A ‘Mickey Mouse’ move by Apple

Last December, editorial cartoonist Mark Fiore developed an application that would let users of Apple’s iPhone download cartoons satirizing people and events in the news. But “censorious staffers” at Apple refused to sell Fiore’s offering, said Ryan Singel in Wired.com, because it “ridicules public figures.” The company has changed its mind, now that Fiore has won a Pulitzer Prize for his cartooning.

The saga, following the earlier purge of sexual content from the App Store, is a reminder that Apple wants devices like the iPhone and iPad tablet computer to be “a little slab of Disneyland,” safely sheltered from “provocative or crude material.” Publishers who see the iPad as their industry’s savior should remember that when they’re on Apple’s turf, “they have to play by Mickey Mouse’s rules.”