Subscribe by EmailThird Time Lucky in Apple Fart Saga
April 28, 2009 by JLister | 5 comments
As we noted last week, Apple’s vetting procedure for its iPhone app store is mysterious to say the least. While the decisions have involved everything from technical to licensing issues, the company appears to be particularly inconsistent on matters of taste. It rejected an official South Park app which would have delivered clips of the show to users, but approved a baby-shaking game (only to withdraw it after the inevitable outrage).
Now a development company has detailed its journey to get an application approved, a journey which strongly suggests the vetting procedure involves automated keywords as much as human judgment.
Alkali Media twice failed to get approval for Crudebox, an application which features a soundboard of “16 high-quality and mildly disgusting sounds”. (The firm is run by three recent business and advertising university graduates…)
The app was initially rejected for failing to meet Apple’s requirement that “Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple’s reasonable judgement may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users.”
After the firm tweaked the app to remove one sound, a female orgasm, it got the thumbs down again. Rather than go through the process repeatedly to figure out exactly which sounds were causing the problem, the developers decided to simply give it a makeover.
In the revised version, the functionality was unchanged – users still get the same collection of sounds. However, Crudebox became Prudebox, a snot-like background became a collection of sunflowers, and several buttons were renamed. For example, users can now ‘Sicky’ rather than ‘Vomit’, while the option to ‘Fart’ is now ‘Toot’.
So did this revamp, in which you can make a fart sound but you can’t call it that, get Apple’s approval?
Darn tootin’, it did!
- Apple approves, then pulls, baby shaking iPhone game
- Apple reconsiders policy after Trent Reznor goes on the offensive
- iPhone OS 3.0 allows iPorn in your pocket
- Tip of the Day: Don’t Fart During Surgery
I actually like the flowers better.
i can see the point in apples decisions, the first version being just plain yucky, the second has atleast little bit humor in it..but whats the point if its not even funny or imaginative.
…even if the firm ” run by three recent business and advertising university graduates…” (this is the best they can do? a fart application for iphone and make noise when apple doesnt approve it?)
Obviously they’ve accepted a ton of applications, but I’ve heard a lot lately about inconsistent app refusals. Do they just have a room of guys with different backgrounds and opinions interpreting what’s acceptable? At that point it’s more a matter of which guy you get at what time of day.
As for the baby shaking, I can almost hear a song done by Ludacris called “Go you Baby Shaker” matching the chorus of “Shake your Money Maker”. Maybe that’s what Apple was thinking when they approved it, then realized they were terrible people when John Q Public got pissed.
Thanks for busting out Apple a little bit. I had commented a few weeks back that I think you do that too little while busting out the other gorillas a little too much, but you’ve been at them pretty good regarding the stuff with the iPhone apps. I’m happy to see that…just another reason why I keep reading.
Now keep those ancient-hardware-playing-music videos coming! :-D
I would slap the face of anyone over the age of 12 who paid for that app.