Remember Apple’s “1984” commercial—the one where the woman smashes the giant video screen while thousands of blank-eyed automatons look on, and then a voice tells us that “On January 24th Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like ”1984.””
Well it’s 1984. Apple is now the world’s largest tech company and it’s deciding for us what’s in our best interests. The authoritarian talking head is named Steve Jobs. Gone are the days when Apple celebrated ingenuity and individual creativity, when the outsider’s view and idiosyncratic ways of doing things were the hallmarks of Apple culture.
Just ask Rob Berry and Josh Levitas who were unable to get approval for their webcomic app of a project titled Ulysses Seen, an ambitious retelling of James Joyce’s classic novel, Ulysses. Apple wouldn’t approve the app because their webcomic includes nudity. Apple doesn’t want its platforms (like iPad and iPod) to become tools for the spread of “adult content”. Apparently nudity is adult content—even when its pixilated or covered by fig leaves. Of course Berry and Levitas present the offending comic on their own website so you’re free to view it if you please. [Link no longer works.] And of course there’s nothing quite like the word “censorship” to generate buzz. I for one would never have heard about the project if it weren”t for Apple’s prurient objections. So I guess I should thank Apple for that. MacWorld has posted a piece about the fiasco.
Rob Berry has posted a polite response to Apple here. [Link no longer works.] He compares the iPad to a frontier town. Typically, in frontier towns, the first businesses to open are saloons and general stores. (Forget about libraries and museums.) Apple is afraid of what would happen if there were too many saloons, so it would rather restrict commerce to the general stores. And this is key: the frontier is a “one bookstore town” right now.
Well, maybe that’s the problem. Or maybe Apple has fallen victim to the chilling effects of an influence even bigger than Apple — an infantile morality that has infected many parts of the United States in the name of Christianity. Or maybe Apple’s just making a play for the huge market otherwise known as the religious right. After all, the comic version of the Left Behind series has already far outsold any old James Joyce comic by an order of several magnitudes.
Too bad anti-trust laws are so toothless. So we all sit and watch Apple contribute to the Disneyfication of the world by adopting an aesthetic of kitsch. Thank your stars there are still people like Gordon Ramsay around. Fuck!
Update: Apple approved the Ulysses Seen webcomic after its creators agreed to make cuts. See the article in MacWorld.