Hot Tub: The First Native Porn App for iOS Devices in the EU

A New Era for Porn App Users in the European Union

If you live in the European Union, you can now have a dedicated pornography app on your iPhone for the first time ever. Hot Tub, a porn search engine, is the first native porn app that can be installed on iOS devices through legitimate means, thanks to the recent enforcement of the EU Digital Markets Act that requires Apple to support third-party app stores.

What is Hot Tub?

Hot Tub, which is available through the alternative app store AltStore PAL, allows users to search and watch content across a number of popular porn sites including PornHub, XVideos, XNXX, and XHamster. The app is billed as “Porn Without the Pop-Ups,” as it prevents the slew of shady advertisements that users will get served visiting these sites on a browser. It also saves users the hassle of having to open an Incognito tab for their search—though let’s be real, if you’re downloading a dedicated porn app, you’re not really all that worried about discretion.

Alternative App Stores in the EU

Alternative app stores have been allowed on devices in the European Union since last year, but Hot Tub is still the first porn app to get all the way to market. That’s in part because Apple continues to maintain a Notarization process designed to ensure apps meet “baseline platform integrity standards.” The app, which was developed by developer and iPhone jailbreaker c1d3r, successfully went through the Notarization process and was approved for use on iOS.

The Rise of Third-Party App Stores

Third-party app stores are still a very new phenomenon for the average user (though people who are involved in the jailbreak community have been sideloading apps for years), and it still comes with a fair amount of hurdles and risks. However, there is some evidence to suggest that folks are interested in breaking out of Apple’s walled garden approach to apps. A survey by MacPaw (which operates its own alternative app store, so keep that in mind) found that 80% of users expressed interest in trying a third-party app store.

The Market for Porn Apps

Lots of people watch porn on their phones. Reportedly, 69% of porn viewership happens on smartphones, and an estimated 20% of all searches from mobile devices are porn related. So obviously, there’s a market for Hot Tub’s services.

Hot Tub’s Impact and AltStore’s Philanthropy

The AltStore is taking advantage of its successful launch of a porn app to donate its earnings to sex workers and LGBTQ causes, announcing that it will donate its monthly earnings from Patreon to organizations like The Trevor Project and Red Umbrella Fund—a decision that it says was made in part to combat recent policies aiming to ban porn outright and remove protections for marginalized communities on social media.