iPhone developers angry as Apple purges adult apps
Developers have expressed anger at Apple's decision to ban some adult-themed applications from its iPhone.
Thousands of apps with adult-themed content have been removed from the store since Friday although some, such as one from Playboy, remain.
Apple has said that certain apps were removed following customer complaints.
Developer Jon Atherton is angry that previously-approved apps have been pulled, and accuses Apple of "experimenting with our livelihoods".
Apple said it had to respond to its customers.
"It came to the point where we were getting customer complaints from women who found the content getting too degrading and objectionable, as well as parents who were upset with what their kids were able to see," Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of product marketing, told the New York Times.
When asked why some apps with adult content had remained intact he said that Apple took into consideration how "well-known" companies were as well as whether they had "previously published material".
ChilliFresh is an Australian company that creates apps for the iPhone, including the recently banned Wobble, which allows users to add 'wobble' functionality to any picture. The firm markets the app by suggesting people can use it to wobble women's breasts.
"I'm now worried the eco-system is run by puritans and is not fair to all players," developer Jon Atherton said on its website.
"And worst of all it is not a secure source of income. It can drop to close to zero if they decide to change the rules," he added.
The firm was making £320 a day out of its apps, a figure which has dropped to £5 since the ban, he said.
"On Friday evening we got an e-mail out of the blue which basically said, thanks very much but we don't want you any more. Apple said it was removing all overtly sexual apps," he told the BBC.
He said that if Apple was serious about protecting young customers it should allow parents to set controls for devices.
He called on Apple to publish its new guidelines so that developers were clear on what they could and could not do as well as to clarify why not all sex-related apps are affected by the ban.
"My view is that this is a knee-jerk reaction. Apple is very controlling. These apps are getting popular but the apps store doesn't have an adult section," he said.
"I'd have thought there was a technological way of fixing the problem rather than pulling the rug out from under people's feet," he added.
Best Palm Pre Apps
Here's a list of the some of the best Palm Pre webOS apps so far.
We will be writing about more Palm Pre apps in the future. All these Palm Pre apps are available in the Palm Pre Catalog (app store) directly on your Palm Pre.
uLocate WHERE: Palm Pre WHERE is a location-based mobile application which provides information 
about places around you. It gives you local content based on your current location, including weather, news, restaurant reviews, gas stations, movie show times. The app uses the Palm Pre's built-in GPS to provide location-based data . It's currently the 5th most popular app in the Palm Pre's App Catalog. You can connect with other users through Buddy Beacon and the WHERE Wall. WHERE comes in many versions and we name WHERE App of the Day for the BlackBerry Storm. WHERE also comes in Nokia, iPhone and BlackBerry.
Evernote turns your Palm Pre phone into an extension of your brain, 
letting you remember everything, big and small. Take notes, capture inspirations, snap photos, and track tasks, then find them all any time. Plus, thanks to Evernote's amazing cloud-based sync, you can recall everything using your Palm Pre, desktop computer, or the web.
Pandora: The popular internet radio application provides a personalized 
free mobile music channel to Pre customers. Playlists are based on artist or song. Pandora on the Palm Pre is fully integrated with Pandora on the web. Users enjoy all their existing stations - and create new ones right from the Palm Pre. Time Magazine named the iPhone version of Pandora their top iPhone apps and we named Pandora a BlackBerry Storm App of the Day.
Accuweather - weather app with weather data and wtih 5 day forecasts based on your location.
Shortcovers eBook Reader - this cloud-based reader app gives 
you access to the Shortcovers service with an eBook store that offers some free eBooks. The Shortcovers service allows readers to read thousands of bestselling books, chapters, news and magazine articles, short stories, blog posts and more, online and on your Palm Pre. As a member you can bookmark and save books, chapters, articles and stories, plus build a digital library and rate, comment and share your favorite reads with your friends and family. Creative types can also write their own shortcovers. Books are reasonably priced and appear cheaper than the paper versions.
Intuit GoPayment Mobile credit card payment processor. Intuit GoPayment turns the Palm Pre Phone Into Credit Card Terminal. GoPayment helps improve cash flow by giving small businesses an affordable and hassle-free way to process credit card payments.
Accuweather:
Tweed - Palm Pre Twitter client with ability to change fonts, and access more than one 
Twitter account. It offers easy navigation, browsing, the ability to find real-time information on a topic Multiple accounts. You can access your work and personal accounts at the same time Bookmark searches and timelines. You also can save searches, trending topics or user timelines. There can be notifications when you receive messages or replies. You can add your current location to your tweets and update your profile with your current location
I will be adding more to this list very soon, so check back.