For a minute there, it seemed like hell had frozen over.
You saw the headlines, right? "Uncensored Playboy Magazine Coming to iPad." "Playboy Coming to the iPad Despite Apple's Porn Policy." "OMG, Apple, Say It Ain't So!"
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Okay, I made that last one up. But you get the idea: When word started spreading that Playboy was bringing its full monty to Apple's famously chaste App Store, something seemed amiss. How could Apple, the company that's made a spectacle out of censoring its mobile app selection, allow -- gasp! -- naked women onto its virtual shelves?
The answer: It couldn't. It isn't. The whole story was one big misunderstanding.
The Playboy-on-the-iPad myth started with the bathrobed one himself, Mr. Hugh M. Hefner. Hef (just a little nickname I made up for the guy) sent a tweet on Tuesday announcing that new and old issues of Playboy would become available on the iPad in March. He followed up by saying yes, the content would be uncensored.
Hef wasn't lying. He just wasn't stating what many folks figured he was.
Playboy, in actuality, is creating a new "Web-based subscription service" that'll be "iPad-compatible," a spokesperson for the publication has clarified. The service will be able to "utilize iPad functions," she says. It's not immediately clear what those functions might be, but we can only hope they involve multitouch gestures.
As for the App Store itself, Playboy is working on an app -- but it'll be a non-nude version designed specifically to meet Apple's rigid guidelines, according to the spokesperson.
So yes, it appears Apple's App Store will, in fact, remain porn-free. Good thing, too: Otherwise, it might have become incredibly easy for people to find photos of naked ladies on those Internet-enabled devices.
Whew.
JR Raphael is a PCWorld contributing editor and the co-founder of geek-humor site eSarcasm. You can find him on both Facebook and Twitter.