Apple rejects “Me so Holy”, here are our thoughts..

iPhone apps have become a veritable phenomenon, with the Apple store having recently sold its 1 billionth app. But behind the scenes of this major cultural trend, a battle of values seems to being playing out over what users can or cannot view on their own screens.

After releasing Animalizer, we decided to release this app, Me So Holy. However today we received a rejection letter from Apple. 

According to Apple, “Me So Holy” contains objectionable content and is in violation of Section 3.3.12 from the iPhone SDK Agreement which states:

“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.”

You may be familiar with recent snafus over the baby shaker app and the rejection of the Nine Inch Nails apps. Our question is, is religion really to be placed in the same category as these violent apps? Sex, urine and defecation don’t seem to be off-limits, yet a totally non-violent, religion-based app is.

We feel that Apple is being too sensitive to its perceived user group and are disappointed that this otherwise creative, freethinking company would reject such a positive and fun application. The message to developers is that they should think inside the box, rather than outside it.