The print edition of Esquire's November issue, featuring the newly crowned "sexiest woman alive," Minka Kelly, hit newsstands in mid-October -- yet four weeks after it was submitted to Apple for approval, the iPad edition of the issue has yet to appear in the App Store.
The problem? The issue is simply too risque for the App Store, one source familiar with the matter told Mashable. The publication has submitted a revised version it expects to be approved in the next few days, around the time the December issue is slated to hit the App Store.
An executive at Hearst said that Apple has not, in fact, communicated at all to Esquire since the issue was submitted to the App Store, despite multiple entreaties -- nor that the publication has submitted a revised version.
Apple has a history of rejecting apps that contain sexually suggestive material. Its App Store Review Guidelines for developers states that "'explicit descriptions or displays of sexual organs or activities intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings' will be rejected." This includes -- but is not limited to -- text, graphics, images, photographs and sounds "that in Apple's reasonable judgment may be found objectionable…obscene, pornographic or defamatory," according to the official developer agreement.
Apple has previously purged a number of apps featuring women in bikinis or lingerie, such as SlideHer, an app that challenged users to put together a puzzle of a skimpily dressed actress, and Sexy Scratch Off, which allowed users to "swipe off" a woman's dress to display her undergarments. Apple was prompted to remove these apps by customers, most of whom were female, Philip W. Schiller, head of worldwide product marketing at Apple, told The New York Times in an interview earlier this year.
Yet apps from bigger brands tend to slide by. Playboy's iPhone app, which features dozens upon dozens of photographs of scantily clad women, is on display in the App Store, as is Sports Illustrated's annual swimsuit issue.
When the Times asked Schiller why that particular issue had made it into the App Store, he claimed that "the difference is this is a well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format."
Neither source was willing to disclose what content Apple objected to specifically, but we're willing to bet some of the video footage of Minka Kelly, which can be found on Esquire's website might have been the problem.