Will The iPad Change The Way We Consume Porn?

Internet-enabled computers managed to transform the way we consume porn—as did smartphones like the iPhone a few years later. Now, with the iPad, Apple's released a whole new class of device: how will it effect adult entertainment?

Well, if you ask us, it probably won't—or at least, not in the way its predecessors did. While there's no doubt that the iPad is a hugely transformative device that will shape the way we consume a great deal of media, when it comes to porn...well, it just doesn't quite cut it.

As we see it, there are two main problems with the device:

Content: The iPad is set up to download media from three sources: the app store, the iTunes store, and the iBooks store. Awesome, sure—unless you like porn. As Apple has shown, time and time again, they're just not to keen on letting adult entertainment into their universe. And since there's no DVD drive on this baby, you can forget about watching porn that way. If you want to consume anything dirty, you have two options:

1) Go to a porn website using Safari (and forget about sites using Flash-based streaming video).

2) Load a dirty movie into iTunes (that you got from some place other than the iTunes store), and load it on to your iPad that way.

Not the worst options, of course—after all, those are the same ways one gets porn onto the iPhone. But that brings us to the second issue.

It's not discreet: The iPad has—rightly—been described as a very big iPhone...and that's exactly the problem. The main reason why the iPhone has had such a successful career in porn is because it's tiny. As a small, portable device, the iPhone allows you to browse porn discreetly, wherever you may be: at home, at the office, out on the town...and do we really have to explain the benefits of being able to comfortably hold it with one hand?

The iPad, on the other hand, though more manageable than a laptop, is hardly a discreet device. No one's going to believe you're bringing it to the bathroom "to do some reading"—and can you imagine the strain you'll get from holding it in one hand as you lie in bed? And don't even get us started on what would happen if you tried to browse porn on it in public...

Steve Jobs described the iPad as a device that fills the gap between computers and smartphones. And it's true. But in occupying that central position, the iPad's a device that's neither here nor there. Too limited in content to be a portable porn library, and too big and bulky for secret porn watching, it's pretty much the worst of both worlds...at least for the porn connoisseurs of the world.

· iPad (apple.com)
· Image of Stoya courtesy of Digtal Playground (digitalplayground.com)