There is a story up on Gizmodo based on an interview with a source at PeopleOfWalMart, the hugely popular blog of ridiculous-looking people using the big box store. In it, POWM’s app developer details the epic battle with Apple to get their website approved. I broke it down into bite-sized portions:
-POWM proposed a version of their site for the iPhone called Funny Shoppers and it was summarily rejected for "obscene content." Apple, as the Gizmodo story notes, will reject anything from the James Joyce app (assuming it including those bland wanking passages from "Ulysses") and pretty much anything else that isn’t Sports Illustrated and/or corporate-approved.
-POWM removed all photos of actual people and resubmitted the app, just to see what would happen. Once again, it was rejected for indecency, even though it now only contained photos of random objects.
-Along comes Shopper Fail, an app that outright plagiarizes People Of Wal-Mart, taking all of its images from the POWM site. Apple approved the app and it continued updating and making money (Funny Shoppers, by the way, is a free download) until POWM sent a cease-and-desist.
-Have you guessed where this is going yet? That’s right, Apple then suggested POWM remove any reference to Wal-Mart, lest Wal-Mart be offended by the app.
Let me get this straight: by using an iPhone, you are supporting AT&T (the worst), censorship and Wal-Mart? Thanks a lot, Apple.
Via.