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Apple blocks streaming South Park app

by Mat Lu Feb 18th 2009 at 9:00AM

There's yet another case of heavy handedness from Apple in rejecting potential apps from the iPhone store. The creators of South Park have put almost all of their back episodes online at South Park Studios for Flash-based streaming, and last year it was announced to fans that they would be putting together an iPhone app to give mobile users access to that content.

Now Boing Boing is reporting that the app is "dead in the water" because Apple has rejected it twice for being "potentially offensive." Goodness knows there's a lot of offensive content on the App Store, so it's really hard to see how Apple is holding any kind of line of good taste here (if that even applies in this case). Boing Boing's original post from last year announcing the app reveals something of how nice the interface was going to be. I can't help but hope that the evolving standards of the app store that eventually allowed in applications like RSS Player (which was previous banned as Podcaster) will come round for the South Park app. I can just hear Cartman yelling for his mom.

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There's yet another case of heavy handedness from Apple in rejecting potential apps from the iPhone store. The creators of South Park have...
 

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Koen

I think we have learned something today, Apple blows in these things

March 23 2009 at 7:53 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
John Bailey (BDog)

Crazy liberals...

February 24 2009 at 8:01 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jerry

It's now available on Cydia.

Take that apple!

February 20 2009 at 5:10 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
dallasward007

I am the proud owner of a first generation iPhone. All I can say to this is "screw Apple".

I'm so sick of this kind if thing. It's actually worse than Microsoft. Apple sells music in the iTunes store that contains all manner of explicit and offensive lyrics. The sell songs from South Park. So perhaps this is a matter of hypocrisy.

Oh wait, they sell SP episodes in the iTunes store. Nevermind about the hypocrisy, it's greed, plain and simple.

This is the thing that makes people hack/jailbreak. Promise a device of unlimited Internet potential, then limit and restrict it to favor your private channel. That's worse than MS and their IE bundling.

February 19 2009 at 9:49 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Matt

I think I want to make an app of an Amish woman churning butter. That's all it will do.

February 18 2009 at 4:25 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jamus

They need to be very careful. If they basically want to make an app version of what is essentially on their website and accessible via Safari (ooops, no Flash ;) ), then they should allow the app. If that ridiculous jiggles app made it, surely they can't go all Puritan now...

February 18 2009 at 3:57 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
sj971

This is ridiculous. There should be a rating system on the iPhone apps just like movies or tv so parents can limit what there kids can and can't download instead of acting as a censorship bureau.

But, in regard to the Flash issue mentioned in the article, as soon as Android and other OS that are popping up include Flash apple will have to adapt or lose market share.

February 18 2009 at 3:35 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to sj971's comment
Kai Cherry

There is a rating system.

Really, all they have to do is submit it as a "game" then rate it Teen or better.

The problem is, like many problems with the system, that you need to game" and use loopholes to get things released sometimes.

Oh, and the fact that Apple is prone to giving nothing but canned response feedback that is neither useful nor informative.

-K

February 18 2009 at 5:14 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Kento Ito

You do know that Apple has declared Jailbreaks illegal under DMCA, so it's matter ofntime before Apple turns on that KILL SWITCH to kill all jailbroken phone to bricks.

February 18 2009 at 2:06 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Kento Ito's comment
Mike

I thought you could disable the kill switch with a jailbroken iPhone.

February 18 2009 at 2:50 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jonmoporer

this is ridiculous, how many offensive apps do they have already, i'd love that app

February 18 2009 at 1:15 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
StrikerObi

This has nothing to do with things being offensive and everything to do with the fact that nobody will buy episodes of South Park from iTunes to watch on their iPhone if they can stream them all for free with this app.

February 18 2009 at 1:06 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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