Apple Thinks This Tiger Woods Cartoon Is Too Mean For Your iPhone

Cartoonist Daryl Cagle says Apple rejected his Tiger Woods editorial cartoons app on the grounds that it "ridicules" a public figure, which seems like an awfully strong stance against something that amounts to a Leno monologue in pen and ink.

The application would've collated the most recent editorial cartoons about Woods, the way similar apps do for cartoons about Obama and Congress (though the latter got a green light only after a fair amount of consternation). But in a letter to Cagle, Apple wrote:

Thank you for submitting Tiger Woods Cartoons to the App Store. We've reviewed Tiger Woods Cartoons and determined that we cannot post this version of your iPhone application to the App Store because it contains content that ridicules public figures and is in violation of Section 3.3.17 from the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement which states:

"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."

Well, that's lame. Cagle's justifiably pissed, though I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say, as he does, that "editorial cartoons are the best measure of the freedom of a nation." (Tom Toles is great and everything, but I think I'd rank the secret ballot and most of the Bill of Rights ahead of him.) Tiger Woods likes to hump, and Apple is denying hundreds of iPhone users the pleasures of a very mild nose laugh over some illustrations satirizing that fact. It's times like these that we really need a lady in sweatbands to come along and start throwing hammers at symbolic projections of overbearing paternalism.

Apple: You Can Ridicule Obama, but Don't Bash Tiger Woods [Daryl Cagle's Cartoon Web Log]