'Freedom From Porn': Steve Was Right

Back in May Steve Jobs got into a wee bit of email confrontation with Ryan Tate over the finer points of whether or not Apple was still a revolutionary company based upon their recent actions of going after the Gawker blogger/journalist/thief/revolutionary/martyr/whatever for publishing and printing information on the yet release iPhone 4.  One of the most circulated quotes from sed email exchange was "freedom from porn".  Even as a big Apple supporter that I am I had to laugh a little.  I do think Steve and his band of merry men and women are making the right business decisions I thought that one particular reasoning was somewhat of a copout used by politicians who want to guilt voters into believing in some draconian policy.  That was until I was watching my 3 year old niece play a Snow White puzzle game on my brother-in-law's Android Incredible.  The app was free with ad support.

Disclaimer: I FIRMLY believe that it is a parents responsibility to monitor what their children are doing online.

I was completely shocked when I saw an ad for "Sexy Single Chat Line" on a kids game.  People complain how Apple has "jump the shark" or "sold out" by having tight control on the advertising model of iAds or the submission process of apps, but having a completely "open" system is not necessarily a good thing. Apple has struck the right balance between along enough flexibility for developers to be create wonderfully creative and useful apps, but in the meantime maintaining a high standard of quality. 

Needless to say the app got deleted immediately and she played a similar game on my iPhone.