Apple Rejects Bobble Rep App, Cites "Objectionable" Content
Apple’s iPhone Developer Program has rejected an app that allows people to contact their elected U.S. senators and representatives because the app “ridicules public figures,” according to a rejection letter posted by the artist.
Tom Richmond, a cartoonist for MAD magazine since 2000, drew a caricature for each senator or representative for the app, called Bobble Rep, for a total of 540 individual caricatures.
“This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Richmond wrote in his blog entry posted Monday morning. “These caricatures aren’t mean or very exaggerated. They are simple, fun cartoon likenesses of the politicians and the purpose of the app is a informational database. There is no editorial commentary involved at all.”
Richmond said the app would let users look up contact information for the appropriate members of congress by putting in their ZIP code or using the iPhone’s built-in location services. On top of that, shaking the iPhone will make the cartoon head shake like a bobblehead.
According to The rejection letter posted by Richmond, the iPhone Developer Program wrote it could not post the app to the app store “because it contains content that ridicules public figures” in violation of the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement.
The letter also quoted part of the agreement: “Applications may be rejected if they contain content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, sounds, etc.) that in Apple’s reasonable judgement may be found objectionable, for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory.”
Richmond, in addition to questioning why Apple might find the caricatures objectionable, also lamented the loss of how the app might have improved public discourse. “The really sad part is that here is an app that might get people interested in who represents them in Washington, especially kids and young adults, and connects people to their senators and representatives via fun and PARTISAN FREE way,” Richmond wrote. “Yet Apple has decided it’s not appropriate.”