While the Apple iPhone store approved the app Peakaboo Tranny, which “tranny-fied” photos, it kicked out Jack’d, a Grindr-like gay networking/hook-up app, for using the word … “gay.”
Jack’d’s developer says the trouble began on Saturday, when Apple removed the app for other supposed violations of its Terms Of Service (like not having a “report” button since it’s a dating app, and not alerting users sexually explicit photos are prohibited — things Jack’d actually did do). And then came a warning from the App Review Team:
Yes, you read that right: “The following is not recommended for use in this field: gay. Your app may be rejected if you use this term.” And so continues Apple’s vicious cycle of never quite refining its mastery of gays and technology.
In the meantime, there’s still Grindr, Scruff, and West Fourth.
SpiffyShindigs
Ugh, I’ve supported Apple since before they were hip, but it’s really hard to stay behind them with this sort of shit going down.
Andrew
Yeah, sorry. Apple donated 100k to No on 8, publicly and strongly supports equality for it’s employees and as an added bonus has some of the best quality products of it’s kind on the market.
There are plenty of good LGBT apps in the app store and so I’m not really seeing much here.
Dave
This guy is seriously overreacting.
The submission form for app store text tells you your submission *might* be rejected for using the word “gay”. And it might. Why? There are appropriate ways to use the word “gay” (“this app is for gay people”) and inappropriate ways to use the word gay (“all of our competitors’ apps are totally gay.”) The software doesn’t know the difference, but it alerts you that the word might be a problem.
This is not only different from a blanket ban on the word “gay”, but actually much better. It allows them to police submissions for inappropriate and derogatory uses of the word.
That’s really all that’s going on. Nothing to see; move along.
Brian Miller
How funny to see gay people willing to trade away their own dignity to have “cool” products.
“Cool” products that are more expensive and have less capability than just about everything else.
“Cool” products built by abused labor in Chinese factories.
Yeah, that’s some hip-n-progressive stuff.
B
Just for laughs, The American Family Association once (still?) had a policy of mechanically replacing “gay” with “homosexual”. Then a talented runner named Tyson Gay got into the Olympics, and this wingnut web site, wrote, “‘It means a lot to me,’ the 25-year-old Homosexual said. ‘I’m glad my body could do it, because now I know I have it in me.'” (The original AP article they copies used the phrase “the 25-year-old Gay”.) See http://www.tribemagazine.com/board/tribe-main-forum/146982-christian-websites-gay-filter-backfires.html for a reference.
When you have a computer blindly do text replacements, funny things can happen. Just imagine what would happen if there the AFA copied a movie review for the Fred Astaire / Ginger Rogers movie “The Gay Divorcee”. Here’s the last 4 minutes of this 1934 film the AFA would have called “The Homosexual Divorcee”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kIPv3v4Mng
seaguy
Time to start letting Apple know that this will not be tolerated.
Andrew
@seaguy: Yes! You’re right! We should let them know that donating to marriage equality, providing equal employee benefits and publicly supporting equal rights for LGBT people WILL NOT BE TOLERATED.
Brian Miller
Apple gave 2/3 of one year’s salary for a middling engineer to marriage equality! They should be able to call us “faggots!”
Andrew
Yes, most definitely, that’s totally relevant to this article. And totally not a complete strawman.
Some people these days….
A D
It sucks, because Jack’d was much, much better than Grindr.
Brian Miller
Apple apologists are soooo boring.
Yes, we get it. You bought an IBM PC clone with an Apple logo on it running a BSD version with a custom skin and paid five times as much. You’re soooo cool. You’re soooo superior.
Now please, go away.