As you all know by now,, Apple banned our Bush countdown timer for being political: lightly satirizing an almost universally despised leader was in the word of Steve Jobs, potentially offensive to half his customers. That smacked of censorship to us, but at least we figured this would also be applied to all sides equally. We were wrong, as app after app of pro-conservative, right-wing propaganda gets into the App Store.

Here’s the latest, an app for worshippers of one of the most divisive presidents before Bush, Ronald Reagan.

According to a post on Credo Mobile’s Facebook feed:

When Apple banned an iPhone app counting down the days until Bush was out of office, Steve Jobs said “I think this app will be offensive to roughly half our customers.” (Clearly, Steve hadn’t seen W’s approval #s). How does Apple justify this hagiography of Ronald Reagan? We think THAT is offensive.

So, it’s not acceptable to poke gentle fun at a politician, and it’s not acceptable to make an app that helps people promote health care reform.

But it is perfectly all right to make an app that spreads the “talking points” (a nice phrase for propaganda) generated by a handful of cable TV news hosts, Washington columnists, and think-tank lobbyists.

Sounds like crazy talk, yes? See this story in the Atlantic.

Here’s an excerpt:

America’s political civil war has hit the iPhone… The First Shot over the Liberal Bow has been fired!… Be armed with the Conservative Talking Points iPhone App as your powerful arsenal to debate those emotional and ill-prepared liberals… conduct this war on ignorance and liberal idiocy.

This is practically an incitement to violence, especially compared to the light-hearted harmless mocking of President Bush that was in our app. Steve Jobs dismissed our iPhone app as possibly alienating “half” of his customer base and said “what’s the point?” I have to ask if our Mickey Mouse cartoon of Bush was incindiary, what’s the point of this app that derides people while referring to an ideological “civil war” using violence as its only metaphor?

Furthermore, a screen shot from the Atlantic page shows an article on Fascism, trying to paint the current administration as fascist. This is the worst kind of right-wing propaganda that redefines the terms to their opposite. Another screen shot says:

Help us defeat the liberal fascists attempting to take over America!

To date this is perhaps the best example to date of Apple’s myopic App Store policies. What are we to think, that Apple only approves “politically charged” apps associated with extreme right-wing causes? Has Ann Coulter infiltrated Cupertino? Is Steve Jobs staying up late watching Glenn Beck? It’s really, really hard to imagine a universe in which Apple allows this kind of evil crap through, but not something as harmless as Freedom Time.

I have never seen a more obvious case of bias in my life.

App Store Fail. Once again.

[Edit: I just added more detail describing the content of the App.]

Even more shame-worthy behavior from Apple. I thought it was being mean to politicians that Apple didn’t like—apparently now, it’s being “politically charged?” What the hell are Apple’s standards here? Whoops, I just said “hell,” which in the iPhone’s Disney-like dictionary, gets auto-corrected to “heal” or “hello.”

Here’s the link: http://lambdajive.wordpress.com/2009/09/26/isinglepayer-iphone-app-censored-by-apple/