One hundred forty-five thousand petition signatures later, Apple has yanked Exodus International’s app from the iTunes store. If you’ve already downloaded the app, be sure you don’t delete it: having it on your home screen is the ultimate symbol of cool.
greenmanTN
As much as I hate Exodus and what they stand for, I’m of two minds about this. First of all, it’s Apple’s own fault they’re subject to petitions and demands to remove “Apps” because they’re the ones who are so control-freaky about what they will or won’t carry. They’ve removed apps for mocking political leaders, like the game where you threw shoes at GW Bush, or sacreligious apps like “Me So Holy!” They’ve created the situation where the apps that ARE sold are viewed as not just being available but as endorsed by Apple itself. So in a case like this, Apple carrying the Exodus app was viewed as approval of not just a piece of software but of Exodus and its mindset and methods.
So in that case it’s good Apple removed it.
But in general I don’t like the level of control Apple exerts over their products. If I want to download a piece of software that has Pope Ratzinger(sp?) dancing the hoochie-koochie buck naked, screwed by a donkey, then being eaten by wolves, that’s MY business. Is Apple a manufacturer or computing tools which you can use as you wish or are they selling an approved mindset? For a company that markets itself as creative and hipper-than-thou, their meddling in what is and isn’t “allowed” on their hardware is counter-intuitive. They’ve become the Big Brother their earliest Macintosh commercials implied they were freeing you from.
I’ll stick to non-Apple products for that reason, thanks.
greenmanTN
Dammit, Queerty!! I’ve posted TWO comments and got the SPAM warning for no reason I can see. How about posting a list of the words that automatically trigger a comment being blocked?! It’s frustrating to go to the effort to comment then having it blocked for some unfathomable reason, especially since it take FOREVER for the comments to be “approved” in that case AND it’s a matter of luck to access this site half the time!
sweetbrandigirl2004
Finally ! Now I can reconsider getting my i Phone 5 in July now if Chick-fil-a would just change their ways….lol I just love those little chicken sandwiches, I just can tolerate a heaping helping of bigotry with my meal.
sweetbrandigirl2004
OOOPPPPPSSSS I mean “CAN’T” tolerate a heaping helping of bigotry with my meal.
Sick Pup
I hope you’re reading http://www.facebook.com/chickengate to see the anti-gay hate that Chick-fil-A is still supporting.
As for the Exodus app. Its too early to laugh about it yet but in 50 years, I bet it will be taught in schools as evidence of discrimination, like the ‘whites only’ signs we saw in textbooks.
GetBalance
Good riddence to Exodus, the quack shack.
B
No. 5 · Sick Pup wrote, “As for the Exodus app. Its too early to laugh about it yet but in 50 years, I bet it will be taught in schools as evidence of discrimination, like the ‘whites only’ signs we saw in textbooks.”
I disagree – in 50 years, Exodus, much less its app, won’t be mentioned, just as we don’t mention the racist mutterings of some Alabama “good old boy” from the 1950s as he staggered home just after the bar closed for the night. What could get into the textbooks is the Prop 8 battle and the Mormon funding of it.
Steve
There are two distinct reasons why apple may want to control what can be sold in the app store:
1. To prevent “trojan” apps and viruses (virii?) from gathering and abusing users private information.
2. To exercise editorial control (aka, censorship) on the content, for political purposes.
Clearly, the first is necessary and appropriate. Trojan apps and viruses can do great financial harm to customers.
The second might be necessary for phones that are sold into or used in certain jurisdictions, such as to prevent porn from being displayed in certain Muslim countries where it is highly illegal. But, for phones that are located in the USA, it is clearly not required. Apple is not the government, so the 1st amendment is not at issue.
Apple made a marketing decision to exercise editorial control over the content.
Having made that choice, now they have to make those editorial decisions, even when any decision that they make is certain to be criticized.
Jon Whitford
but if they get that many signatures on a petition to get rid of grindr or jak’d, is it that all it takes? I hope it wasn’t the signatures that swayed them. I hope there was a legitimate policy (besides bad science/ignorance, etc) to back that up.
greenmanTN
@Steve: In the article I read about Apple removing the Exodus app, it specified that Apple has in the past removed apps that “mock political leaders” like the throw-shoes-at-Bush game and apps that religious people found offensive. That’s clearly censorship of content by Apple, not just apps with viruses, etc. Which is their right of course, but what’s the criteria? Could a concerted petition campaign by the Religious Right get popular gay-themed apps removed? That’s one of the problems with censorship; once you start engaging in it there’s a struggle for control of the process.
Believe me, I do NOT support Exodus’ beliefs or methods; it’s quack “science” based on religious delusion. I’m also sure that if content were wide open there would be racist and homophobic apps out there, just as there are racist and homophobic websites now. But just as the heinous Phelps family has a site, the openness of the Internet allows other sites that directly oppose them.
But this all comes back to Apple’s insistence on exclusively controlling access to software for its hardware to maximize profits, not some magnanimous gesture. If no one had complained they’d still be selling the Exodus app and happily pocketing the money. And eventually it DOES become a “freedom of speech” issue, though not a Constitutional one. If I want the freedom to do whatever the hell I want with the hardware I’ve purchased without it being subject to letter-writing campaigns by religious or conservative political groups, I have to allow others the same freedom even when I disagree with them vehemently.
And again, Apple’s primary motive for being the exclusive source of software for its products is financial, but it IS censorship and I don’t like it. If I want a game where I throw shoes at Bush or chase the Phelps family with a bazooka that’s my business, not Apple’s. I admire their product designs but the control they exert over them AFTER sale leaves me cold.