Apple Censorship

I was reading a story on CNN.com that stood out to me. It was about Apple's censorship of it's Appstore. After complaints from oversensitive women and parents surprised at what their children could access on their iphones(You got your KID AN iPHONE?!?) many of the most popular apps were removed. Many of these apps happened to be of an adult nature, or in some cases - like the Wobble app for example, which adds wobbling motion to any user uploaded photo - is benign unless used on a picture containing breasts. There are so many problems with this that I don't even know where to begin.

1) Adults can choose NOT to download the apps if they would be offended by them.

2) Adults should actually "parent" their children and use the parental controls that are provided with the phone and take an interest in what their children are doing with the phone rather than relying on someone else to do the parenting.

Apple, instead of using a rating system and restricting a whole section of content to those under 18, instead chose to completely remove all applications that were remotely sexy - including any that had pictures of bikini clad women. Or did they? Playboy and Sports Illustrated Swimsuit apps are still available on the appstore. Oh yes, I guess Apple chooses what smut is available for your consumption.

I'm glad I went with the Motorola Droid.


"Secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy . . . censorship.

When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, 'This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know', the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives.

Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything-you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

-Robert Heinlein
from the book "If This Goes On"