...and leave behind an asbestos-flag.

Really? In case of what, exactly? Klingons on the starboard bow?

Anyone know the immortal name of the first person to be killed by a person-controlled car?

1.17 Holy Grails? That's crazy talk!

Yes, I know that Apple removed pornographic and political apps from their App Store. It's their store, curated by their staff, running on their servers. I will admit it would have been courteous to have outlined a full set of ToC's before the developers spent time writing their apps (an especially shitty situation since devs have to pay $100 a year to get into the App Store, although Xcode is now a free download) but Apple have apologised for that now, and admit their curation standards are a work-in-progress. It's not a complete answer, but things have progressed beyond the sensational to the mundane.

Anyway, iOS users aren't really denied access to the content you mention, are they? They can still open Safari and browse to whatever they choose. Porn and political japery are mere taps away. You can even fire-up YouTube and watch video replays of RMS eating his own toe-jam in front of dozens of fellow free-software advocates. It's just that Apple offer a curated alternative. It's like apt-get, except with a nice GUI and a bunch of people who try to ensure no malware gets through.

Don't insist that everyone offering goods in a free-market should be forced to follow your ideals -- it smacks of the totalitarian. If what Apple is doing is wrong the people will vote with their feet and go elsewhere. So far, it looks like the iPad's drought of pornographic and political cartoon apps aren't really hurting the user-satisfaction surveys. Or Apple's bank-balance.

Just a show of hands: Has anyone here installed an app on their regular computer -- that is to say, a compiled binary that isn't a web-browser -- that allows them to view political cartoons or pornography? If you have, can you vouch for the experience over using a web-browser?

I think it's time for someone to take their tinfoil hat off.

I can't remember the figures off the top of my head, but I believe the App Store counts for about 1% of Apple's revenue stream.

And no, I don't think the company was founded in order to exert the controls you mention, and everything you've listed can be had by clicking on the "Safari" icon.

I think a good reason an "advanced mode" isn't included is they'd have to support it.

A traditional, non "locked-down" OS is a support nightmare, and Apple sees enough of that with OS X which has a far smaller user-base than iOS.

Current thinking is that the Universe is flat and we can observe about 46 billion light-years of it in all directions.

I don't think *anyone* can tell us what's safe.

I mean, bananas are clearly dangerous from a scientific perspective, but on the other hand they have a strong religious endorsement.

Fanboys. Anti-fanboys. Two sides of the same irrational coin if you ask me.

Erm, homosexuals?

I'm not your GRAIL-Buddeh!