Rich Fiscus
17 Feb 2009 14:49
Last October South Park Studios, creators of the Comedy Central show with the same name, submitted an iPhone app to Apple. According to a sneak preview at that time it would allow you to get wallpaper for your phone, read the studio's news feed, stream full episodes from their website, and even purchase them from the iTunes store. Now it seems Apple has decided not to approve the app.
An announcement on the South Park website gave fans the bad news, saying "After a couple of attempts to get the application approved, we are sad to say that our app has been rejected. According to Apple, the content was 'potentially offensive.'"
No doubt this is not the sort of news Apple would like to see right now. They're already defending themselves in a dispute with the Electronic Frontier Foundation over iPhone jailbreaking.
The EFF recently filed a request with the Library of Congress asking for jailbreaking to be exempt from the DMCA. They argue that it's essential for giving consumers an option to use whatever software they want on their phones, rather than being limited to whatever Apple allows.
Apple's rebuttal that the iTunes App Store provides all the choice necessary seems somewhat hollow in light of decisions like this one.