The athletic trendsetter garnered some attention this week when it released its 2009 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit app, which features photos and videos of 20 of the magazine's swimsuit models in states of undress, including nothing but bodypaint.
The app comes complete with Apple's toughest rating: 17+. That means that when a user tries to download the app, they'll have to confirm their age just like they would on an adult site.
The policy to add such a warning to a decidedly non-adult app marks a course change for the Cupertino, Calif.-based tech giant, which recently approved an app called Hottest Girls that actually included nudity, only to reject the app the same morning it hit the market to a flurry of media coverage.
Sports Illustrated is calling its new app the "world's sexiest," but a brief survey of Apple App Store reveals dozens of similar apps, including a few gay counterparts. The vast majority of them now come with the 17+ warning.
Sports Illustrated's new app falls on the expensive end of the App Store spectrum at $2.99. Tech pundits have criticized the high price while also praising the company's ingenuity to monetize one of its most famous products.
"The print magazine business isn’t doing so hot right now, but Sports Illustrated might just have found a new business model: selling an iPhone app," TechCrunch analyst Eric Schonfeld said, later adding, " Does Playboy have an iPhone app? It might save them too."