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Apple Rejects Nine Inch Nails iPhone App
jarrettwold2002 writes "Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails announced via his Twitter account today, 'Apple rejects the NIN iPhone update because it contains objectionable content. The objectionable content referenced is "The Downward Spiral."' The initial NIN Access iPhone app garnered much fanfare (Wired article, Guardian article) and was approved by Apple. The update has been rejected due to an album reference. If Nine Inch Nails is having problems with censorship and approval what kind of problems are you having with the iPhone app approval process?"
Hey if Apple wants to reject a killer app from one of the most popular contemporary artists I guess that is their prerogative. Pretty stupid effiing move, and I guess Trent will have to take his application (and devoted money spending fans) elsewhere I guess...
Which of those links has TFA in question? 140 bytes of twitter? A you tube video. WTF is so bad about "downward spiral"? I'd RTFA if there was one.
Just callin' it like I see it.
Confused! Why would they ban the app because of a reference to his most famous album?
WTF is that shitty summary. "If Nine Inch Nails is having problems with censorship and approval what kind of problems are you having with the iPhone app approval process?" That's the entrance fee to the walled garden of the App Store for iphone/ipod. You trying to subvert apple is just another punch in the face. So they care more about the bigger/popular apps and how they fit their rules. That's kind of their job. It's not free stop expecting it to be.
I've been waiting since April 14th just to be accepted into the iPhone developer program as a business developer. I've been a Mac user since 1985 but this is just about enough for me to say goodbye to the Apple. The more I hear about slow customer service and delayed payments to developers make me seriously consider not participating(if I ever am approved) in the App Store. I may just have to go with a mobile framework like Rhomobile's Rhodes.
With jailbreaking it, I don't have problems at all. I can write my own programs using free software, upload them without paying $150 to access my own device, and share them with my friends. I can do a lot more than Apple would let me in their walled garden. The only question is how soon untill mainstream companies/groups like NIN release their promotional apps on the distribution channels for jailbroken iPhones.
I'm not really into NIN but I watched the Youtube video explaining what the app is. This is something Apple should be promoting because it does a pretty good job of taking advantage of the platform's capabilities - not suppressing because it contains a reference to a 15-year old album.
TODAY, my GF called Apple support, it said call back in 15 mins and automatically hung up on her.
2 days ago we tried to get a replacement on an Ipod 8gb Nano and despite having an extra 59$ service plan we were told we had to go through apple. Apple informed us that shipping was 39$ Canadian plus 10$ for insurance.
Apple seems to want to turn its back on it's customers, even if they are gods like Trent Reznor.
He wasn't really specific about the reason. He said it was because of inclusion of "The Downward Spiral". If he wanted to be more specific, he could have said it was because of the song "Closer", or to be even more specific, the lyric "I want to fuck you like an animal" (among others in that song that could be considered offensive by some uptight individuals in Cupertino).
I guess Trent will have to take his application (and devoted money spending fans) elsewhere I guess...
Or he will write a song about Apple. Knowing Trent's material, Apple better hope he just moves on, because I doubt they will want to license it for a commercial...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I wouldn't mind having the app on my gphone.
... and get off my lawn! seriously though, i'm all for folks like you trying to make a profitable business but frankly, you (and the rest of the industry) need a better business model. let me make analogy from your time period you're selling horses and but steve jobs is really henrey ford, and itunes? well, you can call that the assembly line. what you offer is obsolete.
should artists get paid for what they do? sure, but everyone wants to eliminate the middleman. if you cant find a good reason for people to buy CD's rather than download music (legally or otherwise) you need to stop being a middleman- produce something. the industrial revolution left a lot of people crying the same sob story you are.
sure you can argue that digital distribution is often illegal, but frankly the law is whatever people make it. the law in this case actually makes it harder on the artist. if the lawmakers werent at the beck and call of their corporate constituents the whole RIAA DRM crap would be ancient history, much like retail CD stores. now i know that last sentence may look kinda "conspiracy theory" but truthfully, someday the law will represent the will of the majority and when it does, artists will make music, put it on the tubes and i'll buy it directly from the artist and the RIAA, the record label, and you, will all be unemployed. so do yourself a favor, like i said before, go do something productive, dont be a middleman.
i wage a holy war against the apostrophe.
Is it just me, or is this very same album available on the iTunes music store? How is it that you'll be rejected on the App Store for referencing an album you can buy on the Music Store?
that no matter how hard Apple argues it, they're just as bad as Microsoft.
Shut up brain or I'll stab you with a Q-Tip. - Homer Simpson
iTunes sells Trent Reznors Music but wont distribute his App?
HUH?
Shouldnt Apple be giving the big "DUH" on this. What the fuck is Apple thinking?
I thought Apple was the "artist" friendly computer platform. You know that image they try to sell us on, using that hip "Mac guy"...
BEGIN SCENE
MAC GUY: "Hey PC, I'm a MAC, I dress like an artist, but really I'm just another fake image driven sock puppet for an evil corporation"
PC GUY: "Boy, I sure know how what it feels"
FADE TO WHITE
Apple.. Think What We Allow You To.
END SCENE.
Apple really has changed over the years. Its a very snobby platform for so called "artists". I find it histerical when I see college students thinking they MUST get a MAC if they will ever be an artist. Its just embarrasing. As if a platform makes you talented... If only it were that easy.
Image is everything, and Apple really needs to change direction and stop censoring song titles on itunes, and stop censoring applications. Simply have parenting mode settings in Itunes. Thats all you need. Let the parent decide what is right for their children. AND MORE IMPORTANTLY... Let us ADULTS choose what is right for us.
Oh and btw to you snobby college students that think you're artists because you just bought a Mac. You're wrong :) 95% of todays blockbuster films are made with windows pcs and linux pcs running various kinds of special fx software. Photography is done on both platforms but windows users out number mac users by a far.
Music? Sure... Protools for the Mac... of course! No wait... How about Nuendo for the PC? :) Far better.
Final Cut? ok you got us. :P
Hey will still have avid though... and the entire 3d animation industry.
Apple sells The Downward Spiral on iTunes!
Apple is starting to sound like Sony, where two (or more) competing ideologies threaten to drag the entire company down. Jobs needs to issue a set of objective, fair guidelines that apply across ALL content Apple sells on ALL of its storefronts. And yes, those guidelines need to come from His Steveness Himself, so that random lackeys in the App Store aren't left making judgment calls on the company's strategic direction.
This really is pretty outrageous; if you've seen the advance publicity for the NIN app, you'd probably agree that it was looking impressive as hell.
This is art. Someone home at Apple?
At any rate, it illustrates the slippery slope Apple's going down. All sorts of people will feel invited to seek attention for their agenda now.
If it's simply a case of adult lyrics, mark the content as such and allow it. Let the people decide for themselves if they want adult content or not. They do already have an "explicit" tag in iTunes.
This conservative mindset ... seem content to have all their censored for their own good
Indeed.
OK, let's put "The Greatest Nigger Jokes of All Time.app" up on the store and see how cool liberals are with it.
Oh, wait, the liberal mindset "like to live in a bubble where the real world does not enter" and "seem content to have all their censored for their own good" too?
Funny, that...
I have been a developer for over 30 years. My first application (we called them "programs" back then) was on the TRS-80 microcomputer sold by Radio Shack. In all this time I have seen a very disturbing trend towards closed operating systems and platforms. If the automotive industry operated the same way, you would be forced to only buy service and parts from "authorized" centers and distributors. This was long ago outlawed by state and federal regulations. If Microsoft were to only allow "approved" applications on their OS (computer or mobile), the federal government would be looking at a major case against their anti-competitive behaviour. Is there really a clause in the TOS for iPhone developers that they cannot say anything about a rejected application? Wow. I cannot understand how any company in todays market can get away with that. Well, lets see... Microsoft: open and free development for their platform, and will run on multiple hardware configurations. Google: open and free development for their platform, and will run on multiple hardware configurations. Apple: closed platform with final say of any application developed, and with a percentage of all applications being paid to Apple Corp. Can someone tell me again why I should by an iPhone? Can someone tell me why Apple has not been taken to court? Can someone explain to me the hype on why Apple is so much better than MS?
It's really, really sad that in this country refraining from calling people niggers is a thing that automatically makes you a liberal.
This is such a farce, you need to read a little deeper than the glossy "gold rush" articles. there have been a very *small* number of people who got lucky and struck it rich, but as in all gold rushes, there are now so many people trying to get theirs, that the app store has become a wasteland clusterfuck of shitty me2 apps. Now, like everywhere else in life, you have to a) have a good application b) have good marketing c) have some luck to make money with iphone apps.
tasty electronic music vittles
so what do apple get from you for this behavior? yes, you continue to develop for the iphone and provide value to their product and their store. so why would apple or any other company not do the same thing they did?
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
Just being a touch pedantic here, but Trent does indeed record his music in a recording studio -- it's just probably one he built himself, such as Le Pig Studios. What he doesn't have any more is a major record label -- he now releases under his own label, The Null Corporation.
In movies, "studio" means something close to what "label" in music means. What music and TV call a "studio" is closer to what film calls a "sound stage". The phrase studio system made me think Sebilrazen just slipped and used movie terminology.
It's really, really sad that in this country refraining from calling people niggers is a thing that automatically makes you a liberal.
No, it's not just that many modern "liberals" abhor the use of racial slang. It's also that these "liberals" decide to attempt to punish those who use it. While libertarians tend to believe all speech, even if it is personally offensive, is protected speech, many modern "liberals" seem to believe in free speech only as long as it doesn't offend anyone's sensibilities.
I refrain from calling people "niggers", but I'm by no means a liberal -- at least not in the modern sense of the term. Of course I also would oppose the censorship of an app such as the parent poster described. Would I buy it? No. But that doesn't mean that censoring it is the right thing to do.
*That* is what the parent poster was playing at. (I think...)
The real litigious bastards...
Apple decided to keep the Appstore at PG-13 rating. Is that draconian control?
Um, yes. Considering they lock the phone down so that you can't go anywhere else.
If they just didn't want to sell certain apps then more power to them, but when they set themselves up as the monopoly dealer things that would otherwise be acceptable aren't. Now it's not that the iPhone is a cool device and Apple is just a family-friendly place to get one, but that the iPhone is itself crippled because of Apple's excessive market control.