The Great App Massacre of 2010

via GizmodoOkay, this has been going back and forth so much over the past couple of days, that I wasn't even sure if I wanted to write it up, but here goes. First, Apple got rid of one "overtly sexual" app from the store, then they killed them all off. Then they enabled a new category to submit into in iTunes connect named "explicit", then they removed that, too. 5,000 apps were removed from the App store because they didn't fall in line with Apple's standards, and then Phil Schiller launched into a double-talking spectacle.

While the overwhelming number of suggestive apps was high, this is just one more example of Apple exercising its usual Carte Blanche over its user base, especially when you turn your attention to their reasoning for committing app genocide. So, mainstream suggestive photos are ok, but not the indie stuff? Not to mention that the apps were obviously selling well, meaning Apple got their cut of the sale, so what's the problem?

Yes, porn is still available through Safari. Yes, the apps that were removed sucked anyway. That's not the point. When are we all going to get fed up and finally say, "Hey, you know what? You don't get to decide what we can and cannot use on the devices we own.". If they didn't want the apps cluttering the store, then simply don't list them, but allow an alternative for developers to install apps on the platform other than through your proprietary mess.