Slashdot Mirror
On iPhone, Searching For Kama Sutra = Porn
heychris writes "Eucalyptus, an ebook app for iPhone, has been rejected from the App Store for 'objectionable content.' What's so objectionable? The Kama Sutra, available from Project Gutenberg, which is available on other ebook readers as well. Not only that, but the screenshot shows that you would have to search for Kama Sutra to get it; it's not built in to Eucalyptus. The author is reasonable but frustrated, while Herr Gruber is more succinct." I wonder how good the now-cheap Nokia 810 is as an e-book reader.
Now excuse me, I'm going to read some find articles in the Playboy.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
They should pull a Trent Reznor and re-submit the app. It sounds like approval is very subjective based on the reviewer. Chances are it might get approved the second time around.
Hosting and Domain name coupons
If you are so opposed to Apple's censorship, STOP BUYING AND HYPING THEIR PRODUCTS.
Until techy geeks stop hyping everything Apple does as the "next big thing" and start paying attention to the shady shit that Apple pulls every day, the situation will never get better.
I have an N810 and LOVE IT. I installed Evince which lets me rotate PDFs left or right so I have a full page visible on the 800x480 screen, and it's wonderful to read a book on. The fact that I have a full Gecko based browser and full xterminal everywhere is just icing on the cake.
jX [ Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler. - Einstein ]
A lot of people have the mistaken impression that the Karma Sutra is a sex guide when in reality it is a guide to having and maintaining a strong relationship.
For example it talks about marriage, how to meet women, and other things that you might expect from any modern relationship guide. It has a few sections about sex, kissing, and such but isn't the "sexual positions" guide that people think it is (often mis-referenced as such).
It is no more porn than any modern relationship book (e.g. "Women are from venus men are from mars").
Original submitter here. It seems the root link to the the author's blog is gone, though it's in the firehose submission:
http://www.blog.montgomerie.net/whither-eucalyptus
He's posting his entire dealings with Apple, mostly of the form letter variety. Hope this app nonsense gets cleared up soon.
CC
This iPhone App advertising scheme isn't fooling me and I'm tired of these Slashdot stories feeding the cycle.
It is difficult to imagine how the text-only English translation of the Kama Sutra could be considered porn by anyone who has not spent the last 20 years in a Skinner box. Today, it is probably best understood as an interesting piece of history, since its contents are neither especially informative or titillating.
Of course, if some of the reviewers at Apple have spent the last 20 years in a Skinner box, that would explain a number of the bogus rejections.
Nah, it's because they're coming out with their own book of sexual positions and don't want the competition. Of course their book likely involves Apple fanbois having unspeakable things done to them by Steve Jobs.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Or iPhone = !fun
That's how I ready your statement the first time around.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
From the summary: "I wonder how good the now-cheap Nokia 810 is as an e-book reader."
I have an N800, which is very close in specs. It's okay as an e-book reader, but nothing to write home about. I'm using FBReader.
As a general purpose internet laptop killer, it's awesome, though. Especially if you couple it with a bluetooth keyboard. I've written novels on it, VNCed, SSHed, played some games, diagnose networks, listened to podcasts, and even played Ur-Quan Masters on it.
I barely touch my laptop anymore unless I need something that genuinely calls for a larger screen, like a spreadsheet or balancing my checkbook. The fun stuff, I leave to the N800.
...your partner is on the phone during sex they might actually be looking up the next position instead of chatting with a friend.
I agree with the more "succinct" blog commenter that is linked in the summary; this is a truly execrable move on Apple's part. The point isn't just that the Kama Sutra can be found elsewhere or that it doesn't meet the definition of pornography. I'm sorry, but the Kama Sutra is one of the world's great religious texts, and is a great literary work in its own right. That Apple would put itself on the side of prohibiting access to it on some sort of moral grounds is completely outrageous. Apple should issue a public apology and fire the person who made this decision. Better yet, they should make the app store approval process more content-neutral, but we know that's not going to happen.
I'm guessing apple has a sweatshop somewhere in Asia stocked with marginal english speakers evaluating apps.
Well it's probably not a sweatshop in India, since they'd likely have recognized the Kama Sutra...
Might as well burn some karma for truth.
Then you're no better than they are -- just another censoring bastard, taking the torch to the Karma Sutra...
It's only showing it's colors.
Apple's always been *evil*. They've just become very good at creating the 'must-have' style products that are overpriced, locking you into Apple ... at every chance. Easily shutting down anything remotely resembling 'freedom' -- which is what made the PC great in the first place. People have complained about MS's adoption of more and more DRM, but Apple's always had a de facto locking -- by having exclusive locks on compatible hardware. MS went with the approach of allowing unrestricted interoperability (which, when they've tried to limit, they've gotten slapped down due to their monopoly position, but Apple is similarly a monopoly in their market. But MS on PC's and Apples on Apples, are both monopolies. Apple gets away with it because they are smaller -- but their policies and user-abuse are far harsher and more totalitarian than MS. Much of that stems from Apple's core culture, but some of it also stems from MS being forced to be more open because they are a standard -- which they became because of their openness.
It disgusts me the way Apple fanboys fawn all everything Apple, which fancying themselves superior to PC-users. Bu it's nothing more than it ever was -- financial and "in-crowd" elitism.
You see it in Apple's commercials...the I'm a Mac, vs. PC. The PC guy looks like the average harried Joe -- while the Apple guy is just portrayed as 'cool'...with all his little 16-17 y/o rail-thin model pod-girls dancing around him in silhouette, like an oh-so-more-sophisticated 'Deadhead' scene of rainbow colors, but with the original 'cool' of Beatles style and music 60's-70 -- the epitome of cool in the baby-boom generation, with it's message perpetuating the message of perpetual cool youth with their stylish Apple products. The iPhone, by it's price should be focused on adults and business types, but it's obviously focused on sales to teens and 20'-something as the latest trend of electronic fashion -- just like the ipods were yesterday's (and ongoing) fashion statement.
But people should be concerned about how much market lock-in Apple has -- they own the main means of distribution for their gadgets -- and get to decide how their devices are used -- and they have shown that they have no qualms about shutting down anyone who tries to use their product in an unapproved manner -- or even performing the crudest of Christian censorship campaigns against 'objectionable' classics that have been previously censored or caused controversy. What will be next on their banned list, the unexpurgated poems of Walt Whitman, or the 'Song of Songs': an erotic piece that has been subject to demands of censorship over the centuries as it describes intense expressions of physical love, the voluptuous beauty of lovers longing for one another and in a uniquely feminine perspective, it's seductive and intimate language conveys and immediate, sensuous and intoxicating desire. Certainly worthy of censorship -- or how about the recent decision in Bloomington, Ind where the city is refusing to run a paid-bus, public-service ad, "You can be good without God", as being too controversial (that's their definition of objectionable).
That Apple is using it's censorship powers on type of apps and content is very disturbing given it's unique, monopoly lock in the markets it sells too -- yet the fan boys swoon on, like Apple can do no wrong. They were they original PC-company that moved to sue all their competitors out of business. The original company that "sued over their "Intellectual Property" -- they've been guilty of copyright, patent, trademark and DRM abuse since their creation and have no qualms using lawsuits and their market-lock on their products, to control what you can with "your" product (it's really their product -- they can brick-it anytime they don't like a change you've implemented). If you are lucky, they'll replace it