Playboy censors iPad application

London (IANS)- Playboy, the adult magazine run by Hugh Heffner, has agreed to remove all risqué content from its iPad app in order to avoid breaching Apple's strict anti-obscenity rules, a media report said Friday.

Anyone forking out 3.20 pounds for the digital version of the magazine will have to do without the explicit photo spreads that titillated generations of teenage boys, Daily Telegraph reported on its website.

The Playmate of the Month, one of the magazine's most popular photo features, will only appear on the iPad as a tasteful headshot.

Playboy agreed to censor its content in order to secure a place in the App Store, from which any software which Apple considers "obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory" is banned.

Apps which have fallen foul of Apple's strict taste standards in the past include a dictionary which contained swear words and a programme called "Me So Holy" which allowed users to replace Jesus' face with their own.
 
While Playboy has long trumpeted the strength of its journalism - "I only read it for the articles" is the standard response of men caught with a copy  of the magazine by their partners - many iPad users have expressed frustration at the self-censorship.

MinOnline, the US media news website, wrote: "The problem for Playboy is that the missing pieces are so obvious because they are so well known."

Apple is almost unique in the technology industry for taking an active stance against pornography. In April Steve Jobs, the chief executive, wrote to a customer who complained about Apple's self-appointed role as moral arbiter to insist that "we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone".

Android Market, the Google-run App Store rival, does not ban adult content.