Apple Rejects App Because of Politician Caricatures

You a fan of Mad Libs? Try this one on for size: Apple on [day] rejected an iPhone app devoted to [phrase] for [ridiculous reason].

This time, the answers are "Monday," "contacting your Congressional representatives," and "including caricatures of all 540 members of both houses of Congress, which Apple has deemed offensive." (The caricatures, not Congress. As far as we know.)

Tom Richmond, an artist for MAD Magazine, reports on his blog that Apple rejected Bobble Rep, an app that he and entrepreneur Ray Griggs dreamed up. The app is meant to include a database of every member of Congress, representatives and senators alike, which you can use to find your reps by zip code or from your GPS location. For each representative, the app showed an address, phone number, Web contact form--any and every possible means to reach out and touch your rep, metaphorically speaking.

Rather than use stock images of each representative, Tom hand-drew caricatures for each one. It's those caricatures that Apple apparently considers "content that ridicules public figures," a violation of Section 3.3.14 of the iPhone developer agreement, and a reason that Apple's previously cited for rejecting apps that poke fun at politicians. The app also lets you bobble the rep's head, either by touch or by shaking the iPhone. (Sounds cathartic, right? Maybe they can make a sequel to the app that features the heads of App Store reviewers.)

You can see more screenshots of the rejected app on Tom's blog. Stay tuned for Macworld's "Formerly-rejected app now welcomed into the App Store after outcry" story, coming soon.