Oh my God, Apple killed common sense!

By Davey Winder
Wednesday, 18 February 2009 03:11

Market

Are you happy with Apple deciding what applications can, and cannot, run on your iPhone? The question becomes harder to answer when faced with conflicting decisions by Apple regarding acceptable content.

First it was a Bouncing Barack Obama and a Trouserless Bill Clinton which felt the full force of the Apple bad taste filter. Now an iPhone application that enables fans of a hugely popular TV cartoon series to have custom wallpaper, use characters as contacts images, legally stream video clips and even have news read with character-based audio has got the kibosh.
 
Ay Carumba! It appears that Apple has had a cow man. Mainly because it is not the funny and largely inoffensive Simpsons we are talking about but rather the funny and hugely offensive Eric, Stan, Kyle and Kenny McCormick R.I.P

Yes, despite the undoubted success of South Park, Apple has apparently rejected an official South Park application for the iPhone because "the content was potentially offensive" according to the developers.

Potentially offensive to who, exactly? Someone who does not know what South Park is perhaps, although what they might be doing downloading an application to customise their iPhone so that it can take on a South Park theme and stream South Park video clips is anyone's guess.

What really bugs me is the whole double standards thing that is going on here. Sure, anything connected to South Park is likely to be a little, err, linguistically ripe shall we say.

However, the same can certainly be said of plenty of music tracks with explicit lyrics (and R rated movies for that matter) that Apple quite happily sells via the iTunes service and which, of course, can be played via your iPhone.

If Apple is really concerned about things that are potentially offensive then let the application carry an age appropriate warning and then let the consumer make the choice as to if they will be offended or not.

Maybe the lack of any rating system for iPhone apps is to blame here? In which case isn't it about time that Apple introduced one?

I am sure that Apple would love to hear suggestions from South Park fans, or just those who feel perfectly grown up enough to decided what offends them thank you very much, by way of the iPhone feedback service.