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Apple's Schiller Responds To iPhone Dictionary App Fiasco
beef curtains writes "Phil Schiller, Apple senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, responded by e-mail to a blog post discussing Apple's rejection of a dictionary app. If Schiller's e-mail is to be believed, it offers an interesting perspective on this whole issue. He said, '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 Ninjawords developer then decided to filter some offensive terms in the Ninjawords application and resubmit it for approval for distribution in the App Store before parental controls were implemented. Apple did not ask the developer to censor any content in Ninjawords, the developer decided to do that themselves in order to get to market faster. ... You are correct that the Ninjawords application should not have needed to be censored while also receiving a 17+ rating, but that was a result of the developers' actions, not Apple's.' PC World has an article summarizing the drama-to-date, the blog post, and Schiller's response."
Because a dictionary getting any age rating is a good idea how?
Apple didn't force him to censor the app. The developer "voluntarily" did it. Of course, it was his only option if he wanted to get it published...
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.
words I often find upsetting and objectionable:
censorship
groupthink
DRM
paternalism
authoritarianism
proprietary
patronizing
Thus I have an Android phone. Though it had to be rooted too. But at least when I try to install a program, it asks for my permission rather than the other way around.
But don't worry, he wouldn't be lying this time...
The developers may have 'chosen' to censor their work, but only because it was the only way their work could exist at all. That's still censorship.
Apple claiming that the developers chose to do it is like saying someone chose to jump in front of a bullet that was aimed at their child. Yes, they chose to... But it's hardly their fault.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
The dictionary was based on Wiktionary. So I would imagine it could quite possibly contain the fabled seven words and many others. Regardless, it's disingenuous to say that you aren't censoring apps and that the developer did it voluntarily, when the actual truth is you were rejecting the app and the developer had the choice of waiting for an undetermined amount of time (till you actually implmented the partenal controls) or 'self-censoring'.
That's like saying, "No, we didn't force a confession out of him, we just kept hitting him till he felt like talking."
Much like the Kama Sutra rejection, this brings home how farcical Apple trying to be gatekeeper and arbiter of taste on the app store really is. They should give up now before their reputation sinks under the weight of their hypocrisy - every week I hear of a new stupid and arbitrary decision by their app store reviewers.
Looking at the parents group response games like beer pong or "Madworld" got on the wii, I have a little sympathy. Neither game was marketed at kids. Parents groups seemed more upset with Nintendo than the publishers, citing reasons that boiled down to "OMFG, KIDS PLAY THE WII, HOW COULD YOU NOT CENSOR THIS NINTENDO?!?"
Granted, doing stupid things to avoid upsetting stupid people is stupid, but they are a company, not an organization dedicated to freedom of expression. They'd be reasonable to think that if they don't maintain some standards, parents groups would fly off the handle, boycott it, and they'd be losing out on their most profitable market: kids. It's somewhat positive that at least now they would have published it rather than just quashing it forever.
Naturally, the real solution should be parents acting like parents, but naturally pigs will fly before these groups put responsibility on their members.
Obviously the dictionary he's using has a rather different definition of reasonable people than mine does.
Mine says reasonable people aren't upset by words, especially the ones they write themselves. Reasonable people also have no expectation of going through life without encountering something they might find offensive, as they know that that idea itself is offensive to some people.
Why can't we, as a group, start using the names of idiots like that as slang for 'offensive' things? Like ...
Schiller - verb: To use ones tongue to clean a toilet bowl.
Intelligent Design - noun: The act of writing ones name in faeces.
*I've probably left a couple of inconsequential things out, it doesn't matter.
I apologise in advance for the bad language but in the interests of having a complete public record on Slashdot, here's a list of the words and phrases that Apple censors from their iPhone dictionaries:
---
Reality Distortion Field
egomaniac
vendor lockin
exploding iPod
making unfreedom hip
iCon
backdated stock options
Lisa
fanboyism
---
There you go. I feel dirty now, and shall wash my keyboard out with soap.
Does Safari need a 17+ age limit to be used? Will it be removed from the iPhone and iPod Touch? From Mac OS X? It can access even darker places outside there in the virtual world! Oh my godness! :-O
Are you a parent?
I am.
in many of these cases I think the parents *are* acting like parents when they complain.
No, they're not, they're acting like children when they complain.
I know many slashdotters live in some fantasy world where parents are able to monitor their children every waking hour, but it's not reality.
OK, so now we know that you're not just a parent, you're a bad parent.
Because if you were a good parent, you wouldn't want to be monitoring your children every waking hour, nor expecting someone else to do it for you.
Being a good parent involves teaching your children your values so that you don't *have* to monitor them.
I am, and in many of these cases I think the parents *are* acting like parents when they complain. I know many slashdotters live in some fantasy world where parents are able to monitor their children every waking hour, but it's not reality.
I know that, everyone knows that. And I had hoped that everyone would realize the folowing: if something is a concern to you, like your kid reading dirty words in a dictionary, then you should deal with it yourself, not make everyone else deal with it.
I know you have a lot of chores to do, but it takes about 5 minutes to do any one of a number of things to remedy the situation on your end:
-take the Ipod away from him
-trust him not to download it
-don't give him a credit card
-don't give him the password to itunes
-talk to him about dirty words
-realize he already knows them
-wash his mouth out with soap if he uses them
The world doesn't have a responsibility to sanitize itself because you have issues with what your kid sees reguardless of how much free time you have.
Parents would have an easier time if more of them did their jobs. No disrespect to your parenting skills, personally - I have no idea how you parent your children, and won't pretend to - but "parents cannot win" because most of them suck at their job or refuse to do it, and have persistently cried to the government or third-parties that "it's hard" and to "do it for them." So even the good parents can't win.
Parental controls DO affect people who don't use them. What the fuck do you think the FCC is? The ESRB? The MPAA Ratings Board? That shit is, in essence, "parental controls." They say what gets sold or shown where.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think these organizations shouldn't exist. But they overstep their bounds all the time, and yes, I'm going to blame overprotective, whiny parents just as much as I'm going to blame puritanical religious zealots or stodgy politicians or whoever else is busting down freedom of expression.
Dear Steve and Steve:
Seriously, this is beyond ridiculous:
* Anyone can receive e-mail that contains profanity and porn. Please remove MobileMail.app from everyone's iPhone.
* Anyone can access or stumble upon profanity, porn and more while web browsing. Please remove MobileSafari.app from everyone's iPhone.
* Anyone can download and purchase songs full of profanity and sexual references. Please remove the iTunes Music Store from everyone's iPhone.
Until you remove those three apps as well, it's obvious that you're full of iShit.