[LINK] Steve Jobs: Great unwashed don't need PCs

[Ivan Trundle]

On 03/06/2010, at 2:41 PM, David Goldstein wrote:

> One thing that seems to be missed here is Apple censors anything that is remotely sex-orientation from the Apple apps store.

Myer and David Jones NOT selling porn or gay comics is not 'censorship'. Apple choosing to not sell an app because of its content or purpose is not 'censorship', either.

At present they do appear to be particularly puritanical (they also say that they are learning from their mistakes). But they don't NEED to sell porn or sex to be successful. In fact, like any other marketplace, they can choose what they sell (apps or otherwise). Myer and David Jones don't sell porn (or at least I don't think so), and Apple can choose what they sell, too. The appstore is just a store. And has competition. It's no big deal.

However, Apple has inconsistencies with what is available through the overall Apple appstore mechanism: iTunes offers all kinds of 'objectionable' content and sex (via movies, music and podcasts etc). Even swear words otherwise expunged from iPhone dictionaries.

Apple is on record as stating that porn, malicious apps (whatever context you care to put that into) and apps that invade privacy will not get a run in their store. I have no problem with what they choose to put on their shelves.

What *I* object to is that Apple don't publish their rules, or change them so often it is confusing. Either way, they need to explain what they are doing, and let the punters decide if this warrants buying their product, or not. Consumers will simply vote with their feet in the end.

There is a strange prurience in America, which might explain most of the problem. Their moral crusade might be defensible if it was consistently applied to violence as much as sex. But I digress.

iT

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Ivan Trundle
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