Edible Apple

Pictured in the top portion of this photo is what most people see when they look at an iPhone 4 advertisement. Curiously, the bottom portion of the photo is what you’d see if you live in certain countries in the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Qatar. Now given the propensity for certain countries in the ME to limit personal freedoms (i.e Saudi Arabia), it was only natural to assume that the difference in iPhone 4 advertising was anything but coincidental and that Apple’s highly touted FaceTime feature isn’t entirely welcome in all parts of the globe.

For a few days, this story was largely speculative, but now there’s official word that FaceTime will, in fact, not be part of the iPhone 4 experience in a number of Middle Eastern countries. The tweet below comes courtesy of Du, a telecom operator in the UAE. TUAW first reported this story a few days ago and has been following up since notes that iPhones in Saudi Arabia running iOS 4.02 can make use of FaceTime, but that this functionality disappears once users update to iOS 4.1

You can check for yourself which countries are FaceTime averse over here. Incidentally, any folks in the holy land might be glad to know that FaceTime will be supported in Israel.