Over the last few months, Apple seems to be denying more apps than it is accepting. The latest to fall by the wayside for an iPhone app was Tom Richmond. MAD fans will recognize the name as they were looking forward to the app that he has been touting on his personal blog. Unfortunately, the time is not now for its release and Mr. Richmond is none too happy about it.

The official no thank you reads, “Thank you for submitting Bobble Rep – 111th Congress Edition to the App Store. We’ve reviewed Bobble Rep – 111th Congress Edition and determined that we cannot post this version of your iPhone application to the App Store because it contains content that ridicules public figures and is in violation of Section 3.3.14 from the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement.”

Depending upon how you interpret the rule, their decision to turn down this app is extremely questionable. For those that have seen the actual app, it does not appear

to be very demeaning or to make fun of anyone. The images are similar to what can be seen in any editorial page in papers across the company. There is no dialogue that makes fun of or gives the impression that any of these politicians are being disrespected.

Mr. Richmond claims that the application “is a informational database.” It merely gives people the contact stats for the chosen representative. It actually does seem pretty harmless, but it is proof positive that Apple has no intentions of creating muddled waters with the political world.

There have been several other app’s that have not cut the mustard recently that have made a splash in the media and the common rebuke from their designers is that Apple has a very broad structure as to what they will accept and what they won’t and designers would just like to have things a little clearer so that they know what the actual boundaries are. Let’s see if Apple has an app for that!

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