Safari would have these same warnings if it was distributed through the App Store. It's just that people expect their phone to come with a web browser.
The 17+ warning is just that—a warning, an indemnificatory disclaimer against lawsuits by angry parents—and only takes effect as a restriction if you switch on parental controls, which also, indeed, exist for Safari itself.
(The "game" part is indeed an oversight—I imagine Apple just never considered that they could be publishing anything other than games that had "mature themes", seeing as 99% of Apps are things like invoice trackers and color swatch wheels, and don't really have "themes" of any kind.)
> Safari would have these same warnings if it was distributed through the App Store. It's just that people expect their phone to come with a web browser.
In fact, Safari can be blocked through the Parental Controls on the iPhone.
Actually, I believe that the store asks you "By clicking OK, you agree that you are at least 17 years old." or something like that and if you click Cancel, it won't download.
Right—they ask it to make sure that you're at least saying that you're 17 years old. They don't require it to be true; it just has to make any lawsuit you could later file get thrown out.
Why would they get a lawsuit? AFAIK, adult websites are already required by law to put a warning. You don't get any such warning when downloading firefox or chrome last time I checked.
AFAIK, adult websites are already required by law to put a warning.
If they're based in the US, maybe, but there is more to the Internet than just the US.
(I'm not sure this is an actual law, though. My guess is that it's a defensive measure against "won't someone PLEASE think of the children" and the resulting legislation. Self-regulation and self-preservation.)
Why don't firefox and chrome have such a warning then?
> If they're based in the US, maybe, but there is more to the Internet than just the US.
I just think it's Apple acting overly prude like banning US political cartoons etc. Being sued because your web browser has access to adult web sites doesn't make sense. Countries where those sites are illegal are already censoring those sites (China, Malaysia etc).
The 17+ warning is just that—a warning, an indemnificatory disclaimer against lawsuits by angry parents—and only takes effect as a restriction if you switch on parental controls, which also, indeed, exist for Safari itself.
(The "game" part is indeed an oversight—I imagine Apple just never considered that they could be publishing anything other than games that had "mature themes", seeing as 99% of Apps are things like invoice trackers and color swatch wheels, and don't really have "themes" of any kind.)