To much skin for Cupertino

The brief and to the point form email went out the evening of the 18th, after most US businesses had closed, and stated simply that:

The App Store continues to evolve, and as such, we are constantly refining
our guidelines. Your application, INSERT NAME HERE, contains content that we had
originally believed to be suitable for distribution. However, we have recently received
numerous complaints from our customers about this type of content, and have changed
our guidelines appropriately.

We have decided to remove any overtly sexual content from the App Store, which
includes your application.

Thank you for your understanding in this matter. If you believe you can make the
necessary changes so that INSERT NAME HERE complies with our recent changes, we
encourage you to do so and resubmit for review.

Sincerely,
iPhone App Review

Most of the victims will remain silent. SuicideGirls.com, Sunny Leone, Aria Giovanni, Cutest Girls, Cyberage.com… all successful apps that survived the approval process only to be removed arbitrarily. These are small brands, unimportant in the grand scheme of things. There are no strategic partnerships to be had, no branding opportunities, no software, movie or music rights for Apple to use at a later point.

Not everyone is upset though, Playboy still has their application in the store, as does Sports Illustrated. Big names, big brands and suddenly Apple’s scruples don’t seem to get in the way. Scruples, that are noticeably out of place from a company that sells R rated movies, songs with explicit lyrics and violent and sexual video games.

This is OK, because its got bunny ears

Apple has always been outstanding at brand control. Their products are uniform, their name pristine and clear in the consumers mind. This has been accomplished by strict quality control, consistent messages and careful marketing, but it is our belief that what was good business practice has become a Religion. Don’t get us wrong, we love our iphones and ipods, but not so much that we willing to let Steve Jobs and the turtlenecked clones at Cupertino tell us what we can and can’t do with our own mobiles. Mobile porn not only exists, its prolific and desired and there is nothing Apple can do to stop people from watching on their precious devices.

So what happens now? Android is looking pretty good, as is blackberry, palm pre and any other mobile platform not protected by zealots and hypocrites.

Having said that, there are things that ought to be “common sense” appear to elude some of my fellow citizens, and an as such, occasionally a new law aimed at porn will be something I support, or even call for.

I never thought I’d feel the need to write this, but a law similar to the one recently proposed in Massachusetts that would forbid texting while behind the wheel needs to be passed to make it clear, once and for all, that you cannot watch porn while driving… particularly while driving a massive tractor-trailer.

OK, so the trucker at question was using allegedly a laptop to view porn, and not a Palm Pre, but you get my point: driving is serious business, and it demands your complete and undivided attention. And no, glancing up from your Blackberry’s screen occasionally while watching Bree Olsen suck cock as you hurtle down the interstate does NOT make the grade.

The next time you are tempted to watch porn while driving, please find that reserve of patience and prudence that exists deep inside you…. and figure out a way to wait until you are stationary before whipping it out of your pants for a tug.

Having established a somewhat alarmist tone in its headline, the article itself proceeds to offer a few anecdotes about people using their iPhone or Palm Pre to watch mobile porn in planes, trains and automobiles, while conceding the fact that such exposure is actually still fairly rare.

“Naturally, flight attendants, the front line of defense for any in-flight high jinks, have experience with this issue,” the article states before quoting two flight attendants about the issue. Among their observations? Both said that “instances of public porn are rare.”

OK — so are instances of public mobile porn “unavoidable” or are they “rare?” My suspicion is that the latter is true… but the former sure does make for a far more salacious headline!

This article and its headline, sadly, represent modern American journalism in microcosm: first, you figure out how to sell your story to the readers, then you worry about reporting anything vaguely resembling a fact. (In televised journalism, other requirements include an eye-catching graphic and ominous music to accompany the sensationalist headline).

The problem with fluff pieces like this laugher from the Washington Post is that the headline and its breathless claim of porn’s sudden public ubiquity are what people will remember. If repeated frequently enough, assertions that mobile porn is everywhere, however flawed, will take on the appearance of fact in the minds of many news consumers — and from there you can count on some mentally challenged ninny in Congress deciding that “something must be done!” And since Congressional ninnies have nothing else to reach for, the lamebrain legislator in question will end up proposing some entirely unnecessary new law regulating mobile viewing habits.

Never you mind that we already have laws against the public display of “indecent” or “obscene” images, the Congressional Crusader who proposes it will energetically argue that without their new bill — which will, naturally, come in the form of some painfully stupid acronym (like the Securing Americans from Forced Eroticism or “SAFE” Act) — America will be DOOMED.

You laugh now, but mark my words, this superfluous proposal for proscribed propriety will come. When it does, remember… you heard it here first.

Sparky Dean (really — I didn’t make that name up), the spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said he hopes the new law will make drivers “pay more attention to driving when and where school children are present.”

I guess the rest of the time, drivers should be free to let their minds, fingers and conversations wander, aimlessly?

On a related note, there are other reasons why watching mobile porn in a school zone is a bad idea; so even if this law did not exist, Texans would be well-advised to abstain from surfing porn on their iPhone while — say — dropping their kids off at school for the day.

According to the Times, the research shows that “motorists talking on a phone are four times as likely to crash as other drivers, and are as likely to cause an accident as someone with a .08 blood alcohol content.”

Heh… I suppose that watching iPhone porn would be even more dangerous?

In all seriousness, the publication of this research could very well lead to a renewed push for laws aimed at curbing the practice of talking, texting, sexting, and otherwise using mobile devices while driving, especially since former NHTSA officials say that the primary reason the research was withheld was a political consideration; according to the Times, “Congress had warned the agency not to use its research to lobby states. Dr. {Jeffrey} Runge {former head of NHTSA} said transit officials told him he could jeopardize billions of dollars of its financing if Congress perceived the agency had crossed the line into lobbying.”

Nothing like the threat of losing funding to make a federal agency turn its back on the data, eh?

In a letter obtained by Reuters, AT&T Senior Executive Vice President James Cicconi asserted that U.S. wireless prices are “much lower than in any other major industrialized country,” and noting that texting charges have dropped by almost 70% since January of 2007.

While Democratic Sen. Herb Kohl is leading the charge for the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Dept. of Justice to look into the exclusive handset deals, mobile industry critics and legal analysts are divided as to whether there is cause for concern.

Gigi Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge recently called the DOJ review “long overdue,” adding that consumers “have suffered over the past 10 years as the industry has consolidated and strengthened its hold over which services can be offered and which equipment can be used.”

On the other hand, David Smutny, an antitrust expert and partner in the law firm of Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe, said that he thinks that Kohl might be reaching a bit with his assertions of anti-competitive behavior.

“Most people are served by at least three and sometimes five or six wireless carriers,” Smmutny said. “On the specific issues that Sen. Kohl raises, I think that AT&T has the better of the argument.”

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out, and — anti-trust violations or not — whether the public scrutiny leads the handset makers and/or service carriers to open things up a bit, or if they dig in their heels and stay the course on these exclusive arrangements.