Image by Noah Kalina.
The iPhone’s app store has long had a reputation for prudery. So it doesn’t surprise me to see the Android pulling ahead with an open model that shows it has the market awareness to truly survive in the wild, allowing room for things like the just-announced, adults-only app store for the Android. I’d already poked around the store and found some cool grownup apps for my Moment, and I’m excited to see where this is headed. iPhone’s app store has so far failed the ‘make your business model sex positive’ test, which would make it able to withstand the changing and growing face of adult consumers (i.e. that 1 in 3 people seeking adult content is female), and I’m excited to see what’s next for my cool new phone. If only people would stop offering to write me apps for the iPhone and I’d get offers from Android developers… I worry that the iPhone app store would not treat my topic with fairness or respect.
Here’s PC Week with more on the story (beware ANNOYING rollover ads):
Seattle-based MiKandi LLC has launched the first adults-only mobile applications store for Google Android smartphones. The store is already available for installation from the MiKandi Web site for compatible mobiles, and will offer a range of both free and paid-for adults-only applications.
According to MiKandi, the company was founded by seven people, including former employees of Microsoft, T-Mobile and Comverse, and adult industry veterans. One of MiKandi LLC’s founders, Shane Isbell, began running an alternative Android applications store — SlideME — before the the Android Marketplace’s official launch.
“[MiKandi LLC] wanted to find a niche that was not currently being served and adult applications were at the top of the list,” Jennifer McEwen, one of the company’s founders, told PC World. “There are no other adult app stores out there to meet this need of users and developers. So we entered the market with MiKandi to provide value to the mobile application ecosystem.”
The app store is very much under development. Though you can install the store itself, it only offers a single app: a “multi-speed vibrator system” called “Dildroid.”
The MiKandi developer portal is currently invite-only, but MiKandi LLC is about to launch an e-mail campaign aiming to recruit app developers. According to the MiKandi Twitter profile, the response from developers and end users alike has been overwhelming. (…read more, pcworld.idg.com.a)
In the iPhone app store, nothing remotely adult is officially allowed, unless you count the many fairly misogynistic bikini apps, versus the iPhone app store’s immediate response to pull a male pinup app (which showed no nudity, while featuring some strategically torn jeans here and there). Gay apps without the sex? No problem. (Though don’t tell them Grindr is a hookup app.) TapGay? Not so much.
Well, I’m not a developer, by any means… but I was distressed at the lack of adult apps, myself. I have an Android phone, and I just downloaded the store. I see about 5 apps there, now, including the Dildroid… I wonder if its the same Dildroid app available on the Android market. Its way cute!
Thanks so much for sharing… I’m a new reader of your blog… hope to continue seeing/learning cool stuff. Yum!
Hi,
I once read that Beta video format was beaten to death by VHS, among other things, because Sony did not allow the distribution of porn on Beta.
Could we have the same situation here? We’ll see…
Actually, the term “nothing remotely adult is officially allowed” is untrue.
My iPhone podcast app, which is quite adult but not a “misogynistic bikini app” by any measure, was approved for sale.
That being said, I hope the developers who put together my app will do something similar fro Android phones. It makes sense to cover the market.