If there's one thing we can decisively say about iPhone users -- and everyone else, for that matter -- it's that they shouldn't see naked people, even if they want to. Ever. Apple agrees, and it turns out that they were responsible for the removal of the Hottest Girls app after all, contrary to a statement by its developer that the app had tapped out his server which supposedly forced him to ask Apple to pull it while he ramped up capacity. Apple released a statement today confirming this, but here's where it gets interesting: the company says that "the developer of this application added inappropriate content directly from their server after the application had been approved and distributed" -- in other words, the guy pulled a bait-and-switch on Apple by serving different content to his app after it had been approved using more PG-rated content. Look, we're all for filling our iPhones with gigabytes upon gigabytes of stuff that would make us especially anxious to trigger the Remote Wipe feature if we were to misplace it, but we've got to admit -- the dude went about it the wrong way here, Apple caught him, the world keeps turning. Come on, it's not like you don't have thousands of naughty pics in a folder cleverly named "recipes" that you can just sync anyway.

We've been hearing rumors about a non-game app store for the PSP since the launch of the PSP Go, and it sounds like the wheels are turning -- in an interview with CNET, Sony's Al De Leon said that while PSP content "will mostly be games, there's an opportunity to look at non-gaming applications." Sure, that's not exactly a hard confirmation, but it's certainly suggestive -- maybe we'll see something at Gamescom in August after all. Video after the break.

[Via Joystiq]

And just like that, the iPhone App Store is once again safe for children, people at work, and those who enjoy the iron fist of an anonymous application reviewer gently controlling their hardware / software ecosystem. Yep, the "Hottest Girls" application has been yanked after just a few hours of availability, and it's no secret why: although the app was clearly labeled and approved under iPhone OS 3.0's app rating and parental control guidelines, naked-ladies-on-the-iPhone was quickly becoming too much news for Apple's squeaky-clean image to bear. Of course, that once again prompts us to remind everyone that this exact same content is easily accessible through any number of applications on the iPhone, like, say, Safari, and that the App Store's arbitrary and capricious review procedures are an incredible liability to an otherwise dominant platform, but honestly, no one's listening because they'd rather talk about boobs. Good work.

Update: Interesting -- the dev's site now says that Hottest Girls has been "pulled" because their servers were "reaching their limits" and that the app will be back up soon, naughty pictures intact. We're guessing that means their image servers are cracking under the strain, but we'll see if this app or others like it make a reappearance anytime soon.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

After all the cases of benign apps being rejected on grounds of "objectionable content," the first outright application featuring jiggly bits has made it to the App Store. How could this happen? Easy, Apple's shift in policy is made possible by the parental controls included in the iPhone OS 3.0 -- you know, so you can parent instead of Apple. Hopefully this brings an end to arbitrary App Store rejections and begins a new era of fire and brimstone threats of eternal damnation.

[Via MacRumors]

Read [Warning: not safe for work]

Looking to make the wild and not-entirely-wondrous world of printers exciting for the first time in decades, HP has just unveiled the "world's first web-connected printer." If you're wondering how it plans on accomplishing such an impossible mission, let us just say this: the Photosmart Premium is going the way of the widget. Up on the 4.33-inch front panel is Touchsmart Web, a touchscreen interface with several bundled, online apps to accommodate usual paper-friendly tasks such as printing Google maps, tickets from Fandango, coupons, recipes, Sudoku, etc. There's even a full-on HD Apps Studio just in case downloading new apps on one's printer really becomes the new hotness. The API's being made open for the entire realm of developers, but we have to wonder what kind of interest we'll see here. Pricing is set for $399, and if you're thinking "why not just buy a cheap netbook and plug it into my current model" we hear ya, but we get the impression this is aimed squarely at another crowd. Lots more details are just past the break.

Update: We just had a chance to try the printer / Touchsmart for ourselves. First off, surprise, the screen is capacitive touch, and it works well -- but only one finger at a time. We asked a rep about multitouch and were told that while technically feasible, it's not gonna be supported at this time. The widgets are created with a combination of HTML5 and Java, and much to our surprise, video streaming has been implemented. The Monsters vs. Aliens trailer we saw was decent resolution, but really, it's not a place where we need pristine quality. More screens in the gallery below.

Gallery: HP unveils Photosmart Premium with Touchsmart Web hands-on

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It hasn't been Thursday too long, but as promised, Sirius XM's iPhone / iPod touch app has popped up in the iTunes app store, ready for your aural digestion. There's a 7-day free trial being offered, but yeah, eventually you're gonna have to pay. Now that it's there, we might as well point out the app's got a 9+ rating for mild profanity and crude humor. Worth giving up Pandora, Last.fm, or any number of other free music streamers already available? That's your call, so go download and decide for yourself.

Just in case a new iPhone model and OS 3.0 weren't enough goodies for this week, Sirius XM support team members are sending emails out announcing the company's long-awaited iPhone / iPod touch app will finally seeing the light of day and will launch this Thursday, June 18th. We just got off the phone with a customer service rep who confirmed the letters are legit, so unless there's some communication breakdown on the corporate ladder, looks like it's really, finally coming. It'll be available as a free download from the App Store, but those who subscribe to the gratis Basic Online Service will have to upgrade to the $2.99 monthly premium plan to have it on the go. We're a bit light on other details -- we can't imagine it being as full-featured as the standalone receivers -- but it's a good bet we'll have all our questions answered before the week is out.

Now that Sony's committed itself to downloadable games with the PSP Go, it's only natural to wonder where that strategy might lead -- and the hot buzz says there's an "app store" of sorts due in August at Gamescom. The new section of the Playstation Store will supposedly impose a 100MB limit on content and set prices in the $2 - $6 range, but otherwise have no restrictions, meaning devs will be free -- and even encouraged -- to code up non-game apps as well. Of course, you'll still be able to snag other PSP titles from the other parts of the store, but if this actually happens it'll be interesting to see if Sony can channel some of the energy from the vibrant PSP homebrew scene into a more legit distribution channel. We'll keep an eye out.

[Via Joystiq]

When we were breaking down the meaty differences between the old-school 3G and the 3G S yesterday, we made an assumption about support for OpenGL ES 2.0 3D graphics APIs in the original iPhone 3G based on the fact that it had been available in the iPhone OS 3.0 SDK for several betas. Turns out, though, that the graphics processor in the 3G S -- the PowerVR SGX -- supports hardware acceleration of both OpenGL ES 1.1 and 2.0 while the more pedestrian PowerVR MBX found in the iPhone 3G supports 1.1 alone.

What does this mean to you? OpenGL ES is the lightweight version of OpenGL, a powerful library of real-time 3D rendering APIs; many modern phones and other handheld devices support the older 1.1 specification, but 2.0 is less common -- it kicks things up a notch by supporting more complex textures and shading operations, which basically means games written to support it look more badass. Here's the problem, though: because OpenGL ES 1.1 and 2.0 are completely incompatible with each other, apps need to be written to support both if they're going to be maximally compatible. A 2.0-only app can't simply run on a 1.1-only device and not look as good -- it won't work at all.

Here's where it gets interesting. The App Store has already splintered a bit with certain applications being unavailable to iPod Touch users (dialers, for example), but language in Apple's iPhone SDK documentation leads us to believe that the company eventually intends to begin allowing it to splinter even among iPhone models, maybe as soon as the 3G S is released. That is, they'll allow apps that are only compatible with the 3G S because they're written to take advantage of OpenGL ES 2.0 and don't offer a 1.1 fallback:

"When designing your OpenGL ES application, the first question you must answer is whether your application will support OpenGL ES 1.1, OpenGL ES 2.0, or both... Your application should target OpenGL ES 1.1 if you want to support all iPhones and iPod touches."

Realistically, it was bound to happen; platform aside, hardware is always improving, and it's paralyzingly difficult to require that all apps be compatible with all of a platform's devices regardless of age -- particularly when it comes to gaming. We imagine this'll be an issue with apps taking advantage of the 3G S' other specific features like the magnetic compass and video recording support, too. Question is, what'll be that must-have game (or compass, we suppose) that spurs stubborn 3G owners into shelling out a few hundred bucks they didn't intend to?

Sure, we feign a lack of bias, but deep down in our hearts we only have one love: Symbian Foundation's robo-duckie mascot. Unfortunately for Symbian, it's going to take all the charm it can muster to win over the iPhone App Store's crop of cash-flush developers. Symbian was apparently at WWDC today, doing its best to woo, with all-day festivities involving coffee, food, a "hackathon," prizes, and free Nokia 5800 handsets for attendees. We're expecting Ovi Store to fill in with some solid €1.00 beer drinking simulators and Zippo lighter apps any second now.

It looks like Sony Ericsson is taking a page out of Apple's book for the launch of its app store, bundling the service in with the very same platform it already uses to distribute music and movies. PlayNow arena -- which was originally designed for music distribution and whose movie rental functionality is going live this month in a handful of locales -- is now being expanded to incorporate applications as well, initially coming to 13 countries and some 38 Sony Ericsson models. Conveniently, PlayNow arena is already well-plumbed to support a variety of blling methods which should make the transition to paid apps a pretty seamless one for the company, devs, and users alike. Submissions from developers for inclusion in the store will kick off July 1, initially covering Java and Symbian before being expanded to cover "additional platforms" (Android, anyone?) later in the year; there's no word, though, on exactly when end users will be able to get in on the action.

At what appeared to be a totally wild and awesome search for Wheel of Fortune contestants in a mall, Vanna White confessed on camera her deep love of gadgets, particularly her excitement about Slingbox and the new Slingbox app for the iPhone. We suppose it's fitting for somebody who's been playing with touchscreens since before most of us knew how to spell "technology," though it's really too bad she can't enjoy her daily The Price Is Right fix without hunting down a WiFi connection first. In an even more bizarre twist, it turns out Vanna White sued Samsung back in 1993 for using a robot that looked like her (pictured) in an advertisement. You may be a "geek girl," Vanna, but we bet your robotic doppelganger is using VOIPover3G with SlingPlayer on her Jailbroken iPhone right this second. The brief segment of her talking about Sling starts at the 2:06 mark, the video is after the break.

[Thanks, Lonny P.]

Sigh. Just as we thought Apple's ridiculous App Store approval process was about to get better with the advent of parental controls in iPhone OS 3.0, it goes and pulls another boneheaded move that makes us wonder if the entire system isn't hopelessly broken forever. This time the company's rejected Maza's Drivetrain, an app that allows users to remotely control the Transmission Bittorrent app, because "this category of applications is often used for the purpose of infringing third party rights." Right, "this category of applications," apparently meaning any app that has anything to do with Bittorrent at all -- Drivetrain doesn't actually upload or download anything, it's just used to manage Transmission running on your desktop. That's an awfully paranoid and restrictive stance towards one of the most popular file-transfer protocols around, especially since there are millions of legit torrents available, but somehow we're just not surprised -- this type of foolish, petty, and capricious behavior from Apple has sadly become par for the course with the App Store.

[Via iLounge]

So this is interesting -- we were just forwarded an email from Apple informing iPhone developers that all future App Store testing and review will occur on iPhone OS 3.0 to prepare for a smooth transition this summer, and that incompatible applications won't be approved. Seeing as we're already on beta 5, we're guessing most devs shouldn't find this too much of a burden, but we're wondering if the recent string of bad publicity over App Store approval guidelines has forced Apple's hand here, since 3.0's parental control features will ostensibly relax Apple's currently asinine content restrictions and allow non-kiddie-apps to get through without any hoopla. Let's hope.

Update: Looks like our guess was spot-on. The iPhone Blog's noticed a new set of parental controls in beta 5 (and possibly earlier) that suggests some sort of app rating system is in the works. Sure, it's a promising idea, but let's just hope the current broken process is also getting an overhaul -- simply slapping a 17+ rating on, say, Tweetie doesn't actually fix the problem.

We don't know why and we don't know how. We only know that Trent Reznor is saying that the updated iPhone NIN application has finally been approved. In his tweet Trent states the following:

NEWS FLASH: Apple has approved the NIN iPhone app update. Should be live in a few hours.

Whatever the reason for the turn-around -- Trent's expletive-ridden rant or the fact that the developer at one point had pulled any links to the offending "Downward Spiral" album -- let's hope these nerd-fights end once the App Store gains some parental controls.

Update: Reznor followed-up with this, "The NIN iPhone app is unchanged, the "issues" seem to have been resolved." Looks like Apple caved under intense criticism.