After bricking unlocked iPhones, kicking applications off the iPhone store that might even slightly compete with iTunes in the far future and charging developers for the privilege and filing a wave of patents on basic well-known computer science, Apple Inc. today filed a Form 8-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission declaring that it was openly adopting Evil(tm) as a corporate policy [today.com].

"F*** it," said Steve Jobs to an audience of soul-mortgaged thralls, "we're evil. But our stuff is sooo good. You'll keep taking our abuse. You love it, you worm. Because our stuff is great. It's shiny and it's pretty and it's cool and it works. It's not like you'll go back to a Windows Mobile phone. Ha! Ha!"

Steve Ballmer of Microsoft was incensed at the news. "Our evil is better than anyone's evil! No-one sweats the details of evil like Microsoft! Where's your antitrust trial, you polo-necked bozo? We've worked hard on our evil! Our Zune's as evil as an iPod any day! I won't let my kids use a lesser evil! We're going to do an ad about that! I'll be in it! With Jerry Seinfeld! Beat that! A**hole."

"Of course, we're still not evil, we said so," said Sergey Brin of Google. "You can trust us on this. Every bit of data about you, your life and the house you live in is strictly a secret between you and our marketing department. But, hypothetically, if we were evil, it's not like you're going to use Windows Live Search. I mean, 'Bing.' Ha! Ha! I'm sorry, that's my 'spreading good cheer' laugh. Really."

Read every banned book? What a terrible idea, I'm sure lots of them were awful (in the sense that they were marginally readable pablum, not in the sense that they are naughty or heretical).

orker who, when he found out that I can develop software, agreed to pay for my enrollment in the dev program in exchange for helping him out with some coding. So he bought an enrollment package for me, we filled out the info, and the next day, I got an e-mail from Apple saying that because my application and payment information didn't match up, I had to provide them a notarized copy or a government-issued photograph to prove I am who I claim that I am. I sent them back an e-mail saying that I didn't feel comfortable providing them my personal information,

I'm far from an Apple defender (just modded in an MS thread because I likened Apple to Microsoft and I cant figure out which type of fanboy I pissed off more) but...

If you information does not match the payment information this throws up a whole bunch of red flags about credit card usage. They have to determine that you are, well who you say you are. Look at it from their perspective. This is something all banks enforce so it's not limited to Apple.

I can't help but wonder if Apple keeps jerking developers around like this if eventually they'll give up and move on to another platform.

I mean this in the nicest way but why would Apple care about little developers like you when it can enforce its rules on large development houses like EA with far more efficiency. Yes Apple may very well want to drive away independent developers and this would be suicide because most apple sales are cheap, disposable US$1 programs, most Iphone owners don't want to pay US$10 per program (I wouldn't either so I dont blame them) but why wouldn't apple, control is more important to them then profit or market share.

Apple is customer-focused, and that's great, really, it is.

Apple is control focused and that really really isn't great.

http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/phil_schiller_app_store [daringfireball.net]

Let me start with the most important points - Apple did not censor the content in this developer's application and Apple did not reject this developer's application for including references to common swear words. You accused Apple of both in your story and the fact is that we did neither.

Ninjawords is an application which uses content from the Wiktionary.org online wiki-based dictionary to provide a nice fast dictionary application on the web and on the iPhone. Contrary to what you reported, the Ninjawords application was not rejected in the App Store review process for including common "swear" words. In fact anyone can easily see that Apple has previously approved other dictionary applications in the App Store that include all of the "swear" words that you gave as examples in your story.

The issue that the App Store reviewers did find with the Ninjawords application is that it provided access to other more vulgar terms than those found in traditional and common dictionaries, words that many reasonable people might find upsetting or objectionable. A quick search on Wiktionary.org easily turns up a number of offensive "urban slang" terms that you won't find in popular dictionaries such as one that you referenced, the New Oxford American Dictionary included in Mac OS X. Apple rejected the initial submission of Ninjawords for this reason, provided the Ninjawords developer with information about some of the vulgar terms, and suggested to the developer that they resubmit the application for approval once parental controls were implemented on the iPhone.

The Ninjawords developer then decided to filter some offensive terms in the Ninjawords application and resubmit it for approval for distribution in the App Store before parental controls were implemented. Apple did not ask the developer to censor any content in Ninjawords, the developer decided to do that themselves in order to get to market faster. Even though the developer chose to censor some terms, there still remained enough vulgar terms that it required a parental control rating of 17+.

You are correct that the Ninjawords application should not have needed to be censored while also receiving a 17+ rating, but that was a result of the developers' actions, not Apple's. I believe that the Apple app review team's original recommendation to the developer to submit the Ninjawords application, without censoring it, to the App Store once parental controls was implemented would have been the best course of action for all; Wiktionary.org is an open, ever-changing resource and filtering the content does not seem reasonable or necessary.

It wouldn't be the first time Apple rejected an app that did not feature "objectionable content" but which pulled it from the web. [slashdot.org]