Apple IPhone App Store Double Standard

If you don't have an iPhone these days, well you're just not with the hip-happenin' crowd. It seems Apple's iPhone has literally taken the planet by storm. Even the much touted Droid was no match for the king of PDA/Cell Phone technology. In the third quarter of 2009, Apple sold 5.2 million iPhones, increasing total market share of all "smartphones" by 3% just last year. In the next two years, sales of the iPhone will bring in almost $2 billion in monthly data charges alone.

Apple's iPhone a Huge Success

No doubt, Apple's iPhone is a resounding, undeniable success. What's more, people actually love their iPhone. I have had one for almost 3 years now and I cannot imagine my professional life without this amazing little piece of technology. OK, so the iPhone is great. what else is new? Well, apparently Apple's standards on allowing or disallowing certain applications available in it's App Store.

Apple's App Store Cleans House

Various media outlets and even those software engineers who have submitted their own software to be sold on the App Store will tell you that Apple's approval process has traditionally been strict, but also unpredictable. Some programs are allowed through the approval process and added to the App Store, while other similar programs are not allowed. Recently, Apple has gone through and purged more than 5,000 applications from the App Store that were considered sexually suggestive.

According to an article in the Huffington Post titled, "Apple BANS Apps That Criticize Public Figures," Steve Jobs, CEO at Apple, has said that if people want porn, they can get an Android. Jobs is very insistent that applications and programs allowed to be sold in the App Store on the iPhone be useful to people. Even after saying that, Apple did not purge Playboy or Sports Illustrated's swimsuit applications from the iPhone App Store.

App Store Double Standard?

Mark Fiore, a Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist, has had a similar experience with Apple. When Fiore first submitted his NewsToons software for inclusion on the iPhone and App Store, he was rejected. Apple has a strict developer agreememnt which does not allow ridiculing public figures or well-known personalities.

However, since his Pulitzer, Fiore has resubmitted his NewsToons app and, like magic, it was accepted. Apparently the Pulitzer has some amazing powers that allowed NewsToons to be included in the AppStore. Apple makes the rules for who or what it will allow into it's App Store, and I'm sure they're just trying to be responsible. To some, this sure looks a lot like a double standard.

Whatever anyone thinks about all of this, it doesn't seem to have slowed sales of Apple's iPhone. Sales of the iPhone for the first quarter of this year are expected to be in the neighborhood of 9 million iPhones.