Just last week, Apple CEO Steve Jobs claimed his company had a “moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone.”
“Folks who want porn can buy and [sic] Android phone,” Jobs reportedly told a customer in an email.
Well, he may be biting his tongue now. Hackers have managed to run the Android operating system on an iPhone 2G. Watch the (very cute) tech geek who broke the news on April 21:
Simply put, the implications of this are huge. Apple is under fire because of its censorship of iPhone apps. If you
want to distribute an app, you need to get approval from Apple first. According to Apple’s iPhone developer agreement, an app may be rejected
if it contains content that Apple finds “objectionable.”
Meanwhile, Android users have more freedom of app choice. There’s even an “adult-only” app store for Android called MiKandi.
While it’s still in the early stages of development, the iPhone hack would
allow users to alternate between the iPhone and Android operating
systems. Currently, the hack only works with the iPhone 2G, and it’s somewhat complicated to install. Fortunately, developers are working on a version for iPhone 3G, and with any luck, they’ll make it easy enough for the rest of us.
Tech geeks are buzzing about the iPhone hack. The video above has already been viewed more than 1 million times. Perhaps if Apple didn’t enforce its “moral responsibility” to censor apps, people wouldn’t be so excited about running Android OS on the iPhone.
In December, Apple rejected a Pulitzer-prize winning cartoonist’s app because it “ridicules public figures.” In February, Apple deleted thousands of “overtly sexual” apps. Even gay iPhone app Grindr has been forced to censor its users, to comply with Apple’s strict policies on “objectionable content.”
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