Pocket Porn Comes to iPhone

9:48 am, June 20th, 2008, Lonnie Lazar

Graphic by mitchener83 via flickr

The newer, faster iPhone 3G, set for release on July 11, promises to chart new frontiers in mobile pornography, according to Time magazine.

The $13 billion adult entertainment industry sees the new Apple phone as a key in the shift from physical distribution (IE. DVDs) to a business model based on downloaded and streaming smut.

The iPhone is “by far the porn-friendliest phone” on the market, says Devan Cypher, spokesman for San Francisco-based porn producer Sin City Entertainment.

The porn industry may have problems with Apple, however. An Apple spokeswoman told Time it does not condone porn on the iPhone and promises to ban adult content from applications being built by third party developers for distribution by the company’s AppStore.

In addition, says company spokesperson Jennifer Bowcock, “iPhone 2.0 software will give customers the opportunity to turn on parental controls.”

But that may not be enough to hold back the flood. Because of the iPhone’s large screen and faster connectivity to the Internet promised by 3G technology, mobile adult entertainment is poised to move beyond racy texting and so-called moan tones, or popular, sultry-sounding downloadable ringtones that have been a staple of the industry’s penetration into the mobile market.

In Europe, where porn is more loosely regulated than in the US, there is an active market for video chatting; customers pay $50 a month on average to exchange dirty messages with actresses. Aside from the NSFW possibilities suggested by faster web access and the iPhone’s relatively larger screen real estate, Apple’s device is inspiring new frontiers in adult-oriented interactivity as well. Jason Swifter of iPhonematters.com has already imagined “an application that allow[s] you to undress people by dragging your fingers across the screen and literally dragging it off.”

In 2007, the international market for mobile adult content reached $1.7 billion, according to  the industry analyst company Juniper. Before the new iPhone was announced, Juniper projected that revenue from mobile adult content would rise to $4.6 billion by 2012. With estimates upward of 35 million 3G iPhones predicted to be in use by the end of 2009, those numbers could grow much larger.

Posted by Lonnie Lazar in Apple, Media, Quickies, Web, iPhone | Comment on this article