The removal of 500px from Apple's App Store raises questions over review equity, fairness and API functionality.
When Evgeny Tchebotarev started the day, he wasn't expecting to end up spending so much time fielding calls from the media. Tchebotarev is the COO and co-founder of 500px, a popular photo site and community for professional and amateur photographers.
Yet that's exactly what happened after Apple removed the 500px app from the App Store. After more than 16 months in the App Store and over 1 million downloads, a routine app update had unintended consequences.
On Monday night, Tchebotarev tells Mashable that he received a call from Apple. There was a problem with 500px. Like many other apps with photo communities, including Tumblr and Flickr, some of the photographers who use 500px use it to take photographs that contain nudity — not pornographic images, but nudity nonetheless.
According to Tchebotarev, Apple reps told him that it was too easy for users to find nude photos using the app. As a result, the app was in violation of Apple's content policy and would be removed from the App Store. Tchebotarev offered to make the necessary changes to the app to comply with Apple's rules, but it was too late. As of Tuesday morning, 500px was gone from the App Store.
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