Mobile apps are great ways for brands to push their own initiatives on consumers, with Cinemax and BMW being the latest to take advantage of this booming ecosystem. The Cinemax app, following on the tails of HBO GO, is a special case, as its circumvented some of Apple’s most stringent policies around the promotion of pornographic content.  Called Cinemax Max Go, the app provides on-demand access to movies and programming using mobile devices. As for the channel’s softcore offering, they created a special tab called Max After Dark, streaming titles such as “The Hills Have Thighs,” “Bikini Jones,” and “The Temple of Eros.”

It’s a tongue in cheek channel from the cable network, which is known for its after-hours content. But we can also recall Apple CEO Steve Jobs addressing people who inquired about the company’s porn policy, deferring them to competitors when he said that “we do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone. Folks who want porn can buy and Android phone.” Among its other castoffs include a Project Gutenberg app that provides access to the Kama Sutra, an app that eventually won over Apple App Store administrators.

Cinimax Max Go users must be at least 17 years old to download the app because of “frequent/intense sexual content or nudity.” It also contains parental controls to prevent children from viewing racy materials should they get a hold of dad’s iPad.  Still, Apple loosening its grip means the violation of its own anti-porn policy, which strictly defines pornographic material based on Webster’s Dictionary, flat out rejecting them.  Nevertheless, Apple, as usual, loosens its reigns as mainstream trends demand otherwise.

From BMW comes an interactive map. The luxury car company is offering a new app to make every drive breathtaking, called The Ultimate Drive app.  It allows users to discover, share and rate the world’s most interesting driving routes curated by users from all over the world. The app rolled out just last week.

“There are plenty of sites that will show you the top roads to drive”, said Pawan Murthy, of BMW Group Financial Services, which provides financing for BMW and MINI vehicles.

Through GPS, the app will locate routes on a particular location and alert the users of the new routes discovered. “The roads that are filtering up (in the app) include others that very few people have ever heard of, and that’s what makes it so exciting.”

There are 600 routes added so far. Contributors also add warnings such as “lots of twists and turns” and “beware of bighorn sheep.”  They also mention interesting spots such as cafes and good restaurants.  “It starts getting very granular from a user-experience standpoint as to what people will share on the app,” said Murthy. He also said that the release will move the app towards “gamification.”  Introducing the elements of game play will encourage participation. They are also set to release a more interactive version early October, inclusive of a point system that will provide customers incentives as they participate.