John Gruber of Daring Fireball had reported yesterday about how the Ninjaword Dictionary iPhone app had to go through a lengthy two-month approval process wherein the app got a “17+” age rating even after the developer had removed a number of “objectionable” words, including some with non-objectionable definitions, from the iPhone app.

John Gruber has just reported that he received a detailed response from Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing Phil Schiller which gives Apple’s side of the story.Based on an interview with Matchstick Software, Gruber had reported that their iPhone app was rejected three times from the iPhone App Store. It was rejected the first time as it was crashing on the latest beta version of iPhone OS 3.0 and twice for objectionable content.

Schiller wrote:

“Let me start with the most important points - Apple did not censor the content in this developer’s application and Apple did not reject this developer’s application for including references to common swear words. You accused Apple of both in your story and the fact is that we did neither.”

Schiller goes on to explain the sequence of events which indicates that MatchStick Software’s version of the story that Gruber reported was not entirely accurate:

“The issue that the App Store reviewers did find with the Ninjawords application is that it provided access to other more vulgar terms than those found in traditional and common dictionaries, words that many reasonable people might find upsetting or objectionable. A quick search on Wiktionary.org easily turns up a number of offensive “urban slang” terms that you won’t find in popular dictionaries such as one that you referenced, the New Oxford American Dictionary included in Mac OS X. Apple rejected the initial submission of Ninjawords for this reason, provided the Ninjawords developer with information about some of the vulgar terms, and suggested to the developer that they resubmit the application for approval once parental controls were implemented on the iPhone.

The Ninjawords developer then decided to filter some offensive terms in the Ninjawords application and resubmit it for approval for distribution in the App Store before parental controls were implemented. Apple did not ask the developer to censor any content in Ninjawords, the developer decided to do that themselves in order to get to market faster. Even though the developer chose to censor some terms, there still remained enough vulgar terms that it required a parental control rating of 17+.”

Schiller admits that ideally Ninjawords should not have needed to be censored while also receiving a rating of 17+ but points out that it was the result of the developer’s action rather than Apple’s.

Developer of Ninjawords agrees with Schiller’s version of the story. They have admitted that they wanted to push their iPhone app to the App Store as soon as possible and did not want to wait for iPhone OS 3.0 for the parental control rating.

In the closing paragraph of the email, Schiller acknowledges that while the process is not always perfect, Apple intends to learn from their mistakes and improve the process.

“Apple’s goals remain aligned with customers and developers — to create an innovative applications platform on the iPhone and iPod touch and to assist many developers in making as much great software as possible for the iPhone App Store. While we may not always be perfect in our execution of that goal, our efforts are always made with the best intentions, and if we err we intend to learn and quickly improve.”

It’s great to see Apple finally breaking the silence and responding to the ‘Ninjawords Dictionary’ iPhone App rejection saga to set the record straight and also sending a message that Apple’s senior management is closely monitoring the situation and working to improve the approval process, which has received quite a bit of bad publicity recently.

It is critical that Apple addresses the issues as soon as possible to regain confidence of iPhone developer community, which is critical to the long-term success of the iPhone App Store.

Please let us know what you think in the comments.

[via Daring Fireball]