Hasta La Gadget!

Just yesterday the 2013 Super Bowl revealed the very first glimpse most of the world had at Apple’s URL-shortening “AppStore.com” in the Star Trek Into Darkness teaser – and lucky you, you’re already signed up! The AppStore.com structure is not one where there will be a massive “land grab” as often is the case with these sorts of things, instead Apple has opted for a more automatic sort of push, with URLs like http://appstore.com/slashgear being active automatically. That particular address will bring you straight to the iTunes App Store listing of the SlashGear app – easy as pie!

This structure also works for the Mac App Store. If you head to http://appstore.com/mac/osxmountainlion/, you’ll be taken to the Mac App Store’s listing of OS X Mountain Lion, also launching the Mac App Store as the iTunes App Store links launch the iTunes app. This shortened link structure includes both names of apps and names of companies. You’ll be able to link to link in three different ways to two different kinds of final locations as follows:

http://appstore.com/companyname/

http://appstore.com/companyname/appname/

http://appstore.com/appname/

As the iOS Developer Library lets us know, each of these also works with the “mac” inserted to head to the Mac App Store instead of the iTunes App Store. The Mac App Store, for those of you that don’t know, is made for desktop apps rather than mobile apps – while your iPhone apps come from the iTunes App Store, your MacBook apps come from the Mac App Store.

http://appstore.com/mac/companyname/

http://appstore.com/mac/companyname/appname/

http://appstore.com/mac/appname/

The way you’ll get the correct app or company name for this structure is to remove all whitespace, make sure all letters are lower-case, and make sure all copyright, trademark, and registered mark symbols are taken out. You’ll be replacing the ampersand with the word “and”, and all of the following punctuation must be removed: “!¡”#$%’()*+,\-./:;< =>¿?@[\]^_`{|}~”. You’ll need to replace all accented and “decorated” character with their most basic form (elemental character) while all other characters are left as is. So make your title as basic as possible and it should, by all means, link easily.

Above: Star Trek Into Darkness trailer displays first-ever appearance of an AppStore.com/ vanity url.

If you have trouble finding the correct structure for your app or company on either app store, be sure to let Apple know at http://developer.apple.com/bugreporter. There you’ll want to tell them the full current or desired URL you’re hoping to work with, the countries your app or company works in, and the iTunes-generated long URL you’ve been working with up until now (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app…). You can get this longer URL by right-clicking or control-clicking the little triangle next to the app’s price in your respective app store and selecting the “Copy Link” option.

Sound all good to you? Let us know if you’re pumped up about this simple yet powerful measure Apple is taking to keep links to their app stores clean and quick!

SlashGear 101: How do I get an Apple AppStore.com vanity url? is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Microblogging service and teen-favorite Tumblr has quietly scaled up its iOS app age warning, giving the latest version a 17+ recommendation in what appears to be a preemptive defense against Apple’s latest porn witch hunt. Tumblr for iOS was updated overnight to version 3.2.4 [iTunes link], but in addition to “small bug fixes” the refreshed app also demanded users confirm they are 17 or over.

The nature of the Tumblr service – following multiple other users, who either post or reblog images, text, video, audio, and links – means that the sort of content you see depends largely on the sort of people you follow. However, there’s plenty of adult content to be found, something which may have prompted Tumblr to take a more cautious approach to its app rating.

Apple has had a crack-down on erotica-filled apps in recent weeks, first yanking apps by 500px from the App Store after they were found to contain x-rated material, and then triggering a flurry of activity over at Twitter-run Vine which inadvertently made a sexual image an “editor’s pick.” Twitter blamed human error for the mistake, though the Vine app [iTunes link] is still rated at 12+ in the App Store.

Tumblr is yet to comment publicly on the decision to reclassify the app’s age rating, but it’s worth noting that the Android counterpart to the iOS software is still considered “low maturity” in Google’s Play store. Whether Tumblr’s move will be sufficient to avoid Apple’s ire this time around remains to be seen.

[via CNET]

Tumblr makes iPhone app 17+ over porn potential is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Twitter’s new video clip sharing service, Vine, is already prompting controversy with a proliferation of pornography, potentially putting the new social network at risk from more prurient app store masters. Launched last week as a way to easily create and share brief, looping video clips, Vine has unsurprisingly been quickly adopted by users distributing snippets of sex, either DIY or pieced together from commercial releases.

As with Twitter, Vine users can tag their clips with hashtags, and it doesn’t take much searching to find “#sex” and “#porn” well populated with the sort of content that wouldn’t be appropriate for younger Viners. Apple, for instance, rates the Vine app as suitable for those aged 12 or over, calling it out for infrequent or mild suggestive themes, nudity, or sexual content, though that description is at odds with the hardcore pornography readily available today.

In response, Twitter has said it has a two-stage complaints system which relies on users to initially report anything they deem inappropriate. Questionable content such as ”nudity, violence, or medical procedures” can be flagged within the app or on the website, the social company told Business Insider, at which point any future viewings will be preceded by a warning message.

However, that flag will also trigger a review by the Vine team itself, which will decide whether or not the content should be left in place or removed. Vine users can also have their accounts terminated, Twitter points out, if the material does not meet with the terms of service.

Whether the rise in adult material will force a more dramatic move by Apple remains to be seen. Only last week, iOS developer 500px saw its apps pulled from the App Store after the iPhone maker decided sexual content was too readily available.

Meanwhile, if you want to see the sort of content that’s being shared on Vine – and, as far as we can tell, without rogue genitalia – then Just Vined is gathering up recent clips in one big preview (that’s happily muted by default). There’s more on Vine in our full SlashGear 101.

Six seconds of pleasure: Vine’s porn problem is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

When it comes to the Apple App Store, you can say that Cupertino keeps quite a tight rein on things, where every single app will have to go through some pretty stringent measures and quality control before they are approved for release. Having said that, Apple has already removed the photo-sharing tool known as 500px from the App Store, with a rather puzzling reason. According to Apple, the 500px app was taken off for “featuring pornographic images and material.”

It is rather puzzling, since 500px already filters pornographic images from their site before allowing photos to go through, and while there are images of naked ladies from time to time, those tend to lean more on the “artistic” nature since it attracts professional photographers and high end hobbyists alike. It is reported that 500px was in discussion with the powers-that-be at Apple in limiting the search results to a more restrictive manner, but it does seem as though Apple has decided to take things into their own hands before negotiations are over. This coming after 500px was on the Apple App Store for the past 16 months. What do you think about the situation, and where should the line be drawn?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Siri Was Almost Installed On Verizon’s Droid Lineup Of Smartphones At One Point In Time, Apple HDTV On Track, Says Analyst,

Apple has stricken 500px’s apps from the App Store because it facilitates nude image searches. The move is reported to have taken place early this morning in spite of the fact that the app defaults to a search mode that excludes nude images, requiring the user to make specific changes in order to find them. 500px has adjusted the app to try to please Apple as a result.

500px has rolled out a new update for the app to address the issue, which is awaiting Apple approval. The company’s COO Evgeny Tchebotarev stressed to TechCrunch that although nude images are allowed, pornographic photos are not. In addition to the iOS 500px app, the company’s ISO500 app was also pulled for the same reason.

As many have noted, 500px’s apps aren’t the only ones that facilitate locating nude images, so one must wonder what kind of precedence this sets for other apps. Will Apple be scrubbing from the App Store every app that allows its users to pull up photographs of people in various states of undress? If so, the likes of Tumblr and Flickr, to name a few, should be nervous.

Apple, however, had some harsher things to say about the app, claiming that pornographic images were, indeed, available. “The app was removed from the App Store for featuring pornographic images and material, a clear violation of our guidelines. We also received customer complaints about possible child pornography. We’ve asked the developer to put safeguards in place to prevent pornographic images and material in their app.”

[via TechCrunch]

Apple pulls 500px apps due to nude photo search and pornography allegations is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.