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Apple rejects iPhone app over access to Kama Sutra

Company turns down an e-book reader for the App Store because it lets you search for and download a text-only version of the ancient Indian book on sexuality.

Jim Dalrymple Special to CNET News
Jim Dalrymple has followed Apple and the Mac industry for the last 15 years, first as part of MacCentral and then in various positions at Macworld. Jim also writes about the professional audio market, examining the best ways to record music using a Macintosh. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. He currently runs The Loop.
Jim Dalrymple

Apple's iPhone app rejection policy continues to mystify.

This time, Apple has rejected Eucalyptus, an e-book reader app that can--after purposely searching for it--access the Kama Sutra. Like it does with all books available through the app, Eucalyptus downloads a text-only version of the ancient Indian book on sexuality from Project Gutenberg.

In a letter to the developer on Thursday, Apple rejected the app because it deems the content available on Eucalyptus as "objectionable."

What's interesting about this case is that the Kama Sutra is available in the iPhone App Store through several other methods. For instance, you can find it through Safari and Google on the iPhone. Even more baffling, you can also find the book using other e-book readers available on the App Store.

To be clear, Eucalyptus does not come with the Kama Sutra installed by default--in fact, it doesn't come with any books installed. You must search for and download the books yourself.

For now, Eucalyptus will not be available in the App Store, unless the developer specifically bans the Kama Sutra from the app. That also assumes that Apple won't find another book with "objectionable" content and refuse the e-book reader again.