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Comment by jsz0 | Hacker News Reader

I agree with that but someone who has parental controls enabled may not. That's why the feature exists. The "dirty words in dictionaries" battle has already been fought in schools and libraries and it seems Apple is taking the same route. Some words are OK, some aren't. It's not as though an NC-17 rating on the App Store really causes any problems for a developer unlike a movie getting an NC-17 rating which is a big deal still.

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"It's not as though an NC-17 rating on the App Store really causes any problems for a developer unlike a movie getting an NC-17 rating which is a big deal still."

I wonder about that.

I wrote the Nihongo app, which, like NinjaWords, kept getting rejected until I finally set the rating to 17+.

When it was finally in the AppStore, friends told me that an "are you sure, since this app has Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity and Frequent/Intense Mature/Suggestive Themes"-type warning came up just before they hit "Buy".

I wonder how many people hesitated or declined to buy the app b/c of that.

That's troubling. I've been thinking that it's OK if the ratings are strict or inflated, as long as there's no stigma attached to a 17+ rating.

But a warning before you buy certainly stigmatizes 17+ apps. I bet lots of people hesitated.

Well for one thing, Apple does not let you give out promo codes for 17+ apps, which is a big handicap for promotion of your work.

Similarly, I wrote the Jishobot app and had to change its rating up to 17+. I'm calling bullshit on Phil Schiller's response. Am I allowed to say that?

As of July 26th, it looks likes promo codes have been allowed again for 17+ apps.

http://www.tuaw.com/2009/07/26/update-promo-codes-are-now-al...

Hey, look at that! Tried it and it works. Thanks for the correction.

School censoring and rating systems are both bullshit. They oppress minorities and creativity. A software platform has far less justification to follow a similar pattern.
The idea that children shouldn't see swear words is leading to a categorical error. The debate is about how much, for which there is no right answer, instead of if at all.
As a parent, let me put some authority behind it and say the parental control is the off switch. If parents aren't there to turn it off - guess what: your kids are already looking at donkey porn, and there is nothing you can do about it.
The whole issue is such a farce, where Apple is really looking to give the impression that it cares and controls the situation, when it doesn't. They make a web browser that can easily search for porn. Is there effectively a difference between that and an app where you can search for a dry definition of a dirty word?
There is a difference - the browser is far worse. And not restricted. And made by Apple itself.

I agree with your main point, but how does school censoring oppress minorities?

I completely agree with pretty much everything you're saying, but to be fair, the iPhone's parental controls do allow you to lock down the browser.

I expect my kids to eventually outsmart anything I do to hide things from them, long before they are old enough to vote.

Okay. That doesn't change the fact that you can lock down Safari on the iPhone, in direct contradiction of your statement "The browser is far worse. And not restricted."
Again, I agree with you in pretty much everything else you're saying. I just think its stupid to pretend like Apple is evil for this particular alleged hypocrisy - "Oh noes, they let kids look at porn without restriction in Safari but ban my dirty word dictionary!" - when their real fuckups are already sufficiently bad.

Apple is doing the filtering in the app store. People do the filtering on the browser. That is an important difference.

No, it's not, at least not to the point you were originally making, which was that Apple has put in place a system of control for apps but not for their own browser - that's false.
Why are you hung up on this? I'm not saying "don't be pissed at Apple", I'm saying "don't be pissed at Apple for imaginary things".

I'm not hung up - I'm right. You do bad shit in your app, and apple doesn't let people get it. You do bad shit available in the browser, and apple leaves it up to you do not get it. It's the exact opposite policy.
If there were a parental control for the app store that blocked objectionable content, off by default, this whole issue would go away.

If there were a parental control for the app store that blocked objectionable content, off by default, this whole issue would go away.
Um, that's exactly how the parental controls for the app store work. Apple uses the rating system to determine what apps are considered objectionable, the parental controls block access based on those ratings, and access to everything is enabled by default.

I thought apps with objectionable content don't get in the app store at all. Is that not the case?

That's not the case anymore, since the introduction of parental controls in iPhone OS 3.0. That should have been more than clear from the article, Schiller and Gruber both emphasize precisely that point.

But won't locking down the browser mean that you can't access the bus schedule, or their online school books, or whatever other good things there might be on the internet? Sort of a blunt weapon, no? It's like saying that because your eyes may see bad stuff, we will force them to wear eye patches...

I wasn't saying that this is a good feature, or that I'm glad it exists, I'm just pointing out that it's there, and that it seems like a waste of time and energy to pretend that Apple's censoring dirty words while giving parents no way to prevent kids from looking at porn with Safari.

You know, I went to see Transformers last weekend, which is PG-13 and included a rich variety of swear words and sexual innuendo.
The problem is not so much that Apple is censoring NinjaWords, as that Apple is penalizing them for engaging in censorship, while approving and/or offering (via Safari etc.) apps which allow access to the exact same 'offensive' information. This seems to me to be an unfair restraint of trade.

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