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February 10, 2012
Publishers fear Apple iPhone app censorship
Published: 25 Feb 10 11:04 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/sci-tech/20100225-25501.html
German publishers are ringing alarms over what they say are threats to press freedom stemming from Apple's scrutiny of an iPhone application from tabloid daily Bild that undresses women.
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Bild, the best-selling German newspaper, portrays naked women daily on its
front page but has been forced to put a bikini on the pin-up in its iPhone application that has already reportedly sold 100,000 copies.
A "Shake the Bild Girl" application allowed iPhone users to undress the model by shaking their phones.
An application for the magazine Stern was censured in January because it presented risque photos, a VDZ spokesman said.
Axel Springer, which publishes Bild, "must be worried by the latest developments," VDZ said in a statement. "Today it is bare breasts, tomorrow is
might be something else.
"We consider Apple's behaviour to be unfair, arbitrary, bad for business and dangerous for freedom of the press."
Apple's position underscores "the need for editors to develop their own electronic distribution platform, independent of Apple and Google" to retain control over applications, the federation said.
It called on the US group to "respond to the accusations and to present clear rules" on what it will accept.
US media said Monday that Apple had begun to remove risque applications from the App Store, which the US company declined to comment.
Apple is also blamed for inconsistency in deciding which applications can be used by iPhones, since it allows the US magazine Playboy to offer some erotic content.
A report in the Wall Street Journal said stricter standards applied by Apple appeared to be an effort to clean up the App Store before the first iPads are shipped next month.
AFP (news@thelocal.de)
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Your comments about this article:
(Lukaschenko is probably on Apple's board of directors, hehe!)
:-p
Developers have been left gobsmacked as to why Apple doesn't for adult content simply put in parental controls into the phone and rates the app, then it would just be a problem of having a rating that isn't always something you agree with (e.g., girl in a bikini on the app requires you to have 18+ parental control rating). The app store then if you're a 14 year old with the app store wouldn't show you any adult content at all, a pretty simple move but Apple are yet to say why they're not going this route, instead they just want to plough on and cull 5000+ hard worked on apps.
Google also are suffering at Apple's hands, currently wanting to have their Google voice app approved on the iPhone. Apple won't allow it to be approved because it competes with their product!! If that's not an illegal anti-competitive practice I don't know what is.
The iPhone deserves to bomb badly because of all of this whole mess.
Well, let me get this straight. When I get an app from the iPhone app store, it needs to know my credit card even if the app is free. This means there is automatic age protection as the credit card information has this feature.
On the other hand, the iPhone is a complete and full browser for the internet. So, although Apple won't allow a photo of a topless woman in it's age restricted app store, anyone, and I mean absolutely anyone, can browse the internet on that very same iPhone and view the hardest core porn known to humanity.
This procedure doesn't block porn on the iPhone, it just stops the age-aware downloading of an app and yet any website can still be viewed.
There is absolutely no logic behind it. It's a bit like banning the sale of the Bild in a brothel.
Of course, as long as your company has a well known brand name like Playboy, and is true blooded American like Playboy, you can still have your app anyway.
None of this bothers me anyway. Apple have to address far more important issues like allowing multitasking for third party apps and Flash. But that will hardly happen soon.