App Store Bans Pulitzer-Winning Satirist. For Satire
wired.com
wired.com
Gruber is not an Apple apologist, he's just too informed to knee-jerkingly bash Apple, unlike most other people with an opinion on Apple.
From his recent comment on an app being allowed into the store, then later rejected, for an offence that large numbers of high-profile games also commit and aren't punished for: "this is Apple being consistent, not inconsistent".
Firstly, only apps that download AND run code were not allowed, now apps that download OR run code are not allowed
That's inconsistent over time, not necessarily a bad thing, though it was a change made quietly which is a bit of a poor show.
On top of that there are still lots of apps, games mainly, running interpreters. That's also inconsistent, on a completely different axis.
So yes they are meeting the letter of the (current) law in the banning of this particular case, but "consistent" is not a word I would leap to using in this case. The simple fact that they're kicking out an app that was already in, rather than blocking entry in the first place, makes it a strange word choice.
— http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/04/16/fiore-resubmit
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.
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.
I'm hoping that once people get this, the moral outrage (and all of the articles about the moral outrage) will die down.
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.
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.
As well as applications that are in violation of some future version of the TOS. Or compete against some future Apple product. Or that fail to meet an unknown arbitrary standard. The thing is, Apple is asking developers to invest in their product, and continuously changing the rules. Publishing for Apple products is becoming too risky.
I decided not to transition my sales force to iPad's because vendors like Appcelerator will almost certainly drop iPad support if the TOS changes. Developing glue code in Objective-C is like buying a supercomputer to play Solitaire. You can do it, but it's overkill, and that doesn't make it a good idea. We'll wait for the HP Slate or an Android tablet.
Not arbitrarily. The prior licensing arrangement between Apple and Microsoft is central to that case.
And it seems that Xerox didn't actually think they gave Apple this permission
Xerox sued Apple, yes--but as even the Wikipedia article points out, it had much more to do with benefiting from the precedent that the case might have established than with anything they thought before. It's more evident--by the fact that they waited so long--that they didn't think they could deny permission (i.e. that 'look and feel' was subject to copyright, as Apple believed)--which ultimately is what the court effectively decided.
Many car analogies are often wrong. Perhaps you can explain to me the benefit of that metaphor. From what I gather, the insinuation is that Steve Jobs has a restrictive grip on the App Store. Now, comparing Apple to China is a pretty inflammatory statement, so the metaphor must have a substantial point to make in order to justify the hyperbole. From what I see, this is just another snappy Apple-bashing one-liner (which contribute practically nothing to the discussion). Perhaps I'm wrong, but in that case I'd really like to be filled in.
And really, do we want to go there? Did several million people die during the cultural revolution, several hundred die during Tianamen, and the continuing abuse of human rights, just so we could crack jokes about Jobs? It seems a bit in poor taste. Otherwise, let's just go whole hog, call him Hitler, paint a moustache on his portrait, and Godwin the whole thing.
However, this is not necessary for the statement "If Steve Jobs ran a country, it would be China" to be accurate. It need merely be shown that the general principles Jobs abides by match up in some general way to the philosophy of China. Whether his current company is similar in any way to a country is irrelevant — just whether his actions could lead one to believe he'd run a country that way.
"Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote."
I suppose Steve doesn't like satire...
The are no bullshit rules and laws, just thought out recommendations to make the city run as well-oiled machine.
"The Patrician could not tolerate mime artists. It was a strange aversion, but there you are. Anyone in baggy trousers and a white face who tried to ply their art anywhere within Ankh's crumbling walls would very quickly find themselves in a scorpion pit, one wall of which was painted the advice: Learn The Words."
For the Patrician it was mimes, for Jobs presumably Flash, bikinis and now also satire ;-)
To the Jobs list, add non-ObjC languages, VMs and everything that allows the proles to tarnish the things of beauty his company produces.
Even if we do make such a simplification, I generally see Apple as a benevolent dictatorship, based on their impressive track record of making life better for the average person, despite occasionally questionable behavior.
Sometimes I wish the United States was a benevolent dictatorship, if only so that Obama could be more productive.
Things like the .xxx proposal and opposition to net neutrality are steps towards the same kind of 'clean, curated experience' you get on the iPhone today.
Thankfully they seem to be getting knocked back every time they try, but only with great expense and effort from groups like the EFF. And they keep on trying new ways to ruin the Internet all the time.
See how well they're doing stopping piracy of normal media? They'll do even worse stopping pornography. There's nothing to fear from a .xxx domain.
But how much harm could they do in trying? That is the question you should ask. Look up Anthony Comstock if you want an example.
How certain are you of this? Would you be able to successfully defend every photograph or email you have ever produced against obscenity charges? I think, if it came down to it, the courts could find a hell of a lot of inadvertent pornographers out there.
Note I said 'could': Selective enforcement of over-broad laws is a boon and a horrible threat, because it implies everyone is guilty of something, so the government could pound anyone who bothers them if it chose to.
At first glance, it seems like a great idea, but as soon as you get into the details it's a nightmare. What .xxx and similar proposals mean is that someone, somewhere, possibly in another country and with values wildly at variance with yours, gets to censor the Internet for you. It's not a service I consider worth having.
Smarter people than I have written about this before: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3675
No-one is forcing you to use an iPhone or an iPad; if you disagree with Apple's policies then walk down the street and buy an alternative product, or don't develop apps for the App Store.
Apple can dictate policies that irritate developers and content publishers because they have a better product offering to the consumers plus a critical mass of app offerings in the App store and they know it. If Microsoft had a superior tablet offering that everyone was raving about and an Android-based phone was kicking Apples ass in terms of iPhone sales, then perhaps Apple's stance would be more lenient.
A little perspective please.
If you are a hacker (and not an app developer) who has a major problem with Apple's policies, then you are absolutely corrrect; it would be highly hypocritical to both own an iPhone/iPad and hold that view simultaneously.
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 anyone can accomplish things in a much easier way.
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.
The iPad may help news corporations survive, but it is certainly no saviour to journalism. In an age where editors would fight government censorship to the point of jail and beyond, they'll STFU and follow Apple's rules to stay in business.
But if people really do pay for information apps, information corporations are going to notice that. Editorial control will be increasingly given over to Apple (or whoever). Less to little to no effort will be made on the sites of at least those corporations.
Of course it only works if consumers go that way. We'll hang ourselves, and buy the rope from information corporations and the scaffold from Apple.
This is old news. http://appreview.tumblr.com/post/150220593/avoid-public-figu...
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.
So for satire?
You'll notice an app got banned for just including images of the Obamas.
I'm surprised at the upvotes of people dissenting with me, and my associated downvotes. Voting doesn't change facts. Apple had an existing policy in place which had nothing to do with satire, which is why this app was removed. If he was satirizing himself somehow, it would have been approved. Back to my original statement - Apple is not banning satire, and this is not new news.
Oh wait...
Her "official" app is here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-official-kim-kardashian/i...
Shall I find some more?
Was the app banned for satire or the use of public figures?
However, the parodic nature of cartooning, and especially political cartooning (of figures who hold public office), is very strongly protected by the first amendment and masses of legal precedent, or newspapers would be getting sued right and left. Liability is not an issue here, as evinced by the ability of editorial cartoonists to freely ply their trade in newspapers (many examples of which, from large publishers, exist on the iPxx).
Free speech doesn’t seem to be very important for Apple and that makes me pretty sick. iPads are supposed to be the places where we read our newspapers tomorrow, we as a society should only allow that if we also force Apple to put everything in the App store which is covered by free speech. (I do believe that free speech should limit the rules a private company is allowed to make. ISPs, for example, shouldn’t be allowed to filter out whatever they want.)
Let me know when they stop supporting the single most democratized mass communications medium the world has ever known.
we as a society should only allow that if we also force Apple to put everything in the App store which is covered by free speech.
You may not like what Apple chooses to sell, but if you want to replace their freedom to do so with the government, I don't really think you've thought that through.
ISPs, for example, shouldn’t be allowed to filter out whatever they want.
So...spam? Free speech, right?
You've left a massive gap between ensuring it can exist and the forcing of retailers to stock it. That is something I'd like you to explain more clearly. Would you be willing to throw me in jail if I owned a book store but refused to stock a certain book or class of books?
Deliberate or not, this is a good PR stunt for the cartoonists to get coverage. The fart apps guys did this too.
The process (submit app in violation of guidelines, tip off press, enjoy web-wide mentions and increased linkage) is replicable.
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.
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.”
If you really want to complain, don't buy their products and don't develop on their platform.
The whole hammer throwing thing from the 80s just seems so ironic now.
1) Do not buy their products,
2) Do not develop on their platform,
3) Voice your opinion about products/platforms loudly (Apple should be actually happy about this, it allows them to know where they can improve).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8
I'm not even sure how to reinterpret it today. The Big Brother figure speaks of a garden of pure ideology, and it appears the woman is an app who is about to get rejected by the app store cops.
Is the meaning of the hammer throw that I should go get an Android phone so I don't have to subject myself to the approval of the Big Brother character?
Android can win on Apple Flaws, but it has to become better, in my opinion. Only then it will be able to force Apple out of it restricting decisions.
I hope it will happen someday. Unfortunately I don't think it will happen soon.
Apple has a huge line of people with their credit cards out on the App Store and everyone knows it. Android has relatively few users and they are not known to be big spenders in general. The Web has lots of users but very few are likely to ever find your product and unless it fits in a few well-defined categories it's tremendously unlikely they'll be willing to pay for it (and ad-supported is not a reliable business model).
It's been a slow starter (it didn't explode out the gate like Apple did), but it's gaining. Much like Chrome.
In other news, Blackberry is still the market leader.
http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/4/c...
Apple's App Store is quickly heading the direction of hmmm... Not Microsoft because you can write anything you want for their OSes. Maybe early AOL or late Compuserve had this same feel of a walled garden (their respective portals) and they both slowly and dimly failed while technology passed them by. It'll still take some time but eventually innovators will skip past the app store and at that point there is no recovery.