It's in French. So sue me.

http://www.lemonde.fr/technologies/a...28_651865.html

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Apple promet un environnement "libéré du porno". Et les mécontents, ceux qui veulent des contenus classés X, "n'ont qu'à s'acheter un téléphone Android". Depuis plusieurs semaines, Steve Jobs, le patron d'Apple, s'est lancé dans une nouvelle croisade contre la pornographie, et il assume pleinement le filtrage des applications qui l'accompagne. Sur l'App Store de la marque, il n'existe en effet pas de section "adulte". Et surtout, la firme impose une politique "familiale" très stricte aux développeurs : pas de pornographie, pas d'érotisme, ni même de seins nus. Plusieurs développeurs, même respectables, en ont fait les frais : le quotidien populaire allemand Bild s'est ainsi vu refuser une application pour iPhone, au motif qu'elle proposait des photos de playmates nues. L'ajout de bikinis a permis au journal de faire valider son application, mais les éditeurs de presse allemands avaient vivement critiqué ce cas de "censure". "Aujourd'hui, ils censurent des seins ; demain, du contenu rédactionnel", avait estimé la fédération des éditeurs de presse allemands. "VERSION IPAD" OU "VERSION IRANIENNE" ? La politique de filtrage d'Apple a fait de nombreuses victimes collatérales, comme ce catalogue de livres du domaine public qui avait le malheur de contenir une version du Kama-sutra. Et dans les couloirs du magazine de mode Dazed and Confused, l'application iPad est surnommée "la version iranienne", rapporte le Guardian. Lors d'un long échange par e-mail avec un journaliste de Gawker, Steve Jobs avait expliqué faire "ce qu'[il peut] pour tenter de créer, et de préserver, l'expérience utilisateur que nous souhaitons proposer. Vous pouvez être en désaccord avec nous, mais nos motivations sont pures." Apple explique par ailleurs avoir renforcé sa chasse aux photos dénudées à la suite de plaintes de clients. Pourtant, si Apple promet à ses utilisateurs un environnement sans pornographie, la réalité est plus complexe. Dotés d'un navigateur Internet, l'iPhone comme l'iPad peuvent permettre d'accéder aisément à des contenus classés X. Jusqu'à peu, Apple disposait cependant d'un deuxième argument : il était impossible de lire des vidéos pornographiques sur ses produits, qui ne sont pas compatible avec Flash, la technologie utilisée jusqu'à récemment par la quasi-totalité des vidéos sur Internet. LE PIED DE NEZ DES ÉDITEURS DE CONTENUS X Mais la technologie a évolué : les nouveaux standards du Web, et notamment l'intégration de la vidéo dans la dernière version du langage HTML, permet désormais aux sites de s'affranchir, s'ils le souhaitent, de la technologie Flash pour leurs vidéos. Dès lors, il devient impossible de bloquer la lecture de vidéos pornographiques sur le navigateur de la tablette. Le site Youporn, qui propose des milliers de vidéos pornographiques en flux continu (streaming), a annoncé à la mi-mai qu'il convertissait toutes ses vidéos dans un format sans Flash. En souhaitant aux visiteurs "bienvenue sur la version iPad". D'autres éditeurs et producteurs de films X seront présents sur ce marché. L'éditeur américain Digital Playground a, comme d'autres, annoncé une offre spéciale iPad avec un système d'abonnement. Le format intéresse les éditeurs : "L'écran tactile est un plus, cela permet d'ajouter de l'interactivité. C'est comme un iPhone sous stéroïdes", estimait en janvier le vice-président de Digital Playground. "Et nous savons que les utilisateurs regardent des contenus pour adultes sur ce type d'appareil, nous le voyons dans les pics de trafic sur nos contenus." UNE CIBLE "FAMILIALE" Apple pourra-t-elle continuer à faire comme si ses produits étaient entièrement "libre de tout porno", alors même qu'il existe des offres spécialement dédiées à sa tablette ? La possibilité d'accéder à des contenus classés X sur les produits Apple n'est pas vraiment une nouveauté : depuis son lancement, le navigateur de l'iPhone permet de consulter sur des sites Internet des photos pornographiques, ce qui n'a pas empêché la firme de filtrer impitoyablement les applications contenant des photos dénudées. Les prises de position de Steve Jobs et de sa marque sont avant tout des déclarations d'intention qui se veulent rassurante pour des produits qui ciblent aussi les plus jeunes. "Vous vous sentirez peut-être davantage concerné par le problème du porno quand vous aurez des enfants", avait ainsi répondu Steve Jobs au journaliste de Gawker qui lui disait qu'il n'avait pas de problème avec l'existence de contenus pour adultes.

So it doesn't do anything that the devices you already own can't do much better, and doesn't show tits and bums either. In my day we used to call that an Etch-a-Sketch.

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Microsoft rejects porn, iPad protesters fake it ? The Register

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Applications for Windows Phone 7 won't contain porn or decapitation - but while the rules may be limiting they are public, unlike Apple's. Microsoft has published complete details of the application submission process for apps developed for Windows Mobile 7 (pdf), and porn is definitely out along with big nasty violence. But what's lacking is the Apple clause that lets companies change the rules on a whim which has rankled with so many, including these protesters who took their demand for iPad porn to the streets: Freedom From Porn on Vimeo. Microsoft is being pretty explicit about what it will allow in applications, and won't be having any "Images that are sexually suggestive or provocative... provocative images that reveal nipples, genitals, buttocks, or pubic hair". Also banned are depictions of "Decapitation, impaling, blood splatter/blood spurting/blood pooling... Exploding body parts... Guns/weapons pointed toward user/audience." Killjoys. Games will have to get a recognised rating, from the ESRG, PEGI or USK. Applications that rate below a 12 will be permitted without additional scrutiny. Links to other application stores are verboten, but alternative music download sites are allowed as long as Windows Phone Music Marketplace is included as an option. In-application advertising is, unsurprisingly, permitted as long as it conforms to Microsoft's existing guidelines. There are lots of clauses about defamatory and copyrighted content, as one would expect, but what's missing is Apple's catch-all clause which says Cupertino can reject any application without explanation, which should give developers some confidence. That's assuming there are any developers; there still aren't any Windows Phone 7 handsets to play with, and the demonstrated feature set is unimpressive compared to Apple's iPhone 4 and even what Android is offering these days. Having proper submission rules is a good thing, but it's going to take a lot more than banning porn to get developers excited about creating applications for Windows Phone 7. ®

Guess it was too much to hope that Microsoft could see Apple being an intrusive, using-its-market-dominance-for-evil, innovation-killing miseryguts and not think "Hey, that looks like fun!"

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Originally Posted by Zichao

Guess it was too much to hope that Microsoft could see Apple being an intrusive, using-its-market-dominance-for-evil, innovation-killing miseryguts and not think "Hey, that looks like fun!"

I am not sure that trying to be the pervert-provider-of-choice is a very valid marketing positioning. And, of course, libertarian discourse has to be real simple ("The Feds are Evil! Satanistic! Nazis!"), otherwise, midwestern gun-toting bible-thumping fans get confused. So you can't really ride that horse.

It'd be different if the no-porn, no-violence had been federally imposed. And by someone else than the FBI or other still prestigious organisation. Ideally, it should be the WH or the IRS. Then, you can safely ride a libertarian agenda...

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Well, past technology conflicts have been decided by the porn industry (VHS vs. Betamax) and the whole foundation of the internet is widely dispersed, small scale innovation without overall control and freedom from the constraints of ordinary life. You try to take that away and you're destroying your own business model.

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It's no surprise that iPad users love a bit of old-fashioned filth - Telegraph

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The Apple iPad has been hailed as the ultimate aid to erudition: a friend told me that delayed trains were no longer a misery now he could flick between Plato, Flaubert and Dickens. I imagined his dismay at Monday's tidings that four of the top-10 downloads on its books chart were the sort of hackneyed porn that makes Penthouse look like Proust. Three of the literary knee-tremblers were by Hull-born Carl East, who states with disarming self-knowledge: "I started to write at the age of 44 in the year 2000 and I wasn't very good." I quake at the thought of East's juvenilia when his mature texts, such as The Mother's Sins, offer lines such as: "I'm a divorced mother of two, both of which are 18." An unusual way to describe twins, which is followed by Mama's insight that "both Rodney and Alan were clearly becoming men". One can only imagine the relief that they didn't grow up to be elks. Related Articles Paul Compton sails off to next stage of career Jonathan Ross: Why the 'lewd' entertainer lost out on a Bafta Alastair Darling's 2009 Budget speech in full Intel and Nokia team up to battle the iPhone England's dynamic duo Fabio Capello and Trevor Brooking plan for lasting change Australia must protect foreign students from attacks, say China and IndiaAt some point on Monday, Apple wised up to the fact that such titles might not be the sort of improving works of literature they wish to promote: by day's end, all the lewd titles had mysteriously vanished from the rankings, while Peter Mandelson's memoir had rocketed into the top five. But no amount of Orwellian correction can conceal the fact that, given the choice between the entire English canon, a spinmeister's account of the Blair years, and a bit of old-fashioned filth, many iPad users showed a decided preference for the latter. In fact, every technological innovation from the printing press onwards has swiftly been adapted for the lucrative vending of smut. A recent study into the effects of explicit material on men had to be abandoned after the researchers couldn't find a control group who had never viewed pornography. Eight years at the helm of the Erotic Review taught me that there were plenty of mainstream takers for erotica – it was the marketing opportunities that proved more limiting, as Apple has ably demonstrated. Sales were further hampered by the fact that I insisted on quality literature. My staff always joked that we'd have made more money if we'd published the reject pile, with its endless ill-spelt variations on Confessions of a Naughty Nympho (whose aspiring authors included schoolteachers, civil servants and one peer of the realm). I don't envy the Apple censors their task as they wade through explicit texts: the Lady Chatterley trial proved that one man's porn is another's work of genius. And how on earth will they classify Craig Raine's new novel, Heartbreak, with its ceaseless descriptions of coupling and genitalia? Frankly, it makes poor Carl East look a tad vanilla.

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Who's Craig Raine?

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All seems a little daft to me,

"porn is definitely out along with big nasty violence."

So they're just going to add an extra step to two for users to get access to porn via their mobile Internet browser,
and here you have a company that for it's mobile software is saying 'no blood and guts that's bad' while it's funding and developing games like 'Gears of War' and 'Condemed' for it's consol, blood and guts are only bad when on the move?

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Playboy censors iPad app to pass Apple's morality test - Telegraph

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Anyone forking out £3.20 for the digital version of the magazine will have to do without the explicit photo spreads that titillated generations of teenage boys. The Playmate of the Month, one of the magazine’s most popular photo features, will only appear on the iPad as a tasteful headshot. Playboy agreed to censor its content in order to secure a place in the App Store, from which any software which Apple considers “obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory” is banned. Apps which have fallen foul of Apple’s strict taste standards in the past include a dictionary which contained swear words, and a programme called “Me So Holy” which allowed users to replace Jesus’ face with their own. While Playboy has long trumpeted the strength of its journalism – “I only read it for the articles” is the standard response of men caught with a copy of the magazine by their partners – many iPad users have expressed frustration at the self-censorship. MinOnline, the US media news website, wrote: “The problem for Playboy is that the missing pieces are so obvious because they are so well known.” Apple is almost unique in the technology industry for taking an active stance against pornography. In April Steve Jobs, the chief executive, wrote to a customer who complained about Apple’s self-appointed role as moral arbiter to insist that “we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone.” Android Market, the Google-run App Store rival, does not ban adult content.

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Quote:

The patent, which was filed by Apple in 2008, concerns “systems, devices and methods” for filtering “text-based messages” that contain “objectionable content”. It aims to ensure youngsters aren’t able to use their iPhones to send text messages that contain swear words or suggestive language, sometimes known as “sexting”. “For example, users such as children may send or receive messages (intentionally or not) with parentally objectionable language,” reads the patent application. “The content of such a message is controlled by filtering the message based on defined criteria. The criteria may be defined according to a parental control application.” “Sexting” is a growing concern for many parents, some of whom would welcome the option to filter out certain words from their children’s vocabulary. But sceptics have questioned whether text censorship will really work. “Those interested in ‘sexting’ will probably find some clever workaround,” reports technology website TechCrunch, suggesting they will find “myriad other words” that “don’t immediately set off the censorship senors”. Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, has famously claimed that Apple’s tight app approval process ensures “freedom from porn” for users of the company’s products.

Apple awarded 'sexting' patent - Telegraph

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Wow! What? Wait a sec...

I mean, not proposing porn is one thing. No one can force you to supply porn if you don't want to. I guess a newspaper stand owner might choose not to stock all the top-shelf magazines if he so chooses...

BUT here it is interfering with someone's use of the thing. It'd be like the bloody newspaper stand owner coming to your house and saying "sorry, no, that article in FHM is a bit too racey for a 14 yo like you". I mean, seriously?

If the federal state was trying anything remotely similar, there'd be an outcry about privacy violation and First Amendment and the like...

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