Edible Apple

There are so many Steve Jobs emails these days it’s becoming tough to keep up. One particularly noteworthy exchange that we missed last week happened in the wake of Apple’s rejection, and subsequent acceptance, of Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Mark Fiore’s iPhone app, NewsToons.

If you recall, Apple initially rejected the app because it satirized public officials like President Obama. But as is typically the case, the ensuing public uproar and criticism directed at Apple resulted in a change of heart, and Apple soon accepted the app into iTunes.

Following that little incident, an Apple customer emailed Jobs to express his concern about Apple taking on the role of the moral police. The email reads:

Steve,
I was converted to Apple products with the announcement of the iPhone 3G. (My friends have been trying to convince me for years.) Since then I’ve purchased 4 iPhones, 2 computers, several routers, and miscellaneous other items. Unfortunately, I’m really starting to have a philosophical issue with your company. It appears that more and more Apple is determining for it’s consumers what content they should be able to receive. For instance, the blocking of Mark Fiore’s comic app (due to being political satire) or blocking of what Apple considers to be porn.

I’m all for keeping porn out of kids hands. Heck – I’m all for ensuring that I don’t have to see it unless I want to. But… that’s what parental controls are for. Put these types of apps into categories and allow them to be blocked by their parents should they want to.

Apple’s role isn’t moral police – Apple’s role is to design and produce really cool gadgets that do what the consumer wants them to do.

Thanks for listening

-Matthew

A legit email and a valid concern, and surprisingly, Jobs’ reply wasn’t just a one word answer, but actually a few sentences strung together. “Like Kevin Garnett, anything is possible!”

Jobs’ response reads:

Fiore’s app will be in the store shortly. That was a mistake. However, we do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone. Folks who want porn can buy and Android phone.

Ah, so that explains the growing popularity of Android devices!

Interestingly, this isn’t the first time Jobs has made a snide comment about porn on Android. During a Q&A session at Apple’s recent iPhone OS 4.0 event, Jobs remarked:

You know, there’s a porn store for Android. You can download nothing but porn. You can download porn, your kids can download porn. That’s a place we don’t want to go – so we’re not going to go there.

Apple not willing to accept porn on the app store is perfectly acceptable, but the porn argument sort of misses the point – and to be honest, it’s not really a stance people have an issue with. Rather, it’s Apple’s seemingly inconsistent string of app rejections that has generated a rash of criticism at Jobs and co.

via NY Times