If you follow apple in any way, if you know anything about the iTunes App store or if you are a geek in general you’re quite aware of the power and control Apple tends to apply over their multi-billion dollar universe.  Well, one of the big complains Apple App developers have is the lack of “standards” for having an application approved.

It seems that if a reviewer find something they find “offensive” the application will be rejected, often with a rather vague explanation of the problem or “offensive” content. Now it seems that Trent Reznor, front man for Nine Inch Nails and all around rock god, is feeling the wrath of the Apple App Store police.

It’s important to point out that the following exchange is very colorful.  If you are offended easily, this is not for you.

Here is the rejection letter from Apple:

From: iPhone Developer Program <XXXXXXXX@apple.com> 
Date: April 27, 2009 11:44:12 AM PDT 
To: help@store.nin.com 
Subject: nin: access 1.0.3: Application Submission Feedback
 Please include the line below in follow-up emails for this request. 
Follow-up: XXXXXXXXXX 

Dear Craig, 

Thank you for submitting nin: access to the App Store. We’ve reviewed nin: access and determined that we cannot post this version of your iPhone application to the App Store at this time because it contains objectionable content which is in violation of Section 3.3.12 from the iPhone SDK Agreement which states: 

“Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple’s reasonable judgement may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users.” 

The objectionable content referenced in this email is “The Downward Spiral”. Since the app is live on the App store, please make the necessary changes to the application as soon as possible, and resubmit your binary to iTunes Connect. Thank you.

Regards, 
iPhone Developer Program 

And here is Trent’s Reply:

Now, “The Downward Spiral” the album is not available anywhere in the iPhone app. The song “The Downward Spiral” I believe is in a podcast that can be streamed to the app. 

Thanks Apple for the clear description of the problem – as in, what do you want us to change to get past your stupid fucking standards? 

And while we’re at it, I’ll voice the same issue I had with Wal-Mart years ago, which is a matter of consistency and hypocrisy. Wal-Mart went on a rampage years ago insisting all music they carry be censored of all profanity and “clean” versions be made for them to carry. Bands (including Nirvana) tripped over themselves editing out words, changing album art, etc to meet Wal-Mart’s standards of decency – because Wal-Mart sells a lot of records. NIN refused, and you’ll notice a pretty empty NIN section at any Wal-Mart. My reasoning was this: I can understand if you want the moral posturing of not having any “indecent” material for sale – but you could literally turn around 180 degrees from where the NIN record would be and purchase the film “Scarface” completely uncensored, or buy a copy of Grand Theft Auto where you can be rewarded for beating up prostitutes. How does that make sense? 

You can buy The Downward Fucking Spiral on iTunes, but you can’t allow an iPhone app that may have a song with a bad word somewhere in it. Geez, what if someone in the forum in our app says FUCK or CUNT? I suppose that also falls into indecent material. Hey Apple, I just got some SPAM about fucking hot asian teens THROUGH YOUR MAIL PROGRAM. I just saw two guys having explicit anal sex right there in Safari! On my iPhone! 

Come on Apple, think your policies through and for fuck’s sake get your app approval scenario together. 

He has a good point (well, several good points).  What I find really amazing is this: it turns out that the App Review team has in issue with content the application accesses…on the Internet. 

The point Reznor is making is more than valid.  The iphone (both the Safari browser and the mail program) access questionable content that is freely available on the Internet. Is it not a wee bit hypocritical that Apple is penalizing others for doing exactly what their applications do?

Even more reason for me to move away from Apple products.  I don’t want anyone telling me what I can and cannot view.

(hat tip TechCrunch)

Yesterday Twitter was hacked in a major way. If you do not follow one of the 33 people who happened to have their account hacked, or if you do not follow technology news, you may never have known it happened. Who happened to be the targets of the attack?  Celebrity Twitter Users.

Thanks to TechCrunch, we have screen shots of the hacks.

How did this happen? Twitter explains…

These accounts were compromised by an individual who hacked into some of the tools our support team uses to help people do things like edit the email address associated with their Twitter account when they can’t remember or get stuck. We considered this a very serious breach of security and immediately took the support tools offline. We’ll put them back only when they’re safe and secure. 

It almost sounds like a person successfully pulled of a SQL injection attack on tools intended to be used by Twitter employees.  What this shows is that the Twitter is not yet ready for the big time.  No matter what the attack was, Twitter has not taken steps to secure data within the organization. If they cannot secure the most basic of information, how can the service be trusted if they start offering pay services?

I wonder if the hacker actually could SEE the password information, or simply have the ability to change.

I’ve wondered how useful a Twitter search engine would actually be, and I would have to say (much to my surprise) it’s quite useful!  

Twithority ranks search results by highest ranking users first and by most recent tweets by the top 10,000 Twitter users. I ran a few test and found a number of things I wouldn’t have expected, nor ever would have thought of to search for in the first place.

Kinda sweet.

I was reading an article on TechCrunch yesterday about Ask.com “experimental” search feature that is really nothing more than a giant ad engine.  Take a look at what they mean.

Search for… Stocks or Mortgages or Cars or Music…

And where is the content?  Maybe this is a bad design flaw, but it just makes the search engine look bad.  

This got me asking, however, why is Ask.com still around?  While I understand a company attempting to fill a niche market I cannot see how they are filling this goal.

Ask.com was purchased by IAC for 1.85Billion in cash, and is still ranked as the #5 search engine out there, but is there a purpose they serve?  Their market share has been consistently trending downward since 2006, no consistent business plan seems to be in place, and for the life of me I cannot figure out who their target users are.  

I’m guessing IAC hasn’t sold off the ask.com technology and web properties to competitors simply due to the fact they have no ability to recoup the $1.85B spent at this point – plus a huge write-off wouldn’t look good at this point either.

Instant Messaging is something I use on a daily basis and, frankly, if I didn’t have access to a service I would have some difficulty when it comes to productivity.   When I want to login to YIM and AIM I will utilize Meebo (meebo.com), which is a based in-browser instant service that has the ability to connect to multiple services at once.

A number of corporations have blocked meebo due to an ill-conceived belief that their service has the ability to introduce security vulnerabilities into the organization (that and it is also seen as a giant time suck).  Sure, I can see it from a data perspective if someone copies and pastes a bunch of info into the browser, but the same could be said for email.

Well, if Meebo is blocked at your office, and you still want to get onto a web based instant messaging service give eBuddy a try.

EBuddy is based out of Amsterdam that provides a similar service to meebo.  Be prepared, however, as the user interface is not the same.  To me, it seems that the eBuddy interface is a bit more cluttered – and a bit slower.  Another item to note is that advertising is “in your face” when chatting, which can be a bit annoying. 

Also, as TechCrunch noted, their mobile service base is up to 10M people.  They must be doing something right, so if you need an alternative, give them a try.

TechCrunch is pointing out how Twitter and Flickr are provided first hand accounts of the terrorist attacks that took place in Mumbai, India.  Yes, there is a quick screen shot of comments and a picture taken by someone who was a witness to the attacks.

While I have no doubt a high portion of the information that was flowing on the Twitter network was incorrect at the time, it seems that some tweets provided were much more accurate than what CNN was providing for their viewers.

It’s very unfortunate that such a tragic event points out how effective social networking tools are. This is what the internet is about.

This is exactly what is wrong with the Patent system in the United States. Apple is being sued by a company called EMG Technology for the manner in which the iPhone formats and zooms in on content when a user browses a website using the device.

To start, mobile devices have reformatted data for almost a decade now. In a previous life a company I worked for deconstructed data and made the content presentable for mobile devices during that time period. As TechCruch points out, that in and of itself – the existing technology – should seem to invalidate the patent just issued.

I had a big problem with the RIM / NTP lawsuit in which a patent holder was awarded $612.5M dollars all because the blackberry devices had a “scroll” wheel on the side. To me, and I understand I know nothing, but that seems like a poor use of common sense on the side of the law.

Major patent reform is needed to prevent common sense from being a liability and to cut down on individuals (and companies) who’s main point of existence is to have a patent library they hope to use as a form of business terrorism.