—By Elisabeth Oppenheimer

It’s been a while since we’ve done a roundup of what’s going on in the iPhone app world. Apple continues to reject or kill apps at a slow but steady pace. The rejections fall into a various categories: political rejections, content-based rejections (both explicable and not), and catch-all rejections of cool and useful apps I wish were available. On the “political rejection” front, we have Obama Trampoline and MyShoe. Obama Trampoline is a game where the user bounces Obama (or one of 17 other political figures, including a pants-free Bill Clinton) on a trampoline and uses his head to pop balloons. MyShoe, based on last December’s shoe-throwing incident, allowed users to pretend to throw the iPhone at a political figure—Bush, bin Laden, and others—and the program would tell users how good their aim was. It seems from these and other rejections that Apple is just completely against political satire. That’s a clear loss for public discourse, but it’s easy to understand what Apple is thinking from a business perspective. They obviously shouldn’t discriminate against political apps based on viewpoint. But I’m also not sure they can let everything in—at least, not without legal immunity similar to what ISPs have. What if an app advocated violence? Is shoe-throwing “violence”? A potentially-liable gatekeeper would prefer to avoid those questions.

As for content-based rejections: first, there’s the South Park app (too profane, of course—though you can get the episodes from iTunes). Another app rejected for profanity displayed EFF’s RSS feed, which at the moment of vetting included a link to a parody using the f-word. Apple must think its users’ sensibilities are awfully delicate—would they really face public backlash for this stuff?

More understandably (if not defensibly), Apple rejected an app called Me So Holy that let users insert their own faces over the body of Jesus. Still, it’s hard to see who’s harmed. Finally, Apple rejected—actually, accepted then killed—an utterly tasteless app called BabyShaker. The “game” displayed a picture of a baby; users shook the phone until the baby’s eyes turned into x’s. People actually protested that one, which is the first time I can recall that happening.

Finally, there are the cool apps, including Newber and iCall. Newber hasn’t been rejected; it’s in apparently permanent limbo. The program lets you redirect incoming calls on the iPhone to other phones, like your work or home phone. Useful, but AT&T, which loses the call, presumably isn’t pleased with it. Another app, iCall, allows users to make VoIP calls from iPhones. The developers, realizing AT&T might worry about this one too, communicated with Apple before they started developing and during the process. The app has now been approved, but only after months of radio silence from Apple, which the creators spent wondering if their half-million dollar investment had been wasted. The developer testified to the Copyright Office that “even after months under submission, Apple did no meaningful testing of the iCall app before approving it.”

So in all those apps, we have one that’s pretty offensive, a couple that would amuse some and offend others, and a couple that are both harmless and interesting. I wonder if that ratio is worth the massive investment of time Apple puts into pre-approving apps. Plus, you have to wonder how scalable that system is. Could they just wait until people protest, as with BabyShaker? Or might it have been better to try to portray themselves more like an ISP—just a conduit, not liable for content (even if they weren’t treated that way legally)? Apple seems very concerned about public opinion (hence the heavy hand with political satire), but I suspect the public would understand a policy of admitting apps indiscriminately.

On the other hand, the iPhone doubled its market share in the last year, all the other smartphone makers are creating their own app stores, and small developers can become zillionaires without having to figure out distribution for their programs. So, there’s a lot to like, too.