

Joyce’s Ulysses Banned Again--By Apple - GiraffeNecktie
http://www.thebigmoney.com/blogs/app-economy/2010/06/09/joyce-s-ulysses-banned-again-apple-not-government

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mechanical_fish
_I hope at least that Berry and Levitas are enjoying the free publicity._

This is the last line of the article. As usual, all articles written by
journalists should be read from end to start, because if they're going to
accidentally slip in something true and intelligent it always happens at the
end. The beginning is where the linkbait, exaggeration, and strained narrative
conventions live.

Complainers are part of the cost of running an editorial operation: When you
reject someone, for any reason justified or not, they will tend to run to the
loudest megaphone they can find and complain bitterly about how unfair it is,
and about how the insular world of publishing is operating a sinister cartel
with the goal of preventing their monumental work from making as much money as
J. K. Rowling's.

In this particular case one imagines that these guys will get the app through
on appeal. Some extremely rushed Apple reviewer saw an obvious violation of
the _letter_ of the rules and hit the reject button, secure in the knowledge
that the details could be worked out during the inevitable appeal. It happens.
But in the meantime the submitters are wisely milking the publicity machine
for all it is worth. Journalists need something to talk about, and this sort
of story slots right in. (Until these stories get boring, anyway. They're
boring me already. Surely they will start boring others soon.)

And for the hundred thousandth time: _Governments_ "ban" things, Apple and
other publishers _reject_ things. Apple is a publisher with a platform;
publishers exert editorial control. Your unmade Hollywood screenplay and your
rejected novel are _rejected_ , not "banned". You do not have a First
Amendment right to force me to promote or even endorse your work.

But I'm not surprised to see the article misuse these terms. It's the start of
a piece of journalism, after all, and the first paragraph needs linkbait.

~~~
GiraffeNecktie
You write "Apple is a publisher with a platform". This is where things get
interesting. In the past we had publishers, companies that were free to pick
and choose the content that they wanted to invest in and distribute - and we
had platform builders - companies who made things like printing presses and
telephones. After you sell me a telephone switch or printing press, you don't
get to dictate what gets printed on the press, the conversations that can take
place on my phone or the kinds of programs that I watch on my tv. Apple wants
to be both a publisher and the builder of the platform and that's why they
deserve heightened scrutiny. I don't have a problem with the Disney web site
rejecting adult or political content - as you point out that's their business
to make those choices - but I get really uneasy when the company building the
hardware starts dictating what it can be used for.

~~~
mechanical_fish
_Apple wants to be both a publisher and the builder of the platform_

This is hardware-scarcity thinking. My hypothesis is that our industry is so
entrained to think like this that it's going to take a decade to settle in to
our new universe. It's going to be like when the mainframe folks had to come
to grips with the PC.

We are going to be _awash_ in tablets within a year. Within five years we will
be picking them out of the trash.

Platforms are a _commodity_ now. I can buy a Windows laptop -- not a netbook,
a 15" laptop -- for a few hundred bucks from my local Micro Center. Netbooks
are even cheaper, of course. As for operating systems? The Linux revolution
has arrived. Android has arrived and it is open-source. If you want to run
your own platform you need to download Android and pay some Chinese
manufacturing firm a few hundred bucks per unit to cough out a tablet or a
generic smartphone and stick your nameplate on it. And if this isn't true now,
it will be true in a year or two.

I have a Flip Mino video camera. Its processing power is surely greater than
that of the laptop I owned ten years ago. I am about to literally _take the
thing apart for parts_ because its resale value is too small to care and my
new iPhone is going to be a factor of five more useful.

When a hardware platform was a three thousand dollar investment we had to
worry a lot about the manufacturer "dictating what it can be used for",
because we couldn't afford more than one. The one we bought had to support
_everything_ we wanted to do, or we would be sad. When hardware platforms cost
thirty dollars the calculus will change.

What Apple has figured out is that when hardware is a commodity, editing and
publishing is the name of the game. You're no longer competing to sell more
hardware independent of content, just as Conde Nast is not a paper company.
Your asset is taste. Design. The ability to ship hardware-software-content
combos that consistently work and consistently make the customer happy.

~~~
GiraffeNecktie
Sure hardware is a commodity and there is no scarcity there but the issue is
not hardware it's access to the OS and there is an extremely limited number of
mainstream consumer platforms. Right now the only options are proprietary
systems run by two giant corporations. UNIX is currently a niche player and
the Google Chrome OS is an unknown.

Furthermore, the increasing market share of the Apple platform obliges
developers and publishers to develop custom products (e.g. Ulysses) for the
iPhone/iPad. Except that now they'll have to self-censor or have Apple play
the role of nanny.

I don't understand why Apple feels that this special user experience could be
shattered by the glimpse of a human body part or an unsettling political
viewpoint.

------
weeksie
What an absolute shame. It's funny because I started reading Ulysses because
it was available for a free e-reader iphone app. I had always been a bit wary
of it (Pynchon drives me nuts and I often hear Ulysses and Gravity's Rainbow
mentioned together) but after reading a few chapters on the phone I picked up
a copy and have been absolutely loving it.

Anyway, I realize that what was censored was a cartoon depicting the book . .
. still, censoring something like Ulysses (of all things) is just short-
sighted and ignorant.

------
kevinh
Is nonsexual nudity really something we need to "protect" children from? All
those shows is that people have genitalia.

------
Qz
I usually don't get all up in arms about multipage article crap, but this
article is barely long enough for one print page, and then they split it at
probably the worst possible point.

