Ninjawords: iPhone Dictionary, Censored by Apple
Two years ago I linked to a web site called Ninjawords — a fast, simple online dictionary backed by a good data source (Wiktionary). — The developers behind Ninjawords, Matchstick Software, have released an iPhone version, currently available from the App Store for just $2.
Context & Ripple Effects
Matchstick Software has brought its fast Wiktionary-backed dictionary Ninjawords to the App Store at $2, but Apple has approved only a censored version — an odd outcome for a reference app, and one that lands in the middle of an already bruising month for Apple's review process, following the widely reported but still-attribution-contested blocking of Google Voice and related apps from the store.
The friction is not new: Apple has long set the terms for what ships on its devices, from early hacking-era tooling fights to charging iPod touch users for iPhone application updates back in January 2008 ($20 iPod touch app fees). What is new is the breadth of the reaction — Daring Fireball's write-up plus a syndicated 'Bad Apple?' take in BusinessWeek's Brainstorm Tech show the story travelling well beyond the Mac blogosphere.
First-order effects
- Matchstick Software must either ship the sanitized dictionary Apple will approve or watch its $2 product lose the App Store's visibility and payment rails; buyers get an expurgated dictionary rather than the full Wiktionary-backed original.
- Every developer of reference or text-heavy content now knows profanity filtering can be imposed at review time, not chosen by the publisher — a direct cost added to Apple's approval pipeline.
Second-order effects
- Rival dictionary and reference publishers face a forced choice between self-censoring native apps and steering users toward uncensored web apps, shifting some distribution away from the store.
- Apple takes another round of press damage on top of the Google Voice episode, giving critics of its opaque review process a low-stakes example — a children's-usable dictionary — that is easy to explain and hard to defend.
Third-order effects
- If gatekeeping extends from utilities into plain reference content, the App Store review process hardens from a quality filter into a content policy, inviting scrutiny from developers, press, and eventually regulators about who arbitrates speech on the dominant mobile platform.
- A durable two-track market emerges: censored native apps inside the store versus fuller-featured web alternatives outside it, echoing the pre-App Store era when tools like the iPhoneInterface hack circulated because official channels were closed.
The trend: Apple's App Store review process is consolidating into a single editorial choke point for all iPhone software, with each controversial rejection — Google Voice, now a dictionary — raising the political cost of the gate.