{"id":433,"date":"2009-01-13T00:59:43","date_gmt":"2009-01-13T05:59:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/mojo\/?p=433"},"modified":"2025-07-31T15:55:42","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T20:55:42","slug":"the-forbidden-apple","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/blog\/the-forbidden-apple\/","title":{"rendered":"The forbidden Apple"},"content":{"rendered":"

So let\u2019s try this again and I will make myself very clear: I\u2019m seriously pissed.<\/p>\n

Apple rejected my book from its iApp store on the basis that it has the F-word. Now, I\u2019m sorry, but the fact that the F-word is in my book is the least<\/em> of its crimes (they must have missed the \u201ccunt\u201d), so \u2026 \u201cfuck\u201d? Really? But that\u2019s not the point.<\/p>\n

And you can download the Stanza (free) or eReader (free) applications to your iPhone, download my book, and read it that way, so all is not lost. But that\u2019s not the point.<\/p>\n

Some people call this censorship. I don\u2019t; they\u2019re well within their right to accept or reject any book they want. But that\u2019s not the point.<\/p>\n

The point is also not that Apple is cutting off its nose to spite its face. For whatever reason I don\u2019t understand, they\u2019re wishing-washing on e-books.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. There is no iBooks.<\/li>\n
  2. There is no restriction of explicit lyrics and explicit\/violent games and R-rated movies in the iApp store, which leads me to believe that the restriction is solely<\/em> for e-book applications. Why? Are we discriminating against reading as a leisure activity? Why?<\/li>\n
  3. At the same time, Apple made a deal with ScrollMotion to provide a host of e-books as applications, but I notice they are of the young adult variety, which is a pretty safe bet, content-wise. However, they\u2019re wrapping these up in DRM. Why?<\/li>\n
  4. Not only that, but some of them are seriously over-priced<\/a>. More than the hardback!!! Gah.<\/li>\n
  5. When I actually looked at what was in the e-book section if the iApp store, it was classics in the public domain (good!) and puppies-and-kittens (no, seriously, books on puppies and kittens) and manga (in which I have no interest whatsoever). Yeah. Selection. I can get a better selection of books to read at Wal-Mart, albeit I have to go there and buy dead-tree books.<\/li>\n
  6. On Teleread, the speculation is that spikes in iTouch sales are good for e-books<\/a>, but is that true for e-book applications?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"iTouch\"Nothing Apple is doing on this front makes sense to me. David Carnoy\u2019s Knife Music<\/em><\/a> (read his whole post) was rejected for the F-word, but this wouldn\u2019t have even come to light if he weren\u2019t already semi-high-profile (which fact is okay with me, but it\u2019s happening all over the place, not just with him). I mean, they\u2019re adding e-book applications a little bit. Here and there. Snootily.<\/p>\n

    On a purely capitalist pig basis, wouldn\u2019t you think this would be a market they would want to exploit? I can only conclude that Jobs simply carries an utter abhorrence<\/em> for The Book and does not want to exploit it for another revenue stream.<\/p>\n

    Seriously.<\/p>\n

    Music.<\/p>\n

    Movies.<\/p>\n

    Games.<\/p>\n

    But not \u2026 books?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    So let\u2019s try this again and I will make myself very clear: I\u2019m seriously pissed. Apple rejected my book from its iApp store on the basis that it has the F-word. Now, I\u2019m sorry, but the fact that the F-word is in my book is the least of its crimes (they must have missed the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[545,222,87,538],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apps","category-ebooks","category-money","category-reading-devices"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16989,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433\/revisions\/16989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}