• Seems like the short article I wrote ‘Calling Time on IE6’ for .net is getting around. Article: http://is.gd/kHHO / Digg: http://is.gd/kHHY #

Apple sinks to new levels of stupid in South Park App Store row

Ever since the App Store opened for submissions, Apple’s been—and this is perhaps the most charitable description—inconsistent. Although I disagree with the regular statements from Apple’s competition about walled gardens (and Ballmer recently arguing, without a hint of irony, that iPhone is stifling innovation, and if only everyone was using Windows Mobile, they’d have more choice), whoever at Apple is dictating policy regarding App Store submission needs a good swift kick in the nuts.

Apple hit the news when it denied Podcaster entry to the App Store last September. The bizarre argument was that it duplicated functionality of an existing Apple app, but not one on the iPhone—instead, Podcaster wasn’t allowed distribution because, in part, it duplicated functionality in the desktop version of iTunes.

Now, however, Apple has descended to new levels of stupid. In development since last autumn, the South Park app has now been rejected without ceremony. Apple’s reasoning? The content is “potentially offensive”.

In itself, this is understandable. But when you look at the iPhone ‘ecosystem’, the decision is nothing short of batsh*t crazy.

Reason 1: South Park episodes are available to buy in full in the iTunes Store, and they happily play on—you guessed it—an iPhone.

Reason 2: South Park may have plenty of somewhat offensive and puerile moments, but that is at least a veneer over a satirical and cunningly intelligent cartoon. That, however, can’t be said of the slew of boob-jiggle and fart apps that Apple’s happily allowed into the App Store of late. Way to be consistent, Apple!

Reason 3: I’m an adult. No, really. Lots of people who own iPhones are also adults. No, no, it’s actually true. To that extent, it’s a bit rich of Apple to take the ‘offensive’ line with a cartoon that’s shown on television—it’s not like Parker and Stone thought: “You know what? Let’s change South Park, just for iPhone! Its new name shall be Gimp Chainsaw Blood Gouge Sex Death Park!”.

So, Apple, with a slightly edgy but perfectly safe app, let people decide for themselves whether to buy it. After all, I suspect the vast majority of people buying a South Park app are actually going to be South Park fans, and they’ll only take offence if it’s rubbish.

The App Store is undoubtedly iPhone’s killer app, but if Apple keeps indiscriminately knifing apps for no real reason—and high-profile ones at that—it’s going to be iPhone’s killer. It’ll only be so long before rivals start to catch up, and although I’ve no doubt that the Microsoft App Store won’t be as good as Apple’s, it’ll be ‘good enough’ for many. If Apple’s still playing the stupid card when that happens, a whole bunch of people will be yelling “screw you guys,” ditching their iPhones and going elsewhere.

• Mobile phone companies have finally cottoned on to the idea of a universal charger, utilising micro-USB. http://is.gd/jOmV #
• Vector Tanks just made the App Store. It’s a tribute to the excellent Battlezone, and looks fab. http://is.gd/jPqL #
• Shamelessly stolen from iguanarama on the MacRumors forum: Tim Cook’s Mac laptop update should be called the CookBook. (Cue: laugh track.) #

• Google posts Mac Chrome images. Quite promising, if not very Mac-like (yet very Google-like). See also: Picasa for Mac. http://is.gd/jqiV #

Banking, it seems, isn’t the only career where you can just make crazy sh*t up and get paid for it. Yet again, this week saw an analyst banging the ‘cheap iPhone’ drum. This time, RBC’s Mike Abramsky said we’d see a distinct $99 ‘entry level’ iPhone this summer (source: Silicon Alley Insider).

The things Abramsky claims could appear in the device are pretty funny, and somewhat akin to Apple (a company that, remember, gets off on selling high-quality, high-end products for suitably high price tags) shooting itself in the foot, then the kneecap and then the balls, for good measure. They include:

• A lower-resolution camera. This would require special effort from Apple, as anyone with an existing iPhone will know. The camera is already dreadful. About the only way it could get substantially worse is if Apple removed it entirely, and just made the Camera app snap black rectangles.
• No 3G or GPS, thereby knifing two of the most important aspects of the new iPhone.

To compensate, an updated iPhone would include a screen with 720 x 480 pixels (shoe-horned in, presumably, by someone pushing really, really hard) that would instantly annoy every single iPhone developer and knacker the App Store (given that developers would have to cater for multiple devices), and video.

So, where has this analyst heard the news from? Tim Cook? A recovering Steve Jobs? Nope. He’s just pulled it out of his butt, in the special way that analysts do. This kind of thing wouldn’t be so bad, but people actually listen to these guys. When they say “Apple will release an iMac for $5 that will give you a back massage on demand”, the industry laps it up, and then demolishes Apple when it doesn’t deliver. And these guys get paid lots of money for spouting whatever comes to mind.

Still, I’m sure us mere mortals can take solace in the fact that analysts will probably be first up against the wall when the revolution comes. Even before the bankers.