By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions

Apple’s heavy-handed approach to speech

I’m trolling for Boston-area stories about Apple’s heavy-handed approach to allowing and banning apps for the iPhone, the iPod Touch and now, of course, the iPad. If you know of any, please pass them along. I would love nothing more than to give Steve Jobs a Muzzle Award, but I need a local angle.

What prompts my request is this outrageous example involving newly minuted Pulitzer-winning cartoonist Mark Fiore, who was unable to get his app approved because his work “ridicules public figures.”

I’ll be in the market for a new phone in the summer of 2011. It’s looking less and less likely that I’ll be going with Apple, much as I love its technology.

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5 Comments

  1. L.K. Collins

    Beginning to chafe under Comrade Steve’s authoritarian approach?

    Ironic, isn’t it, that “The Chairman” has become the face on the screen of the very ad that launched his most notable success.

  2. Really? They didn’t approve Fiore? That’s weird — editorial cartoonist Dave Granlund, who was formerly the full-time cartoonist for the MetroWest Daily News, has an app on the iPhone. I bought it a couple weeks ago (Dave is one of my favorite former co-workers and how often do you get to have an app created by a friend on your phone?) and the screen icon is… a cartoon of Obama’s face.

  3. Bob Macchia

    Dan,

    Get a Palm Pre. It works on Verizon’s and Sprint’s networks.
    It’s as good if not better then the iphone (true multitasking). The only drawback is Palm is not doing well financially. It’s to be hoped they’ll be bought out by another company for their technology.

    Bob M.

  4. Bill Rirchotte

    The App is available in the App Store Today.

    http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-20002953-260.html

  5. Mike Benedict

    I applaud your conviction, Dan. I won’t buy Apple because they exclusively use Foxconn (Hon Hai) to assemble their products, and Foxconn is, simply put, diabolical in its treatment of workers and indifferent (that’s putting it nicely) to their customers’ IP.

    I will, however, buy RIM (Blackberry), because they explicitly won’t subcontract to Foxconn.

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