During the WWDC keynote last Monday, we learned that Apple will finally try out how apps and games rating systems work. We also learned that developers themselves will be able to rate the apps.Of course, Apple still has final say on things but this development is definitely breaking news.

Just now, SoftBox LLC, developers of the Photospot game series just released an app called Bikini Inspector having the rating of 17+.

If we remember it correctly, only ONE app has been rated mature for the longest time: Amateur Surgeon.

A Change Has Come

A lot of people have claimed that one of the hindrances to the iPhone’s full “console” capability was the lack of parental control/rating system. Pretty much EVERY game submitted with red blood in it was rejected forcing devs to change the color to something obscure like orange or green.

With this news, certainly more violent games like those that hound most consoles can finally arrive on the iPhone smoothly*.

When Was The Update Pushed?

According to The Register, this update was pushed out with iTunes update 8.2 which was released just June 1. They further explain how the rating system works.

Apps, according to the report, will be rated at four levels: 4+, 9+, 12+, and 17+. Why on god’s green earth a three-year-old would have an iPhone? We’ll leave that aside for the moment. Adding ratings to apps will help Apple prevent such embarrassments as its recent censorship of an Nine Inch Nails app update.

If you notice on the above screenshots, the rating is further defined into categories offering much similarity with how movies get rated by the MPAA. Maybe this will turn Trent Reznor back to social networking.

What Lies Ahead?

Conservatives may agree that this just opens up a whole new can of worms for Apple. We just learned from Bikini Spot developer, Kenneth Wong, that the ability to select rating systems shipped with the OS 3.0 SDK:

The RATING System came as 3.0 got rolled out …
We set the rating and let Apple approve it … As far as “changing”.. only apple is allowed to change the rating I heard

This change can lead to either of these two things:

1. Apple becomes more transparent. How will Apple decide which apps get rated as such? Except for the obvious (nudity, blood, gore etc), where will it draw the line between a 9+ game or a 12+ game.
2. Apple produces a bigger wall between themselves, the consumers and developers.

You decide what you want to believe. We just want to say we appreciate Apple’s move to make the world a better place, although how “better” (if at all) the outcome will be.

UPDATE:

At this time, apps can NOT be sorted by ratings YET. Some apps also will show NOT YET RATED meaning Apple has just began to fully implement the system.

Please note that more changes should come over the following days leading to 3.0′s release next Wednesday.