Apple rejects app from acclaimed cartoonist

Apple has rejected an iPhone application from a Pulitzer Prize-winning American cartoonist because it believes he ridicules public figures.

When U.S. cartoonist Mark Fiore submitted NewToons in December, Apple told him his cartoons violate its iPhone developer program licence agreement, according to Harvard University's Nieman Journalism Lab.

The policy blocks applications that contain content that Apple considers problematic.

"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; for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic or defamatory," reads the e-mail sent to Fiore by Apple on Dec. 21, 2009.

According to the Neiman report, other cartoonists have clashed with Apple in the past, including Tom Richmond, a caricaturist, and Daryl Cagle, who operates a cartoon syndication site. Apps from both men were eventually allowed to be sold in the Apple store.

Fiore, whose specialty is Flash-animated editorial cartoons, said he has no plans to resubmit his app, though he hopes Apple will reconsider its position.

"They seem so much more innovative and smarter than that," he said in the report.