App Store censor denied

Apple senior vice president Phil Schiller has denied allegations that Ninjawords, an iPhone dictionary app, was both censored by the App Store reviewers and required to carry a 17+ rating. In an e-mail to Daring Fireball author John Gruber, Schiller explained that Apple had simply recommended that the app be re-submitted, without limiting content, after the parental controls were introduced with iPhone firmware v3.0.

"Let me start with the most important points - Apple did not censor the content in this developer’s application and Apple did not reject this developer’s application for including references to common swear words," Schiller claims. "The issue that the App Store reviewers did find with the Ninjawords application is that it provided access to other more vulgar terms than those found in traditional and common dictionaries, words that many reasonable people might find upsetting or objectionable."

The Apple executive suggests Wiktionary.org content, accessible through Wordninja, served as a basis for considering the app potentially offensive. Wiktionary.org contains what Schiller describes as "urban slang" words that are not included in common dictionaries.

"Apple rejected the initial submission of Ninjawords for this reason, provided the Ninjawords developer with information about some of the vulgar terms, and suggested to the developer that they resubmit the application for approval once parental controls were implemented on the iPhone," said Schiller.

Instead of waiting for waiting for firmware v3.0, which did not have a known launch date when the app was submitted in May, the developers instead censored the potentially offensive content and re-submitted the app. The App Store review team, however, still found enough objectionable content to give the app a 17+ rating.

Schiller agrees that the app should not have needed to be censored and receive a 17+ rating, "but that was a result of the developers’ actions, not Apple’s." Ninjawords developer Matchstick Software confirmed that “17+ ratings were not available when we launched, which means at that time, it was simply not possible for our dictionary to be on the App Store without being censored. Given the options of censoring or sitting on the side lines while our competitors ate our lunch, we chose to launch.”

Despite the clarification of the events leading up to the censorship of Ninjawords, the developer still feels Apple's rating system is not applied equally to all apps. The Dictionary.com app, for example, can be used to look up the same offensive words cited by Ninjawords' reviewers, but the app carries a 4+ rating.

Other categories, such as web browsers, show similar discrepancies. Oceanus carries a 17+ rating, while Full Browser is rated 4+, despite the ability of both apps to be used for accessing objectionable content.

A wide range of developers have criticized Apple for its App Store review policies. The company recently pulled a number of Google Voice-enabled apps, after allowing them to be sold for months. Developers were left frustrated and forced to issue refunds.

The company's policies have even drawn attention from the FCC, which has asked Google, Apple and AT&T to clarify the details surrounding the Google Voice situation. Apple was also asked to clarify many of its general App Store review policies. It remains unknown if the FCC will choose to draft new regulations following the investigation.

by MacNN Staff