Poll: App rejected. Is this offensive? Seriously Apple?

Looking for some feedback, and also food for thought: If you think its offensive enough to get rejected, what makes it so?

* Its cartoon violence, and in my opinion not that violent.

* The blood is not red.

I can see how they might consider a particular comic offensive, but...

Regardless of their terms, I think Apple is out of line to dictate how paying customers use their devices.

Part of the problem, I think, is that until Apple's iPhone OS 3.0 "pay for content" feature is available, the application and the content are merged.

I can only hope that once content can be purchased separately, Apple will loosen its restrictions on viewers.

Personally, I think society should trust people "not to buy" things they don't like, or "change the channel". This pre-screening of "offensive" material is frankly the only thing that I find offensive about Apple, YouTube, etc.

That image shows a guy getting shot in the back of the head. That is a disturbing image (at least to me). Maybe you are numb to that level of violence, but apparently Apple is not.

Definitely should not get you rejected from the app store, while stuff like Wolfenstein 3D is in there. Plus you can use the YouTube app from Apple to find plenty of gory stuff.

Wait - what's the question that I'm voting on: the one in the title or the one immediately preceding the voting? I assume it's the one in the title but it is ambiguous.

Apple is adding age based ratings [1] in 3.0. Since that is the case, I would guess that this is an example of content that could be rated appropriately and added to the app store. Personally I support as much artistic freedom as possible. Just rate it appropriately.

[1] http://www.theiphoneblog.com/2009/05/07/iphone-30-beta-5-app...

As of yesterday, apps all have ratings based on various content like cartoon violence. Try resubmitted now that parental controls are on the way and don't check "None" for cartoon violence. See what happens.

Two anecdotes.

Perfect Dark, the N64 game released around the year 2000, got given an 18 certificate in the UK because of the fact that blood can splatter from shot enemies onto walls.

Raiders Of The Lost Ark, the film released in 1981, nearly got refused a PG [edit: thanks, bena] certificate because it showed exploding heads.

The picture you linked depicts both of these acts of violence, whereas Wolfenstein 3D does not. Maybe Apple have similarly esoteric criteria for unacceptable acts of violence as the film and video game rating boards.

Are you sure it was just because of that one photo and not the story line or anything else?

Can you compare comics to games? I sure we'd all say yeah but having dealt with paranoid copyright peeps before I could see where they'd make a case against the comic. The comic lacks a varied degree of "what's happening there", the intent of the graphic is clear, dude shot in the back of the head. Its consistent every time you look at it, head shoot. A game is varied content, sometimes you see something offense, sometimes not, that degree of randomness saves the game from the harsh eyes of scrunity, the comic can't escape.

The other thing that could be the factor is the international flavor of graphic material. I recall doing packaging for an animation company and the USA cover image of a gun pointing out at the view, aka the james bond like effect was cool and ok in the states but banned in UK! Thats insane but the BBC demanded their own version of the cover with the gun pointed to the side and not straight at a person picking up the video tape. Likewise content in a film is also subject to weird rules, BBC approves sleeping with your mother but whatever you do dont show anyone getting whipped on camera that dooms your film to XXX land.

Theres a chance that comics may suffer the same WTF reasoning on the iphone due to international exposure. Who knows.

I don't think it is so violent that it should be rejected. But since it has been rejected, do you need to have that comic bundled with the app?

It looks like you are marketing your app as a comic reader, not a service that provides comics, so I'd think that even giving out a free comic would not be integral to your product.

So I'm sure this must be frustrating, but I'd just take it out, or just replace it with something undeniably tame.

Context. This picture lacks context for me to judge whether it is offensive or not.

Question. You lost context there as well. What am I answering with a "Yes"? "Yes, seriously Apple?" "Yes, it is offensive?" "Yes, you're missing something?"

Don't take this the wrong way, but I am inclined to think it's the "Yes, you're missing something" option, and what you're missing is context.

I would simply stop being frustrated about this and delay your release for 3.0. Then you can simply use the parental controls / age rating to prevent this kind of review bs.

Did you set the appropriate ratings for your app?

I'm simply amazed by how people accept _any_ company dictating what they can and cannot do with computers (an iPhone is a computer) the people _own_. Forget discussing when/how Apple might 'loosen' restrictions...why are you accepting restrictions, at all. It's very disturbing how Apple and others are re-defining the nature of ownership and control over our computing devices. But more disturbing is how the public seems to simply accept the new paradigm.

Remove the offending image, resubmit, get approved, then re-add it (or have your app download it).