Hasta La Gadget!

With Lala’s founder gone from Apple (having moved on to buzzy new startup iPhone app, Color), one wonders what the future of that once-promising service will be within the confines of One Infinite Loop. We saw Apple roll out a social networking feature for iTunes in the form of Ping, which seems to have a tenuous connection to the shuttered service. The future of iTunes in the cloud, however, is no more clear than it’s ever been.

Apple has apparently responded to the public outcry surrounding Exodus International’s controversial “gay cure” app. The app, which stirred up protest from gay rights groups earlier this month, culminating in a petition signed by nearly 150,000 people, has disappeared from the iPhone App Store.

Apple has long been a friend of the LGBT community, opposing California’s Proposition 8, removing the anti-gay Manhattan Declaration iPhone app, and earning a 100% score from the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index. I am shocked that this same company has given the green light to an app from a notoriously anti-gay organization like Exodus International that uses scare tactics, misinformation, stereotypes and distortions of LGBT life to recruit clients.

Apple has never been particularly hesitant when it comes to sending in the lawyers. The company is already in the midst of a high profile legal battle with Microsoft over the latter company’s use of the term “App Store” (“The vastly predominant usage of the expression ‘app store’ in trade press is as a reference to Apple’s extraordinarily well-known APP STORE mark and the services rendered by Apple thereunder,” et al.). So when Amazon opted to launch its “Appstore” (no space) it was sort of playing with fire (or, perhaps, exploding iPods). 

Apple has come under fire for its App Store yet again. This time it’s from the gay community, which has expressed outrage at the release of a self-titled app from Exodus International, a church that describes itself as “the world’s largest ministry to individuals and families impacted by homosexuality.”

Apple has long been a friend of the LGBT community, opposing California’s Proposition 8, removing the anti-gay Manhattan Declaration iPhone app, and earning a 100% score from the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index.”I am shocked that this same company has given the green light to an app from a notoriously anti-gay organization like Exodus International that uses scare tactics, misinformation, stereotypes and distortions of LGBT life to recruit clients, endorses the use of so-called ‘reparative therapy’ to ‘change’ the sexual orientation of their clients.