Apple Pulls The Gay Cure, Is There a Cure for Bad Apps?
Apple, Google, Microsoft, RIM - and even Amazon - are all in the app business. Some much, much more than others. These virtual software stores are considered something of a retail revolution. You can find virtually any kind of software in each of these application repositories: They're like department stores full of products right on your smartphone. They don't sell towels, Tupperware, or toys, but applications are, as we know, incredibly versatile. They can do almost anything, and that's where the trouble begins.
Considering that this is all just software—how much trouble can you really get into with an app? I've heard of disgusting ones, like the Fart App, and products that feature truly objectionable or horrid ideas (one had something to do with shaking a baby). In that way, these app stores are like your local library, which features as many books as possible without much censorship, if any at all. There's great literature and high art and, one shelf over, graphic novels depicting—if you've ever readWatchmen - a stranded pirate using dead shipmates as bloated flotation devices. If you don't want to read this kind of story, they you can walk right by that shelf.
In an app store as large as Apple's (300,000 apps and counting), it's easy to miss most apps—people tend to see the Featured and Popular ones. A search, though, can help you discover apps for all sorts of topics. We learned this week, for example, that all the major app stores, Apple's, RIM's and Google's, feature apps that can help drunk drivers elude DUI checkpoints. U.S. Senators took exception to this and have now called for their removal from all the app stores. It's a noble cause. Drunk driving is a scourge on society. Over a quarter of a million people are injured in drunk-driving accidents each year and some 13,000 die. No one should be evading DUI checkpoints—they might want to avoid the liquor store, though—is there an app for that?
This isn't the first, nor will it be the last, questionable app category. Apple, which has both the largest and most popular app store, has been dealing with questionable apps for years. A booty shaking app was another notable winner of the headline "Most Offensive App Ever." There was the aforementioned Baby Shaker (since pulled) and just this week a Gay Cure App (also pulled). Not every app is so obviously outside the lines of good sense or taste. Earlier this year at CES, I saw a number of apps that turned your phones into speed trap detectors. Run any one of them and you could avoid ticket hot zones while going as fast as you want when the cops aren't looking. This would seem to encourage reckless behavior, yet I don't remember anyone getting particularly upset about their existence.
Sometimes it's not the content of the apps that's the problem, but what's lurking underneath the surface. Last month Google reached out and pulled Android apps not only from the store, but directly off Android users' phones to protect them from malware-carrying apps. Apparently these products would do one thing on the surface while trying to secretly steal your personal info, but only got fairly useless device identifying codes.
Consumers were not only shocked at what Google found, but the way in which it took action. As most people know, Apple's App Store is one of the most tightly controlled product markets around. Apple vets each and every one of the apps and the approval process can be arduous. Most assumed that the Android Market was a bit more like the wild west. There isn't really a vetting process. Google's Android Developers guide counsel much testing, but if you follow the guidelines, including obtaining a "suitable cryptographic key", you can publish the app and then offer it in the Android Market or even from your own Web servers. So it came as quite a surprise that Google could somehow identify and nuke specific apps right off anyone's phone. On the other hand, they were acting in consumers' best interests.
I am glad Google saved consumers from themselves by removing malware-infested apps, and I applaud Apple's decision to stop offering Shaken Baby and, more recently, Gay Cure. On the other hand, this is a very slippery slope. Many people already complain about Apple's often confusing, inconsistent, and seemingly cavalier attitude toward app approval, denial, and removal. Are we saying that this attitude is okay when we agree with the actions? Similarly, doesn't it concern people that Google can reach out and touch any phone running Android?
Microsoft regularly sends system updates to everyone running Windows, but we choose whether or not to install them and no one at Microsoft seems interested in removing products from our machines. If they did start removing client applications, we'd cry foul. But what if Microsoft pulled "scareware"? You know, the anti-malware apps you were tricked into downloading and that only have one real purpose—to harm you and your computer? Microsoft won't do that, but it is applying Apple-like control over the Windows Phone App development process.
Windows Phone developers submit their apps for certification. That process includes verifying "that the application is well-behaved, works for the languages and markets indicated, and does not adversely affect the overall health of the phone." That language is vague enough to give Microsoft a lot of latitude in what it lets through, blocks, or even decides to pull post-publish.
For better or worse, this is the new world of application creation, delivery, and access. Companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google, and RIM are now the gate keepers. They're not perfect, though, Apple has so many products flowing in that Baby Shakers and Gay Cures regularly slip through. Google doesn't have any real checks and balances, but I bet that won't last. Microsoft has just 10,000 Windows Phone apps right now and I suspect a somewhat more manageable flow of new applicants. That may mean they'll have fewer useless and offensive apps, but I bet that will change, too.
The point is, what do we want these companies to do? Provide the seemingly necessary checks and balances to protect our phones, tablets, and even sensibilities? Or do we want consumers to beware and stop downloading bad apps and application developers to build better, more useful and far less objectionable apps.
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