Playboy founder Hugh Hefner says his magazine will be available on the iPad in March—uncensored. If true, that's a huge reversal for Apple, whose CEO just last May said iPad put "freedom from porn" before freedom of speech.

Hefner tweeted last night the "big news" that new and archival issues of Playboy will come to the iPad in March. In and of itself that's not such a big deal, since there's a tamed version of the adult magazine available for the iPhone.

But Hefner went on to say, in response to reader questions, that "Playboy on iPad will be uncensored," a claim he reiterated to another Twitter user.

Apple has historically allowed nothing even remotely as explicit as a Playboy spread. It banned pictures of women in bikinis as "overtly sexual content," warned against body parts in fashion spreads, banished bare-chested men from gay travel guides, and even excised illustrations of gay men kissing. Perhaps, as Mashable speculates, Apple is planning new measures to keep minors away from explicit iPad apps. If so, there could hardly be a better launch title that Playboy, which pairs very tame nude shots with historically exemplary interviews and investigative journalism. After all, if you're reading something for the articles, it's not really porn, right? It's more, like, classy erotica. Art, even. Ahem.

[Photo via Getty]