iPhone shoe throwing game blocked by Apple

There’s been a sudden and not entirely unexpected influx of mini-games popping up on the internet centred around the recent incident in Iraq in which a journalist threw his shoes at visiting president George W. Bush.

An iPhone application called MyShoe has been denied distribution on the App Store. It involves users holding the iPhone like a shoe and going through the hurling motion trying to hit the American ex-president.

The developer has published Apple’s response to the submission, which states: “We cannot post this version of your iPhone application to the App Store because it contains content that ridicules public figures.”

The Pakistani developer of the application, which features a caricatured image of Bush, believes that Apple is ignoring the rights to free speech, and says:

“I feel this is huge discrimination against public opinion, as major portion of world rejects Bush polices on Iraq and attacks on Pakistan.”

Regardless of the social rights of political opinion, however, Apple promises no such freedoms in terms of access to the App Store, and makes a point in its term and conditions that any material that it thinks might (possibly) cause offence is subject to rejection.

It’s hard to take Apple seriously as far as consistency goes: all 12 series of South Park can be bought - uncensored - through iTunes at this very moment.