Apple has rejected yet another iPhone reading application over “explicit content,” despite the fact that the same content is offered in other currently-available apps, as well as online. iPhone developer Jamie Montgomerie has posted a blog entry chronicling his communications with Apple over the rejection of Eucalyptus, his book reader app that taps into Project Gutenberg, a producer of free electronic books that offers more than 28,000 titles. “The exact book (the Kama Sutra) that Apple considers the ability to read ‘objectionable’ is freely available on the iPhone in many ways already,” writes Montgomerie. “You can find it through Safari or the Google app of course, but it is also easily available via other book reading apps. You can get it easily via eReader, though the search process is handled by launching a third-party site in Safari, with the download and viewing taking place in eReader. Stanza offers up multiple versions, some with illustrated covers. Amazon’s Kindle app, the latest version of which was approved by Apple this week, offers multiple versions too – although it does charge from 80¢ to $10 per book – and you again purchase via Safari before Kindle downloads the book.”
He continues, “I am at a loss to explain why Eucalyptus is being treated differently than these applications by Apple. I’m also frankly amazed that they would suggest I should be manually censoring content that is being downloaded from the public Internet – classic, even ancient, books, no less.” He goes on to say that Apple seems unaware of “how genuinely torturous the app store approval process is,” suggesting that Apple should at the least implement a policy of “responding to at least one email after a rejection.” Montgomerie explains that he plans to manually block the book from appearing in the application, in hopes of it finally being accepted.
