Apple's Jobs: If you want adult content, buy Android

Apple maintains a "moral responsibility" to keep questionable content off its iPhone platform according to CEO Steve Jobs, responding to customer concerns over the company's role in authorizing App Store submissions. After Apple customer Matthew Browing wrote Jobs an email to contend "Apple's role isn't moral police--Apple's role is to design and produce really cool gadgets that do what the consumer wants them to do," Jobs fired off a reply reading "We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone. Folks who want porn can buy and [sic] Android phone."

It's not the first time Jobs suggested that consumers seeking a more liberal approach to adult content consider Android Market instead of the App Store. Earlier this month, during a question-and-answer session following the announcement of Apple's forthcoming iPhone OS 4.0, Jobs said "You know, there's a porn store for Android. You can download nothing but porn. You can download porn, your kids can download porn. That's a place we don't want to go--so we're not going to go there."

Apple's role as an arbiter of good taste has been the subject of scrutiny and debate since the App Store first opened in mid-2008. The issue culminated earlier this year when Apple removed as many as 5,000 adult-themed iPhone and iPod applications from the digital storefront. Apple again came under fire last week after Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Mark Fiore said his NewsToons app was rejected by Apple for containing content ridiculing public figures and violating Section 3.3.14 from the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement, which reads "Applications may be rejected if they contain content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, sounds, etc.) that in Apple's reasonable judgment may be found objectionable."

Following Fiore's Pulitzer win, Apple encouraged him to re-submit NewsToons--in another email response to a customer, Jobs called the initial NewsToons rejection "a mistake that's being fixed."

For more on Jobs' views on adult content:
- read this TechCrunch article

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