No, it’s not a top-secret Pentagon document. What you’re looking at is Tom Bouden’s modern, ultra-gay take on Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. You can buy it for your iPad, as long as you don’t mind Apple censoring it like crazy.
Meanwhile, Apple didn’t bother censoring the comic for Kick Ass which features a straight guy’s butt, a glimpse of his nuts, and his lover’s exposed tit. Check out the double-standard for yourself. It may get you to “Think Different” about Apple’s continued crusade against “porn.”
UPDATE: Well, it seems Apple is just choosy about which breasts it chooses to censor, like the ones that appear in a comic of James Joyce’s Ulysses? Verboten.
UPDATE: And Apple reverses course, approving the comic.
How about we take this to the next level?
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s_b
Seriously not cool, Mr. Jobs. I find it really gross that they market themselves as an eBook reader and then insist on editorial control over the content. This is why I love my old-school analog dead-tree books!
David
Apple will never get another cent from me for as long as I live… Money grubbing fuckers
Fitz
All the gay guys SO freakin into their apple products are sheep. Dudes— Apple does not like the gays. They make their products in slave camps. They control content. WHY are you using an apple?
Jon B
Done with Apple. No more itunes purchases for me. This is disgusting.
matt
Wake up Apple junkies! Apple is a corporate giant intent on making the most money possible by avoiding controversy. They will jetison anything and anyone that doesn’t conform to their view of the mainstream.
It’s ironic that this is the same company the came up with the 1984 ad campaign: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8
Who’s Big Brother now?
Tricky
Was gonna relent and finally get into the iphone craze, however, no expandable memory, no removable battery and censoring comic book porn, no way. As soon as someone (Perhaps Samsung) makes a decent Android device I will trade in my hopelessly dated Windows phone. Tell me again why I need Steve Jobs to protect me from porn?
Yet Another
lol, Queerty comments are the best.
Apple doesnt like gays? Do a google search before you swallow whatever queety regurgitates and tries to feed you.
http://www.pinke.biz/news/3629/Pinke_Jobs_Presents_The_Top_5_GayFriendly_Employers
The company has given health benefits to homosexual couples for year. As many as 15 years ago they were fighting a Texas county that had offered Apple a tax break to locate some of its offices in the town. Despite being so desperate to land Apple that they offered $1 million in tax breaks every year, they suddenly got cold feet about giving public money to a “gay-friendly” company. Apple won in the end thanks to some arm twisting from Gov. Ann Richards, who later gained fame after she was defeated by George W. Bush.
http://gizmodo.com/5068441/apple-giving-100000-to-oppose-anti+gay-marriage-proposition-in-ca
Apple, long a proponent of gay rights, is putting its money where its mouth is, donating $100,000 to the group No on Prop 8. Proposition 8 is a ballot initiative in California that would deny the rights of same-sex couples to marry.
“Apple was among the first California companies to offer equal rights and benefits to our employees’ same-sex partners, and we strongly believe that a person’s fundamental rights—including the right to marry—should not be affected by their sexual orientation. Apple views this as a civil rights issue, rather than just a political issue, and is therefore speaking out publicly against Proposition 8.”
http://gayrights.change.org/blog/view/apples_poor_choice_in_rejecting_gay_app
Apple received a 100% rating on the Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index, a rank of companies based on their treatment of LGBT employees. The company has an LGBT-inclusive non-discrimination policy and partner benefits, and is generally considered to be LGBT-friendly.
Brutus
Well, I don’t like this, but I’m sure as hell not going to use Windows.
SteamPunk
@Brutus: Actually, this is about the iPad/iPhone, not Mac OS, so the Windows vs Mac comparison doesn’t really relate here. Neither Apple nor Microsoft would dare try to censor content so heavily on their desktop operating systems; there’d be a consumer revolt. I wonder why some companies think it’s OK to censor content on mobile operating systems? And more importantly, why do we consumers accept and support it?
That being said, most tech giants are not anti-gay at all. But when it comes to censorship, some companies are far more conservative than others. (Google seems to be the most liberal of all, but I may be wrong about that.)
Yet Another
@SteamPunk:
I think there’s a reason for that. Google wants to know everything about you, probably including what kind of porn you like. Google is an information company. They make their money by giving you whatever you want and selling data about what you want to advertisers. Googles web, mobile and desktop products all revolve around that.
In regards to Apple, none of its censorship is particularly anti-gay. It’s anti-nudity. If female or “hetero” related nudity slips by, it generally is a slip up.
And the iOS platform isn’t censored AT ALL. The AppStore is. Apple has said you can make whatever content you like available on the web and their browser will go there (unless its flash, =/.) What Apple won’t do is allow apps in its App Store that violate their terms. The app maker new that when it chose to make the app available there. Odds are, they knew it would be a story if their app was rejected and would drive hits to their website where the content is still available and readable on an iPhone just fine.
Expecting research or analysis from queerty is like expecting patience and understanding from….well… Queerty.
Yet Another
By the way, the Apps have been uncensored and will return to the App store soon. Just waiting for that Queerty story update.
http://www.ipodnn.com/articles/10/06/14/raises.questions.of.app.store.expression/
Matt
@Yet Another: You argue as though someone can always know whether their app will be rejected or violates the terms of the App Store. This story doesn’t surprise me, because those criteria seem more often the whims of the reviewers than not, and up until a few months ago you were under an NDA to even talk about why your app was rejected.
A developer can spend months working on an iPhone application and not know whether the reviewers will reject his/her app for some puritanical, political, or anti-competitive reason. Now that Apple has mobile devices with great technical merit and internal quality, it chooses to use its market sway to do whatever the hell it wants with them and not care about such trivial matters as fairness or common sense. If I respect Google for one thing (besides its awesome record on LGBT rights), it’s for its dedication to an open mobile platform, which even amidst its other faults gives it a one-up on Apple.
jason
Steve Jobs is a cunt whose company Apple appears to have an enormous moral inconsistency. Either stop censoring our love or get a fucking life, Jobs.
jason
I agree about Google being amazing and accepting of all sorts of news on gays. Thumbs up to Google, thumbs down to Apple.
Jesse Helms
@jason: Did you just use the C word? Your mom will be so ashamed of how poorly you turned out.
could be jesse helms could be jason
@Jesse Helms: His mom is too busy servicing Black truckers at a Mississippi truck-stop, hence his slight bitterness towards Black people.
Yet Another
@Matt:
Not to sound dickish, but its their ball. If you don’t want to play by their rules, go write an android application. Which doesnt mean you can’t complain about Apple’s policies or vote with your wallet and not buy Apple’s products. It just means its not a matter of black and white, right and wrong politics just like Apple isn’t Anti-Gay.
They’re a company. They can do whatever they want within the law. These very same issues along with Flash and iAd are being investigate by the ITC/Justice department. We’ll all see how that turns out and it will be infinitely more meaningful then Queerty’s assessment I assure you.
SteamPunk
@Yet Another: No comment about Google, as I don’t know enough about the company to make a sound argument. However, Apple just started their own mobile advertising unit – and banned Google’s ads from the platform – so I’m pretty sure Apple will want to know everything about you, too.
I agree, Apple is *not* anti-gay. I would never suggest such a thing. But there is censorship on their iOS platform and the App Store is the leading conduit for their censorship. Why? Because, unlike Mac OS, the App Store is the only way you can get apps onto the iPad or iPhone. Distributing apps in other ways will lead to lawsuits from Apple. We have to admit, Apple runs a very tight, Big Brother-style ship. Customers have to stay in line or get kicked out.
Yet Another
@SteamPunk:
We’re not in disagreement there. I wouldn’t even say your last few lines were that hyperbolic. Apple does run their platform that way, mostly. That doesn’t bother me because the value of their products to me is pretty high. I just don’t think that censoring the App store is effectively censoring the platform since you can access the web (sans flash/some scripts).
Additionally, and solely for the sake of conversation and not debate, I think Apple’s foray into the iOS advertising space (Apple is only running ads on its own platform) was more defensive than offensive. The blocked AdMob (Google) because they could feed information about iPhone users to Android (also Google). Apple didn’t want that much competitive insight in a competitors hands (anti-competitive?) but couldn’t cut off the revenue stream to their app developers. Thus they created an alternative that their dev’s could use, allowing them to block AdMob (Google).
badluckshadow13
So what if I DID want to use my iPad for porn?
If I’m buying your product and giving you my money, how about you say thank you and mind your own fucking business from then on?
Maybe next they can produce an iPod which refuses to let you put songs on it if Apple doesn’t approve of their content?
Symonds
A couple years ago, I would have said no way that Jobs could be anti-gay. These days, he’s been all about ‘protecting the children’ from shirtless men, so who knows? 100% HRC rating for employment practices is nice, but that might just mean he can swallow the bias long enough to establish competitive hiring practices.
No real way to tell, I guess. But whether he’s a bigot or not, Jobs is definitely RESERVING THE RIGHT to be one via the app store, etc. Even if it’s some other group that ends up taking sh*t from him, and not us, that’s not something I feel like spending my dollars on. NOBODY should have have to justify to some company why they should be free to communicate and publish, and if Apple becomes the backbone of the new ‘cloud’ version of the web, that’s exactly the step backwards that’ll happen.
Klarth
@Yet Another:
Okay, but how do you explain this, then?