he's saying. There are a huge number of apps featuring woman in lingerie, and other non-nude states of undress. Playboy probably did have a previous app that wasn't approved, but by taking away the nudity, that also takes away a chunk of their market. Why would a Playboy fan look at a cut-down, censored app when he can just open Safari and look at any nudity he wants - including Playboy's own content on their site? That's the question.
"Why do you thing that "everything" could go wrong?"
COULD go wrong. He might be mistaken and it might not. However, he's explained the reasons it failed upfront if it does indeed fail.
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I don't know what this says about me
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You guys know Playboy has naked chicks, right?
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Husband: "No. I only read Playboy for the pictures."
Meme coming soon to an internet near you.
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Wait, Playboy still exists?
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I won't support censoring.
Also
I can get Playboy through Zinio and look at the whole magazine via browser on my Playbook or PC. I looked at the iPad app a while ago, and even though there are good articles and stories available, not getting everything just doesn't cut it. It's not an issue over if the articles good or not, as they are, but the magazine content is about men and men's sexual nature, whether it's images, articles, comics or advertisements. Removing most of the sexual content basically neuters the magazine for the iPad.
There are apps in the iTunes store that have nudity and there are loads of women's magazines that show partial or full nudity, so why would Playboy be censored?
Don't waste your money on getting it.
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