Editorial: Adult Android apps aren't really for adults, and boobs will get you hacked [NSFW]

Recently, I was given the (what I thought would be) amazing task of doing an Android adult app roundup.  I prepared myself with a pre-paid debit card, a clear mind, a 12-pack of Milwaukee's finest and a dark room -- and went on a download spree.  What was supposed to be informative and fun turned out to be a $10 pain in the ass and time spent on the phone with T-Mobile trying to get things undone.

Repeat: Steve Jobs might have joked (or maybe he was serious) that the Android Phone is for Porn, but as we found out, that doesn't mean it's good porn.

This one's about as NSFW as can be, so be warned before you click through.

The first thing I noticed is that you have two main categories of "adult" apps -- pictures of boobs, and weblinks to porn video sites.  You will have a few real apps (mostly comprising strip poker or sliding puzzle games that use a picture we can't show here) scattered amongst them, but for the most part this isn't high-quality stuff.  I'm sure there are some well-written apps with an adult theme, but I couldn't find them, and that could be a testament to either the vast number of crapplications or my lack of search-fu skill.  Simply put -- there's nothing "adult" about most of these apps.  They look to be designed to appeal to 12-year-old kids who just want to see boobs, va-jay-jays, or wieners. 

lawd have mercy

Granted, there are some nice pictures of various bodies doing things that would make mom blush if she caught you looking at them, but the demographic who would search out this sort of content likely is too young to be looking at it in the first place.

But like the trooper that I am, I continued on through the sea of sin.  Until I got "hacked."

Mom would be proud

BAM

I can't point the finger at any particular app, nor any particular app store, but one or more of these adult apps signed me up to "LoveTips4Life" -- a premium SMS messaging scam.  I run Lookout on the device I use to test apps, and I know it works because it's caught apps trying to do evil once or twice.  But it didn't catch this one.  I spent a little while tearing apart .apk files trying to find it myself, but in the end I just gave up trying to find the exact culprit.  It wasted too much time, and chances are most people either can't or won't be able to dis-assemble an Android app to look at the code anyway.

So I'm going to just say it thusly -- be careful downloading crappy porn apps on your phone or tablet.

It's no fun trying to explain to the nice lady on the phone from T-Mobile (insert your carrier here) that you don't really want to get premium SMS messages from some company and you stumbled across it on accident while testing Android apps.  She's not going to believe you, and you'll be paying $10 for that  first month any way you slice it.  And chances are, the app will suck anyway.

Does this mean I think Steve was right when he said porn has no place on mobile devices?  Hell, no.  It's that attitude that keeps adult apps in the shadows and allows developers to get away with writing shitty apps and scamming people out of their money for premium text messages.  I'm all for high quality applications of any theme -- adult orientated or otherwise.  But I'll take a pass on apps that feature nothing but pictures of ex-girlfriends doing things that need mouthwash afterwards and may end up concealing some sort of malware, and I think you should, too. 

And, besides. The Android browser works just fine.

Jerry Hildenbrand
Senior Editor — Google Ecosystem

Jerry is an amateur woodworker and struggling shade tree mechanic. There's nothing he can't take apart, but many things he can't reassemble. You'll find him writing and speaking his loud opinion on Android Central and occasionally on Twitter.

42 Comments
  • When don't boobs get you hacked.
  • hate to say..i have zero porn..and still think i got something.. once or twice a day i get an add to show up in bar at the top..and i've had lookout installed since day 1.. and phone is rebooting twice a day now... anyone point to link how how to totally wipe and reinstall everything on an Atrix?
  • Just do a factory reset.
  • http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=hard+reset+on+atrix+4g
  • Maybe you got it from a toilet seat. :-)
  • One of the editor's app picks did that to me recently. The offending app was Tubemate. Uninstalling that took care of the popup notification adds.
  • That's probably Airpush advertising. I got ads from having the BestBuy app installed. You can get an app detector to tell you which app it is, or got Airpush's website and opt out.
  • Gun Bros. does that to me.
  • Get Airpush detector
    https://market.android.com/details?id=com.brosmike.airpushdetector&featu...
  • Uses for Lloyd number 3 to cover the naughty bits lol. Jerry great editorial very humorous as well :)
  • And iPhones are different why? Aaaah, because they don't let you see Flash content.
  • I cracked up when I saw the Dildroid.
  • Don't forget Sex-tube. It was on the market and then removed but if you google it you will find the Apk and it gets update every few weeks! Its not a link to the website either, its a full blown app
  • Where any of these porn apps taken from the Android Market?? If they can add a virus to a porn app what’s to stop them from adding it to an Alphabet game for my kid taken from the Android Market? I hope they are inspecting these apps very closely before they get into the Android Market.
  • Most of these "adult" apps were most likely downloaded from a third party market(i.e. Mikandi).
  • yep, that's where you can find the iBoobs at lol
  • Best ending sentence to an editorial yet. Nice Jer.
  • Guys, add the tag NSFW.....just say'n
  • NSFW?not save for work?
  • Wow, fail Android noob at the helm of an Android article. I wonder what: "SERVICES THAT COST YOU MONEY: SEND SMS" means? I can guarantee one of the apps you downloaded has one, so I can only assume the author is illiterate when installing shady applications from the market. Incidentally, if you're on a tablet, you don't really have to worry about SMS since most don't have that capability to begin with.
  • Is this the first time you have been to this site? Jerry (author of this article) is pretty much the most literate person on this site when it comes to android. He is pretty much the exact opposite of an "android noob".
  • I can guarantee that most of them had that permission,  and that you might have assumed wrongly :)   That's OK, stay a while -- you may learn something.
  • I'm a bit confused by what happened here. You installed an app that required you to give it permission to send SMS, even though none of these types of apps should need to do this to function. The app then sent a SMS that signed you up to a premium SMS service. You might argue that the app developer used the SMS in an undesirable manner but I don't see how the app itself contained any malicious code or anything that you would expect to trigger an alert from Lookout. If you hadn't authorised the app to send SMS that would be a different story. You also didn't clarify whether there was any possibility that the app developer might have mentioned in the description for the app that a 'feature' of the app was signing you up for this service. I guess my question is: in what sense were you hacked?
  • Wow! It actually looks like YOU'RE the noob in this situation. You surely must be an AndroidCental noob,(or else you're on the latest "Ricky-Ross-Recipe" for Homemade Crack-cocaine...I'm leaning towards both...) because the fact is-if you knew anything about this site, or it's staff, you would know that Jerry happens to be a bit of a Linux /Android "expert" for this site. His articles are always the most informative, and thoroughly explained. If you didn't like his article, you could have just moved on to the next.(But then you wouldn't look cool for calling out someone that is obviously world's smarter on this subject. :-P
  • I guess "I spent a little while tearing apart .apk files trying to find it myself" didn't clue you into the fact that he's not a noob. However you are obviously a noob at reading skills 101.
  • So I'm hoping you sent the list of apps you downloaded Jerry to lookout to figure out which app it was that infected your phone so no one else will run into the same problem or at least to black list the app from the market.
  • The capitalist in me says "Here's a market segment that could make a fortune for the first entrepreneur who offers content pre-scanned for malware." (Honestly, I had to write that sentence 15 times before I avoided double-entendre :))
  • I'll read Jerry's articles for the simple fact that he (the so-called "noob") explains things clearly and concicely for those of us that actually ARE noobs.... yet seems to keep it "techy/geeky" enough that it pertains to advanced users as well! Keep up the great work Jerry.
  • Rather then installing those apps I just unpacked the APK's and I now have the images minus all the ads and stuff :P
  • but doesn't vzw know what websites you go to now? and they tell 3rd parties too!
  • Since we're all mature adults here (hopefully), I'll give an app that's really good, and doesn't contain any malware (had it for 6 months now): PxxxTUBE (downloaded from MiKandi): Basically, it's a RedTube-like app, but it doesn't link to a website; it's an actual app, and a pretty good one, at that. Another cool thing about it: It disguises the name and icon of the app to "Dev Tools," so that if your jealous spouse is snooping through your phone, they won't see an adult-based app titled "PxxxTUBE;" instead, they'll see a "developer-based" app titled "Dev Tools."
  • Hey Jerry, We completely agree, which is why we encourage customers to rate and review the apps that they download. By sharing their feedback, customers can help keep the good apps in the forefront where they belong. I personally like Femjoy, PxxxTube, Hidden Movies Pro, and Porn Agent. If anyone finds themselves "hacked", please send us an email asap at support{at}mikandi{dot}com with the app's name and we'll look into it immediately. Alpharho, I looked for Tubemate in MiKandi and don't see it in our market. Did you get it on MiKandi or another third party source? Cheers! MiKandi Team
  • Hi Mikandi
    Id like to bring up something that your site seems to overlook.
    Yes the apps are rated, however the rating system is obviously floored. check out the worst apps have some of the highest ratings.
    the raters usually have random character names.
    you can tell that the ratings system has been hacked by the app developers or someone employed by them. its so obvious. why do the shittiest apps have the highest stars and rated by people with names such as ewkjfgwekjgwejkbvwe? your site has many many apps listed as free, yet most are rated by real humans as not really free!!
    these apps just link you to a paid for porn site, or link you to porn which you have to buy mikandi credits for. If you cleaned up your site and did a little policing you could have the best and trusted mobile porn supermarket, however as it stands you cant trust anything on your site. the only good app was Pxxxtube before the developers removed it from your site. cmon mikandi your sitting on something that could be so good with a little bit of effort.
  • Hi there!
    I know I'm super late on this- apologies! Thank you for your feedback. I want you guys to know that we're listening and taking all feedback to heart.
    I agree- we have some developers that have been taking advantage of ratings and reviews. We've been more proactive in policing our market for such behavior, as well as monitoring devs who frequently republish to get on the Latest apps list, and who publish apps that are just trial sites wrapped in APKs. At the same time, we continue to build more tools to help developers promote their apps in a transparent way, and do what we can to promote the quality apps. We're also developing better search tools to help you filter out the apps you don't want so we can serve you the apps you do want, faster. That said, we have lots of great apps in the market that you should try. Our favorites cycle through our Feature list, which we update every Monday. We also have our App of the Week notification every Friday. These apps are handpicked and tested by us. We also partner directly with studios for MiKandi Theater, which is ad free. I hope you give it a try sometime. By the way, pxxxtube is back in MiKandi. It's one of our most popular apps. It's pretty damn great, isn't it? And lastly, we just released a big update to MiKandi this week. I hope you give us another shot. :) If you ever come across any more issues, please shoot us an email at support@mikandi.com. We answer every inquiry personally. Best, Jen McEwen
    MiKandi
  • I think the new wave of porn apps is coming. I like the one that can be downloaded at http://AndroidPornApp.net Its a small app that gets porn from internet: videos, pictures, texts. It available in Fremium form. All adult content is available for free, but to save it to your phone you need premium version
  • I develop adult apps for Android devices and Mikandi distributes them for me. http://www.AdultAppSource.com 50+ Apps that are 100% safe. :)
  • dime a dozen.
  • I used an Android porn app called Amateous : http://www.amateous.com/ and I never had this kind of problem... It's a free app, just some ads. I think, you downloaded a really bad app, or you downloaded in a wrong site... Maybe it's better to dwl with a site like Mikandi ?!
  • I've been watching adult movies on my Android phone using the 99wet app for few months now. So far everything is fine, they don't charge anything so it's free and their HD videos works fine on my phone. http://99wet.com/app.php
  • The best adult app out there. Give it a try! You can download it from: http://vandroider.com/
  • I think the only good adult android games (REAL adult games with nudity and all) are from this site http://hentai-android.blogspot.com It doesnt have a lot of games but they are great.
  • Ty