Porn Has Come to the iPhone and Apple is Not Happy

European iPhone Users Can Enjoy a Sexy Romp with the Hot Tub App

Porn has finally made it to the iPhone! But only in the European Union. Thanks to the EU Digital Markets Act, whether Apple likes it or not, after nearly two decades of wholesome iPhone content, the company must support third-party app stores. Even when they contain the only authorized porn search engine, Hot Tub.

Sadly, for the horny little mobile phone code, TechCrunch reports that Apple does not love its first native porn app. Instead of seeing Hot Tub as a joyous expansion of the iOS device family platform, all Apple sees are viral infections in its future. Malware.

Available at the Epic Games funded AltStore PAL, Hot Tub has gone through the same human-reviewed Notarization process to meet baseline platform integrity standards as every other piece of software that hopes to earn a place on an iPhone or iPad. According to the app store’s developer, Riley Testut, Hot Tub had no issues getting approved, which is impressive given that Apple has proudly resisted not just porn but also drug, alcohol, hate speech, and weapon content.

Hot Tub is marketed as “Porn Without the Pop-Ups” because it blocks ads from interrupting searches for and visits to sites including PornHub, XNXX, XHamster, and XVideos. It’s not just popular with European iPhone jailbreakers such as its developer cld3, for whom alternative app stores are familiar territory. If competing third-party shop MacPaw can be believed, a 2024 survey it conducted revealed 80-percent of EU iOS users wanted to try a third-party app store.

With nearly 70-percent of porn watched in the USA on a smartphone, finding a market is unlikely to be a problem. Fortunately, for those daring end users, the survey also reported that 60-percent of developers were interested in listing outside of the official App Store. The trick is getting the word out to iPhone users that not only is Hot Tub compatible with their OS but an entire world of third-party non-porn apps are as well.

While porn apps for Android phones are old hat, then-Apple CEO Steve Jobs insisted that it was the company’s “moral responsibility” to keep the iPhone devoid of smut. It is this attitude that inspired AltStore developer Testut to donate February’s Patreon income to LGBTQ+ support organization The Trevor Project and sex worker rights group, Red Umbrella Fund. By doing so, Testut hopes to fight against porn bans and remove online protection of queer and sex worker communities.

Nonetheless, even if Hot Tub is “a private, secure, and elegant way to browse adult content,” as it claims, Apple insisted in a statement that it is “deeply concerned about the safety risks that hardcore porn apps of this type create for EU users, especially kids. This app and others like it will undermine consumer trust and confidence in our ecosystem.”

Tell that to the porn-loving EU respondents to MacPaw’s survey.