I think this paragraph really hits the nail on the head:<p><i>Apple has built a little slab of Disneyland with its iPad, which is meant to be an experience unsullied by provocative or crude material. It’s beautiful and enticing-- the company has already sold more than a half million of them in the first two weeks it’s been available-- but it’s not the real world.</i><p>Disneyland is the perfect metaphor for the iPhone/iPad experience. It's a closed theme-park, which exercises tight control over what products and services it offers its patrons. It's not an open market, and is not intended to be.<p>I'm hoping that once people get this, the moral outrage (and all of the articles about the moral outrage) will die down.<p>Applications that are in violation of the TOS are going to be rejected by the App Store. That means they have to be written in the language that Apple specifies, and meeting the content standards that Apple specifies. If there's content that in "Apple’s reasonable judgment may be found objectionable", you're out of luck.<p>And, of course, it's well within Apple's rights to keep the leash so tight, just as Disney can tightly control which goods and services are offered within the confines of their theme parks. It's not anywhere near a monopoly situation, and there are plenty of opportunities outside the park walls for developers to make and sell whatever they like.
<i>Today, we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives. We have created for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology. Where each worker may bloom secure from the pests of contradictory and confusing truths. Our Unification of Thoughts is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people, with one will, one resolve, one cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death and we will bury them with their own confusion. We shall prevail!</i><p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_(advertisement)" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_(advertisement)</a>
I'm actually not convinced that this is a wrong direction for the App Store. I'm not an Apple apologist or fanboy by any means. What Apple has created with the iPhone and iPad is actually perfect for "regular users". For my mom, for my grandmother. Even for my dad, who is just too busy these days to configure computers and phones, who easily has the knowledge and skill to do so. The ability of these people to do powerful things without having to spend time working on it is actually quite interesting.<p>I am completely turned off by the direction computing is taking, but people who think this is just a fad are wrong, and aren't looking at the big picture. People buy Apple products because it gives them what they want. Yes, Linux is much superior to OS X and Windows, but the majority of users don't not use it because of some FUD, its because they don't have the time or skill to work with it. Apple is taking that concept to the next level, where <i>anyone</i> can accomplish things in a much easier way.<p>This won't go away. Apple is being extremely successful, and I see many other companies who are going to jump on the bandwagon. But for us power users, there will always be the hardware that we are used to buying available. Linux is not going to go away. There is just going to be a bigger divide between what your nontechy family and friends use, and what you use. I don't know whether or not this will destroy the next generation of programmers, who won't have had the ability to tinker. I can see that happening. But really, this is not going to be a negotiable thing. This isn't something you can fight against. This is the way technology is moving. We have to adapt to it, not the other way around.
Not for satire. For breaking the terms of the app store and including representations of public figures (without consent?) in the app.<p>This is old news. <a href="http://appreview.tumblr.com/post/150220593/avoid-public-figures-celebrities-and-apple" rel="nofollow">http://appreview.tumblr.com/post/150220593/avoid-public-figu...</a><p><i>8. Public Figures — Brian’s original article included “political lampooning.” I’ll extend that to include association or portrayal of public figures. Two examples: around Obama’s inauguration, CodeMorphic created an app called Obamify that manipulated photos to appear like those iconic posters from the campaign; the app went into infinite review. Yak Apps had to remove imagery containing Mr. and Mrs. Obama before their “First Dog” app was approved.</i>
The bobblehead congress app was rejected for ridicule of public figures as well (<a href="http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=5203" rel="nofollow">http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=5203</a>) getting "Tom Richmond, of Mad Magazine fame" a lot of press.<p>Deliberate or not, this is a good PR stunt for the cartoonists to get coverage. The fart apps guys did this too.<p>The process (submit app in violation of guidelines, tip off press, enjoy web-wide mentions and increased linkage) is replicable.
Apple refusing to allow any content that satires public figures or draws controversy in some way is akin to a religious person being afraid to read a Richard Dawkins book or listen to him speak for fear of being tainted, or hearing something that contradicts their own world view.<p>Both to me would seem to indicate that a person or organisation has a deep-seated lack of conviction in their own position, whatever that position may be.
I find this far more troubling than their recent TOS changes. It's one thing to make arbitrary and capricious changes to the technical terms of their developer agreements. It's quite another to arbitrarily censor content. If Apple really aims to be the savior of print journalism they have a moral responsibility to take their role more seriously and more sensibly. I think it's pretty clear at this point that Apple is the wrong steward for the next generation of online communications technology.
Apparently Apple has asked him to re-submit the app:<p><pre><code> The cartoonist who won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning
this week says Apple has asked him to resubmit an iPhone app that
it earlier rejected because it “ridicules public figures.”
</code></pre>
<a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/04/16/cartoonist-apple-backs-down-after-denying-iphone-app/" rel="nofollow">http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/04/16/cartoonist-apple-back...</a>
When will the app store ban stories not be news anymore? I see multiple variations of it every day. One part of me wonders why everyone can't just get over it and face the fact that Apple is going to do what they want and the other part of me sees the value in complaining.<p>If you really want to complain, don't buy their products and don't develop on their platform.<p>The whole hammer throwing thing from the 80s just seems so ironic now.