Gay Comics on Your iPad? Not So Fast…
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Yesterday on PrismComics.org, comics writer Charles “Zan” Christensen (The Mark of Aeacus) explored the role of LGBT comics in the iPad digital revolution. Given Apple’s strict content guidelines and technical limitations of its iBooks store for […]
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Comments
Are you talking about yourself or some other Zan? It’s always weird when people blog about themselves in the 3rd person.
It does sound rather “Bizarro”, doesn’t it… “Zan not understand why you confused!”
That was from a press release about the article. Probably should have gone in and rewritten. Where’s that “Edit” button?
Email me the the new text and I’ll fix it for you. Or you can just chalk it up to Bizzaro Zan!
I think part of the problem is the way Apple is handling the app store much differently than it handles music or podcasts. For example, why aren’t lame songs rejected from the store? Or audio of someone panting? You can’t buy overt porn videos on iTunes though…
That’s part of the reason why we don’t do interviews with porn stars, or allow frontal nudity on the site. Besides iTunes, many libraries and service providers will block your site, keeping the content away from young people who need LGBT friendly blogs and information.
We can leave it as Bizarro Zan. I kinda like the ring of that.
That’s mentioned in the full article, how music, television and movies all have a way to rate them, even if it’s as simple as “this might not be appropriate for your kids”. (The “Explicit” rating for music.)
But there’s no way to rate content that get’s sold through an app, like comics. Yet. There were some rumblings about an “Explicit” category on the iBooks store but it never materialized. Maybe it’s still in the works and will show up at some point.
I think my biggest problem with the whole thing is that Apple is not transparent or consistent in their reviews. If you follow the rules and they still ban you, they don’t even amend the rules so that other people will know what NOT to do.
And it certainly does seem like straight sex is okay with Apple’s reviewers while gay sex is not.
Yeah that’s certainly a problem. What’s a good solution?
An appeals process would be a good start. Apple rejected a writer’s blog app because it didn’t have substantial content to appeal to a “broad audience” and that was that. (I thought the whole point of putting these tools into the hands of everyday people was to empower them to reach their audience?)
We’re pretty confident our Feast of Fun iPhone app will get approved though. Maybe the app was just an RSS feed? I’ve seen some pretty awful RSS feed blogs disguised as ipHone apps in the store.
But they need a way to just let the garbage sink to the bottom of the digital sea. Right now simply rejecting “bad” apps isn’t the answer.
You have to admit, there were a lot of Japanese teen girls gigglging and oohing apps that were crap.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/17/foxconn-suicide-china-factory-life
Not a big surprise, Apple is not gay-friendly! They also rejected an app of the German gay dating website “Gayromeo”. But luckily there are alternatives which are getting better quickly like Nokia since their system Symbian has become an open source project or Google with Android.
Also right now besides the Ipod I would not buy anything from Apple until they improve the working conditions. Since Apple does not have own production facilities anymore they depend on OEMs like Foxcoon which apparently has such horrible working conditions that workers kill themselves. Yes, other companies like Sony or Dell produce some of their products there as well but at least then the end consumers can then buy the products at a low price.
Whilst I like a bodily keyboard, after handling the Samsung Captivate for about 15 minutes, it is arduous to go back. At the moment I am debating whether or not to go to Verizon for the Droid X, go to Sprint for the EVO, or stay with AT&T for the Captivate…choices, decisions.