CUPERTINO, CA —Apple and AT&T have spent a considerable amount of time and effort driving home a very important point about their exclusive iPhone: just because a person can afford one and figure out how to use it doesn’t mean they can just install any old app on it. No, indeed. Apple has decided that it will at least pretend to take the moral highroad by keeping a watchful eye out for anything smacking of indecency – at least when it comes to its much hyped G3 phone.
One of the latest apps to run afoul of Apple’s sometimes bizarre review process belongs to one of the best known names in industrial music: Trent Reznor.
Reznor’s rejected app doesn’t feature infant killing – something subscribers can find in an approved app in the iPhone content directory – but it does contain a naughty word.
According to PCMag.com, Reznor received an email alerting him to the fact that “Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple’s reasonable judgement (sic) may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users.”
What had Reznor’s Nine Inch Nails done to earn not merely a rejection but such a stern justification?
Why, it included the word “Fuck” in the band’s best selling The Downward Spiral.
Ironically, those in possession of an iPod and an iTunes account can pay for the privilege of downloading all of the songs with all of the words on The Downward Spiral
Reznor, known as something of an anal-retentive perfectionist, is none to amused by the rejection, taking the opportunity to blast both Apple and Wal-Mart on his band site message board.
“Thanks Apple for the clear description of the problem,” Reznor begins, “as in, what do you want us to change to get past your stupid fucking standards?”
The musician then launches into an attack against the “consistency and hypocrisy” of its claims to carrying only “clean” versions of music, a decision which Reznor points out caused bands such as Nirvana to edit out words and change album art. Nine Inch Nails, on the other hand, refused to play along. As Reznor sees it, “I can understand if you want the moral posturing of not having any ‘indecent’ material for sale – but you could literally turn around 180- degrees from where the NIN record would be and purchase the film Scarface completely uncensored, or buy a copy of Grand Theft Auto where you can be rewarded for beating up prostitutes. How does that make sense?”
Given that Apple has rejected the Tweetie 1.3 app because it allows access to the internet, thus allowing subscribers to run the risk of encountering “offensive language,” Reznor speaks for multitudes when he urges, “Come on Apple, think our policies through and for fuck’s sake get your app approval scenario together.”
