Nine Inch Nails iPhone App Update Blocked by Apple
Nine Inch Nails (NIN), the industrial rock music group founded by Trent Reznor in Cleveland, not too long ago announced the availability of a free iPhone app. The app initially drew a lot of interest to it because it provided Nine Inch Nails fans with access to media and online content; now the app is drawing attention to itself because version 1.0.3, an update to the iPhone app has been denied access to the App Store. The reason invoked by Apple is that the app contains “objectionable content”.
The “objectionable content” in question is “The Downward Spiral.” According to Apple “applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple's reasonable judgement may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users,” as it is stated in Section 3.3.12 of the iPhone SDK Agreement. The interesting thing is that “The Downward Spiral” album is already available for purchase on iTunes.
We can understand why Trent Reznor, founder of Nine Inch Nails, was more than a bit upset about the whole thing. “You can buy The Downward F*cking Spiral on iTunes, but you can't allow an iPhone app that may have a song with a bad word somewhere in it. Geez, what if someone in the forum in our app says F*CK or C*NT? I suppose that also falls into indecent material. Hey Apple, I just got some SPAM about f*cking hot asian teens THROUGH YOUR MAIL PROGRAM. I just saw two guys having explicit anal sex right there in Safari! On my iPhone! Come on Apple, think your policies through and for f*ck's sake get your app approval scenario together,” said Trent Reznor.
According to Reznor, the reason why they are putting up with Apple’s ridiculous approval process is because the iPhone is the perfect tool for what NIN wants to do with the app. There are alternatives, but they don’t bode well in Reznor’s view: “Android is cool, but nobody has an Android phone. Blackberry is OK but the hardware is inconsistent and WinMo straight-up sucks balls.” And if Apple keeps up this approval process nonsense, Reznor made it quite clear that the app will be made available to the jailbreak community.
If you would like to get the free NIN iPhone app, an iTunes download location is available here.
UPDATE: Apple has approved the NIN:access app update.
The “objectionable content” in question is “The Downward Spiral.” According to Apple “applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple's reasonable judgement may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users,” as it is stated in Section 3.3.12 of the iPhone SDK Agreement. The interesting thing is that “The Downward Spiral” album is already available for purchase on iTunes.
We can understand why Trent Reznor, founder of Nine Inch Nails, was more than a bit upset about the whole thing. “You can buy The Downward F*cking Spiral on iTunes, but you can't allow an iPhone app that may have a song with a bad word somewhere in it. Geez, what if someone in the forum in our app says F*CK or C*NT? I suppose that also falls into indecent material. Hey Apple, I just got some SPAM about f*cking hot asian teens THROUGH YOUR MAIL PROGRAM. I just saw two guys having explicit anal sex right there in Safari! On my iPhone! Come on Apple, think your policies through and for f*ck's sake get your app approval scenario together,” said Trent Reznor.
According to Reznor, the reason why they are putting up with Apple’s ridiculous approval process is because the iPhone is the perfect tool for what NIN wants to do with the app. There are alternatives, but they don’t bode well in Reznor’s view: “Android is cool, but nobody has an Android phone. Blackberry is OK but the hardware is inconsistent and WinMo straight-up sucks balls.” And if Apple keeps up this approval process nonsense, Reznor made it quite clear that the app will be made available to the jailbreak community.
If you would like to get the free NIN iPhone app, an iTunes download location is available here.
UPDATE: Apple has approved the NIN:access app update.
