Shake It, Baby, But Watch Those 9" Nails!

Coupla weeks ago the tech world and main stream media were all wetting themselves and gasping with the buzz about the Baby Shaker app that had, for a time, been available at the iTunes Store. It's old news now, but it helps to underscore something a bit ... inconsistent ... in Apple's vetting process.

People can code up whatever they want to to try to sell or give away on the iTunes store. They can do their best to attempt to cash in on the rather large market ... sell a bazillion copies of your application to eager iPhone and iPod Touch users at $0.99 a pop, and you're a bazillionaire! Sure, you can code whatever you want. You have to, however, submit it to Apple's approval process before it will show up on the store site. Makes sense: Apple doesn't want an app that will do something illegal, use dirty words, nor does it want an app that will break the phone or interfere with other applications. Apple's reputation is on the line. If they let you have access to the application, then it is as though they stand behind the application, after all.

So you hear stories of people submitting applications and waiting ... and waiting ... and waiting for approval. They reportedly don't get much feedback on how the approval is going. That, too, makes sense since there are doubtless thousands of apps pouring in per week, and I'd be surprised if there was a very large team testing and reviewing them.

But here is one startling inconsistency: Apple rejected an application developed for the music group Nine Inch Nails for "objectionable content." As InformationWeek reports, "The app itself does not contain profane content, but it enables users to stream music for the album "The Downward Spiral," whose lyrics contain multiple curse words." [emphasis mine]. Front man Trent Reznor had noted that people could buy "The Downward Spiral" on iTunes.

So Apple's review team would let you virtually kill a crying baby (until someone complains), but won't let a rock band provide an application to enable fans to stream a song. That apparently made sense to the Apple peeps.

The social media world came to the rescue. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, tech bloggers, music bloggers, podcasters all rallied and mocked Apple for this, and rightly.

Apple succumbed. The band gets to market its little application.

I doubt this will happen, but I really hope that these two incidents, the reporting of which went viral, will get Apple to review and maybe overhaul its review process. Maybe, just maybe they should include a few people who have a knack for understanding what really constitutes offensive, hurtful material, and when it's just so much farting in the breeze. (Look for my new "Farting in the Breeze" app, coming to a scent-enabled iPhone near you!)