Censorship it is not, but still a surprising move for a company known for pushing boundaries. The Apple App Store has rejected a book by David Carnoy called Knife Music because it contains a passage where a teenage girl uses the f-word. As a verb.
But the book is not for “mature audiences.” In fact, it’s not even Lolita-level in its sexuality. Actually, it’s a pretty straightforward, somewhat edgy detective thriller. And so it begs the question: What criteria is Apple using to determine “objectionable content?”
Carnoy enlisted a software developer named Alex Brie to submit the book to Apple, and Brie thinks Apple is using word-matching software. On one hand, this would make sense, because when you consider the overhead involved in having human beings actually read everything that gets submitted, it seems dizzying. On the other hand, rejecting everything with a four-letter word seems like it would deny Apple the ability to publish anything other than the most squeaky clean of the squeaky clean kinds of reading materials. Steve Jobs said there would be no porn or obscenity at the App Store, but a bad word does not obscenity make, especially considering that most fiction for grown-ups contains a few bad words here and there.
What’s the takeaway? The sheer volume of options — 10,000 apps and counting — has brought Apple face to face with scale issues. Apple has come under fire from developers and others for an unwieldy submission and approval process for items at the App Store, as well as a difficult user interface that makes it hard for users to find programs.
