Want a direct 180 from what we were told late last week and into this week as to the “Great Boobie Ban of 2010″? If you somehow managed to miss the news, Apple went on a puritan rampage last week, removing somewhere just south (or north, depending on where you get your fill) of 5,000 “sexy apps” that were…too sexy for the app store. Apple said complaints from women for women and of course children spurred the removal. Never mind the fact that there are parental controls, and above all else, the ability to actually skip past apps you don’t find to your liking.

The PR nightmare in all of it however was the fact that “mainstream sexy apps”, such as those being marketed by Playboy, SportsIllustrated, and similar publishers escaped unharmed. It’s ok though. There’s no need to continue living with an elevated heart beat or twisted undies as iPhone devs have discovered something rather interesting — a new “Explicit” category in the dev tools used to upload apps to Apple for approval.

Excuse me for a minute while I lose my composure….Why the fuck didn’t Apple just keep this category under wraps until it was ready, announce/release it, then go over the apps that they banned and notify developers they were moving said apps into this new category? Doing so would have prevented the shitstorm of negative press that has descended on Cupertino like the plague. I mean, doesn’t leaving everything intact and transitioning it over seem like a much better solution than the path they’re taking? Once again, those running the App Store are doing a bang up job, proving the argument that humans really aren’t that far removed from Apes.

/rant.

Whew. Alrighty then. What do you have to say?

TUAW