Apple Blocks Cartoonist From App Store 664
ink writes "Here is another troubling anecdote on the iWeb front: 'This week cartoonist Mark Fiore made Internet and journalism history as the first online-only journalist to win a Pulitzer Prize. Fiore took home the editorial cartooning prize for animations he created for SFGate, the website for the San Francisco Chronicle... But there's just one problem. In December, Apple rejected his iPhone app, NewsToons, because, as Apple put it, his satire "ridicules public figures," a violation of the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement, which bars any apps whose content in "Apple's reasonable judgement may be found objectionable, for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory."' Whether or not you agree with Fiore's political sentiments, I believe we can all agree that the censorship of his work should be denigrated."
Re:George Orwell must be turning in his grave (Score:2, Funny)
Re:News Flash: Apple limits app store! (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, Apple has a locked down system that rejects apps for arbitrary reasons.
This is a known fact, can we stop pretending its "stuff that matters?"
We're trying to find the pattern in the reasoning, if you don't mind.
I think they show it to a judgmental old lady and reject what she objects to. The reason for long approval times? Naps.
Re:News Flash: Apple limits app store! (Score:5, Funny)
Indeed it does put it in perspective. Apple is run by a bunch of cowardly, vile morons.
Re:News Flash: Apple limits app store! (Score:5, Funny)
Oblig. (Score:3, Funny)
Agent Smith: But, as you well know, appearances [like a nice UI] can be deceiving, which brings me back to the reason why we're here [on the iPhone]. We're not here because we're free. We're here because we are not free.
Re:This is why... (Score:3, Funny)
the worst part about that commercial is there are far too many people who have zero idea what it was trying to say.. they would just wonder why the hooters girl was carrying a sledge hammer
Re:Control freak. (Score:5, Funny)
just which community standard is against satire and making fun of public figures?
Muslims, Jews and Catholics.
If you draw a picture of baby Mohamed sucking the Pope's penis while a Hasidic jew films the scene with cash sticking out of his pocket and the camera connected to the internet, you will get sued AND you will explode.
In fact that's such a horrible image, I think my karma might take a hit just by pointing out that people would not react well to something like that.
Apple: The Fascist Regime (Score:1, Funny)
iWhatever. Ppppppppfffffffffttttttttttttt.
Reading this letter won't be the easiest thing you've ever done, but it may be one of the most rewarding. I guess I should start by saying that Apple finds reality too difficult to swallow. Or maybe it just gets lost between the sports and entertainment pages. In either case, in Apple's quest to use cheap, intemperate propaganda to arouse the passions of the worst classes of insecure self-promoters I've ever seen it has left no destructive scheme unutilized.
I have absolutely no idea why Apple makes such a big fuss over poststructuralism. There are far more pressing issues that present themselves and that should be discussed, debated, and solved—issues such as war, famine, poverty, and homelessness. There is also the lesser issue that Apple says that laws are meant to be broken. You know, it can lie as much as it wants but it can't change the facts. If it could, it'd indeed prevent anyone from hearing that you may be wondering why drossy peculators latch onto its propositions. It's because people of that nature need to have rhetoric and dogma to recite during times of stress in order to cope. That's also why we can all have daydreams about Happy Fuzzy Purple Bunny Land, where everyone is caring, loving, and nice. Not only will those daydreams not come true, but Apple is like the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz. Pull back the curtain of stoicism and you'll see a repressive, ungrateful urban guerrilla hiding behind it, furiously pulling the levers of mandarinism in a picayunish attempt to extinguish the voices of opposition. That sort of discovery should make any sane person realize that Apple must sense its own irremediable inferiority. That's why it is so desperate to instill distrust and thereby create a need for its petulant views; it's the only way for it to distinguish themselves from the herd. It would be a lot nicer, however, if Apple also realized that I'm not a psychiatrist. Sometimes, though, I wish I were, so that I could better understand what makes organizations like it want to discredit legitimate voices in the pessimism debate.
I can assure you that Apple is trying to hide the fact that what I call sadistic slimeballs thrive on hatred rather than love. Nevertheless, one thing that rings true with crystalline clarity is that the exclusivism "debate" is not a debate. It is a harangue, a politically motivated, brilliantly publicized, logorrheic attack on progressive ideas. I can no longer get very excited about any revelation of Apple's hypocrisy or crookedness. It's what I've come to expect by now. Do you understand the implications of what I have been telling you? Are you awake? Then you probably realize that Apple really struck a nerve with me when it said that an open party with unlimited access to alcohol can't possibly outgrow the host's ability to manage the crowd. That lie is a painful reminder that the suggestion that diseases can be defeated not through standard medical research but through the creation of a new language, one that does not stigmatize certain groups and behaviors is wrong, absurd, and offensive. Nevertheless, Apple's factotums like to suggest such things to distract attention from the truth, which is that Apple's policy of challenging all I stand for must not go unchallenged. To leave it unchallenged is to condone Apple's grandiose plans for world hegemony, plans in which no one is free to say that if Apple hadn't been breaking down our communities, it simply would not have occurred to me to write the letter you now are reading. Why, I might have taken the day off altogether. Or maybe I would have been out complaining about the most ignominious Huns I've ever seen. In any case, Apple is doing everything in its power to make me contract leprosy and be forced to live out my benighted days shunned by humanity, ringing a bell, and shying away from sharps and open flames. The only reason I haven't yet is that I believe in the four P's: patience, prayer, positive thinking, and perseverance.
While Apple is
Apple is, for once, perfectly within its rights (Score:2, Funny)
Yes, Apple has a locked down system that rejects apps for arbitrary reasons. This is a known fact, can we stop pretending its "stuff that matters?"
Apple, being the owner of the platform and operating within a capitalist economy, is absolutely free to act as it does. Moreover, timothy, in publising this write-up and in adding the "censorship" or "yro" tag, you are totally wrong. This is no censorship, this has nothing to do with Your Rights Online. This is simply a corollary of capitalism, like it or not. Live with it.
Re:News Flash: Apple limits app store! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:News Flash: Apple limits app store! (Score:3, Funny)
"I'll keep pointing it out to people until Apple changes the system or kills it."
I'll keep pointing out that if people want Open-ness and Free-dom they should starve the beast(s) and not buy from EITHER Apple or Microsoft.
Re:News Flash: Apple limits app store! (Score:3, Funny)
Amazon has prior art on that. [slashdot.org]
Re:Funny how far Apple has come (Score:3, Funny)
... from their "1984 ad" that announced the Macintosh.
Hey, 1984 wasn't like 1984, the moon did not blow up in 1999, pod bay doors opened just fine in 2001, and Jupiter shows no sign of exploding into a new sun in 2010. They have delivered in their promise of not accomplishing any sci-fi prophecy, you gotta give them that. Even their phones don't look like the ones from star trek.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:News Flash: Apple limits app store! (Score:3, Funny)
It could be a colloquial use of the word, but it does get used that way whether it tracks with you or not.
It's like rain on your wedding day!
Re:News Flash: Apple limits app store! (Score:5, Funny)
that's a stupid name, and a stupid idea. it'll never work.
Re:Control freak. (Score:3, Funny)
In fact that's such a horrible image, I think my karma might take a hit just by pointing out that people would not react well to something like that.
Don't worry, karma is a Buddhist thing. But you are going to Hell.
Apple is the new AOL (Score:5, Funny)
While there are going to be exceptions, (ie, geeks excited about trying new technological solutions), most iPad/Pod/Phone users I've met typify AOL customers of old.
With one significant added dimension. . .
There's a weird Christian-ness about them which is hard to put my finger on. Clean-shaven, pleasant-but-fake facade which feels cultish. They make my stomach squelch nervously when I'm around one of them. -Which either means I'm the anti-Christ, or something deep in my DNA is reacting with fight/flight chemistry to the smiling pod people.
-FL
Re:*sigh* (Score:3, Funny)
Re:News Flash: Apple limits app store! (Score:3, Funny)
Is that you Bill?