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Comment by pj | Hacker News Reader

I don't think this is so bad really. Apple's brand is affected by the kind of material it sells and it wants to protect its brand.

It's just like Facebook has porn patrol.

Being a vendor of a product isn't just about moving product, it's about moving product in a direction that you believe makes the world a better place for you to live. Apple has the right to choose how to let people use their platform.

Imagine a world where you have no right who you can and cannot sell your hard work to. Those signs that say, "We have the right to refuse service to anyone" -- all those would have to come down, by law!

I think, right now, that I would prefer a world where a vendor of a service can decide who it does and does not provide that service to than a world where the builder of a product or provider of a service does not have that right.

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You're missing the point. Apple sells The Downward Spiral in the iTunes store. Not allowing the same content in the App store is just absurd. In fact, the app doesn't even contain the content, it's just accessible through it.

I believe the reason for the apparent contradiction is this: Apple acts as a publicizer for the apps in the app store by letting them into the top-N lists and recent releases. When an "objectionable" app becomes popular, users hold Apple to account. They don't do this with the music store.

As the app store gets more and more crowded, Apple will most likely loosen up. Or maybe they will do the really intelligent thing: allow everything in, but only allow "non-objectionable" material into the top-N and recent releases sections.

Apple has a top-N list for songs, albums, audiobooks, movies, tv shows, etc. on the front page of the itunes store. How is advertising questionable material in those lists any different than advertising apps with questionable content?

With iTunes, Apple is a distributor. With the app store, it's a publisher. It's reasonable to assume that most people who are likely to get angry about content in a song/app recognise and understand the difference. And perhaps many of them don't understand that Apple is merely a publisher, and don't actually create most of the apps.

Creators and publishers are (usually) considered to have more responsibility than distributors when it comes to objectionable content. I think that's an important difference for Apple's image.

what do you suggest is their rationale? Is that the point of this? to point out an irrational decision in the world?

Well, considering most of the people here write software, and this has to do with a (currently) popular software platform, I think it's worth pointing out.

Who cares about Apple's brand? If you buy a device it should be YOUR device. No one should be able to dictate what content you put on YOUR device.

Under the same line of reasoning: if I own a brick and mortar store, it should be MY store. I should be able to dictate what I stock on my shelves. If customers don't like it, they can shop elsewhere.

But you can't shop elsewhere. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the app store the only way to get applications for the iphone short of jailbreaking? Don't you think if there was a competing app store that was completely open people would flock to it?

I'm pretty sure people wouldn't "flock" to it, for the same reason iTunes is still doing well selling music despite a better selection on Amazon MP3. Don't underestimate the importance of convenience to most people.

The iPhone has a web browser! Welcome to the world of webapps. Where you can run anything you like. Much of it is even free!

Except if you own all the brick and mortar stores you have a monopoly. Even if you just own a large chunk of them (like Walmart), you end up having way too much control over what form free expression can take. That is closer to the situation with Apple and it doesn't seem too healthy for society as a whole.

And technically speaking, that isn't even true. Try to allow smoking at your place of business in most states, for instance.

Huh? Are you serious? The cellphone is the new PC. Let me run whatever applications I want on my computer. Can you imagine in Microsoft said you can only buy software for your computer via our App Store and oh we are going to take a cut of all Windows software.

Also, do you really weep for those poor shop owners that can't refuse service to black people and gays anymore?

What if Apple did this for it's PCs and laptops? It's just making the world a better place right?

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