Don’t be religulous! You can’t have BitTorrent on the iPhone

Isn’t the right to heap scorn on and mock religion a constitutionally protected right? And, why has Apple rejected a BitTorrent client for the iPhone when there’s already a torrent queue utility available? These latest twists in the App Store highlight ever more strongly why Cupertino needs to get out of the censorship business.

Wired reports that Apple has rejected Maza Digital’s DriveTrain, a BitTorrent client, for inclusion on the iTunes App Store, “this category of applications is often used for the purpose of infringing third-party rights.” Interestingly, the App Store does include trackr, which is an RSS reader that can queue torrent downloads via an RSS feed.

Thereupon, the Cupertino, CA-based computer, widget and digital services company—not to mention guardian public of morals—seems to be drawing a line in the virtual sand between sins of complicity and commission by excluding the BitTorrent client but not the download queue manager.

What’s huge, white and flies across the…

In a similar vein, Apple’s censors have also rejected Me So Holy, a software trinket that lets you scale and crop any face into an image of “Jesus” (see also: Trek Yourself). AlleyInsider reports that the app’s developer earned an SDK sermon, quoted chapter and verse, from App Store priests.

Thou shall not…

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.

Pretty much any of those things can be said about the various Bible, Quran or you name it religious apps already available on the App Store and one hopes the ACLU or whomever finds time to litigate Apple into the 19th Century on this issue. After all, perversion and obscenity largely exist in the eyes of the beholder and once you start kowtowing to the mainstream prigs soon it will be illegal to make fun of vegasexuals or gun owners or people dressed as Klingons or fart jokes.

Apple really, really needs to get out of the censorship business…

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