iStrip has launched as Novelty App
Today the very first application we ever wrote for the iPhone has finally been approved! It’s original name was iStrip and we submitted it in August of 2007 for review. iStrip was a virtual stripper pen, a gimmick that boys used to play with when we were young in the 1970s.
iStrip was quickly rejected, because apparently it lacked “utility for the wider iPhone user community” (despite it being submitted to the ‘Entertainment’ category).
Offensive material?
In December we made another attempt to get it published by adding a bit more ‘utility’ to it: a clock. This time we were told very directly that the app contained “offensive material”. This material was a woman in a bikini on the vintage 1960s photograph we used for our background. This version is the one you can see in the iStrip video on YouTube and AppTheater.
So we thought, let’s made the bikini bigger. At some point it has to stop being offensive, right? To make it more fun, we actually added the ability to choose bathing suit styles. Who could be offended by this? But no luck iStrip Clock did not get approved.
So in our final attempt we changed the name to “Novelty App”, changed the icon a bit and submitted the application as a game, stating that it contains ‘mild mature themes’. And guess what, this time it worked! Novelty App is now available in the App Store.
One great feature of Novelty App is that it allows you to pick one of your own photos as the bathing suit pattern. This opens up a few interesting possibilities :)
