Obama Trampoline too controversial for Apple's App Store
Apple cowers under the political gaze. Again
Honestly.
Apple’s got so much money and influence it could probably buy America, yet once again its backbone has turned to jelly in the wake of political satire.
It already blocked MyShoe - an app requiring you to chuck your shoes at George Dubya - and now a game about bouncing Obama on a trampoline has had the door unceremoniously shut in its face.
Obama Trampoline puts you in control of various politicians jumping on a trampoline, guided by the accelerometer to pop balloons with their heads - hardly defamatory or politically insightful. The game was stymied thanks to the same paragraph in Apple’s terms and conditions that was used to block MyShoe:
“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.”
Quite what’s obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory about balloon bursting is anyone’s guess, but presumably Apple feels it’ll help keep the company in favour with its political masters by not taking any chances.
It’s hard not to throw your eyes to the ceiling at this kind of news when iTunes currently has an album on the front page called Which Bitch, and for the right price you can download uncensored series of South Park and A Clockwork Orange though.
Oh well. Check out this video of Obama Trampoline, and just out of political obstinacy, don’t buy a game today.
Techcrunch