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Apple has banned an app from the iTunes App Store, not because of violence or pornography, but because it was about Android. The publisher of Danish magazine Android Magasinet claims it was refused a place on the iPhone, iPod touch and
iPad because the bi-monthly title is all about phones and tablets using Google’s rival operating system.
Apple even owned up to the conflict of interest, according to Brian Dixen of Mediaprovider, the company that publishes both Android Magasinet and iPhone Magasinet. He claims a representative of Apple’s Worldwide Developer Relations told him, “You know… your magazine… it’s just about Android…. we can’t have that in our App Store.”
Dixen highlights the fact that Apple has to approve every issue of new magazines, and wonders, “What will happen if we choose to make the next issue of our general magazine about mobile phones a theme issue about Android?”
It’s understandable Apple doesn’t want you reading about your next phone to replace your iPhone, or the Android tablets to replace your iPad, but that doesn’t make it justifiable. Still, this may be a publicity stunt from the crafty magazine-selling Danes, as there is at least one Android-themed publication on iTunes at the time of writing.
We’ve reported in the past that Apple’s notoriously touchy App Store approval process takes just 6 minutes to decide the fate of an app.
It’s not the first time Apple has got its knickers in a knot over apps. The prudes at Cupertino took offence at the sight of baps in an app featuring the soar-away Sun’s page 3 girls. Then there was the time Apple decided dictionaries are dangerous because they have naughty words in them. All these cases highlight the contradiction that Apple frequently censors questionable content, but all these and far worse are freely available on the Internet.
Whether you have an iPhone or not, there’s no need to look any further for the latest Android news, reviews and handy hints than right here at CNET UK. We’d like to see Apple try and ban us.
For more on the trials and tribulations of developing apps, dive into the tale of one ex-Craver’s epic quest to make an iPhone app or die trying.
