Another Day, Another DoubleDumb Apple Book Rejection!

Apple Rejects My Caricature App

Back in the late summer movie director/entrepreneur Ray Griggs, for whom I did all that art for his movie “Super Capers”, approached me with an idea for an iPhone app. The concept was a database of all the members of the United States Congress which allowed the user to find the names and contact information of their senators and congressional representative either via zipcode or by using the iPhone’s GPS location services. He wanted the visuals to be more than just a bunch of pictures, and asked me to do caricatures for each senator and representative.

That’s 540 caricature if you are keeping count (including those non-voting members of the house from Puerto Rico, Guam, etc.). FIVE HUNDRED FORTY. Five-four-Oh. Whew.

The caricature “heads” would be placed on one of 12 different bodies I has also drawn to make a cartoon, virtual “bobblehead” for each member of congress’s page. You can make the heads bobble by shaking your phone or flicking the head with your finger. Of course that’s just a novelty, and the real purpose of the app is the database that allows you to find out who your representatives in Washington are and how to contact them.

A humorous depiction such as this …

… Apple rejected on this basis:

“Applications may be rejected if they contain content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, sounds, etc.) that in Apple’s reasonable judgement may be found objectionable, for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory.”

“Reasonable judgment”?!!!?

At this point, I have to wonder if Apple even employs earthlings in its App Store approval process.

These caricatures are exactly the kind of thing I would have found in MAD magazine when I was a kid!

Here’s an example to give those sensitive dweebs over at Apple a fatal heart attack:

Once that image wipes out the current App Store approval staff, maybe Apple can hire some human beings for it.

This is getting beyond ridiculous.

Has Saturday Night Live skewered Apple’s approval process in a skit yet? They should!

Maybe widespread nationwide ridicule is required to wake up Apple.

Previously here:

Apple: Get The Hell Out Of Your Own Way!

Previously at Mike Cane 2008:

Apple Approves Of Shooting Nurses In The Face!
God Bless Writer Derek Raymond
How Many Of THESE eBooks Will Apple Ban?
Apple Bans ANOTHER Book From App Store!
Apple And A Tale Of Two Bannings
Apple Forfeits eBooks By Banning A Comic Book!