- Apple has a “Notarization” process it employs to check apps on third-party stores for privacy and security issues.
- So far, apps passing Notarization have been told by Apple that they’re “approved for distribution.”
- Apple recently changed its language there, distancing itself from “approved” verbiage.
For years, Apple exercised near-total control over which apps were allowed on its smartphones. While Android users were free to sideload apps even outside of Google’s official Play Store distribution channel, iPhone users lacked their own easy alternative, instead forced to jailbreak or explore developer-focused tools. But all that changed when the EU required Apple to open support for alternate app stores. Without Apple’s ability to veto apps on these third-party stores, the inevitable happened earlier this month, and we got our first iPhone porn app. But now a subtle change to an internal Apple process means that this one might have been the first, and also the last Apple-“approved” porn app of its kind.
Even though someone was always going to be the first to release a pornography-focused app in a third-party iOS store, the arrival of Hot Tub in AltStore caught as much attention as it did at least in part because this app had passed Apple review. Even though Apple was no longer in a place to approve software on a content level, with the arrival of alternate app stores the company introduced a process called Notarization, where Apple would check to ensure that apps didn’t present unacceptable security or privacy risks. So, through a certain lens, this was a porn app that Apple had “approved.”