adult posts

It seems like only yesterday Apple was surprising us with its App Store rejection antics. You'll recall that just last Monday, Apple was seen flaunting its control over the App Store by rejecting a remote-control client for the BitTorrent desktop application "Transmission" called "Drivetrain." Of interesting note in that case is that there is a web version of this application that I have on my iPhone's home screen.

Today we received word of an application called Eucalyptus that provided access to free-for-all books from Project Gutenberg. John Gruber over at Daring Fireball writes,

"Eucalyptus has been rejected by Apple, for the absolutely outrageous reason that one of the books you can search for and download from Gutenberg is Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana. Not only can anyone load and read this exact same book on any iPhone using MobileSafari, but it's also available through other e-book readers already in the App Store."

In both the Drivetrain and Eucalyptus cases it seems that Apple is playing favorites in terms of who it will let violate its rules. The strange thing though, is that both of these applications' functionality can be accomplished from within MobileSafari. Clearly Apple wants MobileSafari to be your only access to any pornographic objectionable content.

Before you get out your pitchforks however, there's more. If you have an application that has been approved twice, then guess what, the third time's the charm for you because you can expect the rejection hammer to come a'knockin'. At least that's the case for Yaniv Solnik's application "IsraelParty." When Yaniv submitted his app to resolve some routine bug fixes apparently the App Store royal guards decided they didn't like his marketing description of the application. The phrase that was so offensive as to warrant a rejection of an already-existing app that had been approved twice before? Adult content ahead, "Blow your iPhone's microphone to whistle."

Perhaps someone at Apple is bothered by the fact that they are not able to whistle themselves or perhaps they simply do not like the idea of an application that celebrates Israel's independence day. In any event the rejection is simply ludicrous; it brings me back to the late 90s when the over-zealous language filters in chat rooms would filter the phrase "the wind blows."

The clause that Apple cites in these cases refers to Apple's "reasonable judgment" (full text here). However, in my opinion, they are taking on a more overbearing role than they should. Not to say that I disagree with a filter on the App Store, on the contrary, I think a well-defined filter is absolutely necessary.

Because of Apple's unwillingness to firmly define and enforce the rules, I believe Apple is opening itself up to a "bag of hurt" by being the police of App Store city. It will not be long before advocacy groups will want Apple to provide the same filtering for Apple's own applications. I do not believe Apple wants to be in the business of filtering the web or our email, but by filtering applications based on availability of "inappropriate" content they are quickly headed down that path.

Hat tip to Peachfuzzy and Yaniv for the scoop.

If it's Monday, there must be a few more stories of iPhone apps rejected for curious and spurious reasons. Today's contenders are up to the line... and away they go!

First, it's Maza's Drivetrain app, a remote control for the Transmission client for Bittorrent running on the user's computer. Rejected! In this case, the reason is that Bittorrent is sometimes used for the trading of third-party copyrighted material. Yeah, but... um... the iPhone app isn't a torrent client at all, it's just a UI for a client running elsewhere. How does that make any kind of sense? iLounge quotes the developer as saying the rejection is "ridiculous," and it's hard to disagree.

Second, if you've ever wanted to replace the face of Jesus with your own, well, you can't do it with an iPhone app. SAI reports that the developer of the previously-approved Animalyzer (which let you replace animal faces with your photos) has gotten a rejection notice for the Me So Holy app that extends the face-replacement to religious figures. Apple's justification for the rejection is the catch-all "objectionable content" clause 3.3.12 of the developer agreement, which states

"Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple's reasonable judgement may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users."

Could one reasonably judge that some iPhone or iPod touch users might object to an app that lets users replace a divine visage with a mugshot or LOLcat? Sure, they might... but when an app that lets you aim virtual urine at a toilet sails through to the store without a hiccup, 'reasonable judgement' doesn't seem to be a valid operating standard any longer. There are hundreds (if not thousands) of 'offensive' apps in the store already -- but offending religious sensibilities is clearly different than grading feces.

[via Engadget & Techmeme]

The developers of the iPhone Craigslist app craigsphone [App Store link] seem to have found themselves in a bit of a pickle. Sure, most of Craigslist's content is perfectly appropriate for all audiences -- nothing too risque about buying a used bike or looking for an apartment -- but there are some more adult areas of the service, including the ever-popular Missed Connections, that might just run afoul of the App Store's ever-shifting sands of appropriateness. What to do?

Apparently, the answer is "throw up your hands and turn the URL over to Mobile Safari," as you can see in the screenshot here. I'm not sure this is a particularly well-thought out workaround; there are plenty of other apps that can pull down adult-themed content, starting with Apple's own YouTube tool and including ebook readers, RSS feed handlers, etc.

Should a developer providing a custom portal to an external website really be responsible for all the content hosted there, or would it be simpler to put up the same 18-and-up warning that Craigslist uses? It may be up to Apple to implement, or allow a third-party to build, more granular parental controls for iPhone apps, but simply handing off the same mature content to Safari for display seems like a pretty big cop-out.

Update: In response to some of the commenters, we don't know whether this restriction was put in out of an overabundance of caution, or because of a specific requirement of the App Store -- so blaming Apple for prior restraint may be premature. We'll try to get the straight story.

Update 2: It has been confirmed that the change to the craigsphone behavior was, in fact, prompted by a concern from Apple's app store team that the app might be violating terms of service by displaying the mature content. If other apps have been given similar red flags, please let us know.

Thanks xnifex & Nilay