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iTunes store Kama Sutra gives Apple warm cheeks

It's an untenable position, you big lingamheads

Apple has rejected an e-book reader from the iTunes store on the grounds that users might download a copy of the Kama Sutra - despite the same content being available in half a dozen other applications including Safari.

Eucalyptus is an app that downloads content from Project Gutenberg, and presents it with a pretty interface for reading. However, Apple has rejected it twice, citing a Victorian text-only translation of the Kama Sutra as inappropriate content even though Stanza and various other e-book readers feature illustrated versions of the same text.

Inconsistent app policies coming out of Cupertino are hardly news these days, but Eucalyptus is an extreme example. It's hard to imagine Apple treating Amazon in the same way despite the fact that Amazon's Kindle application provides access to 19 versions of the book of love, including one that proudly proclaims "With Pictures of Sex Positions", and 14 of which are based on the Victorian text cited by Apple in rejecting Eucalyptus.

Apple has amazing form here, too. Eucalyptus' author presented the app three times while explaining the source of the text, only to have two rejections returned with screenshots showing passages which could offend gentle iPhone users:

When a man wishes to enlarge his lingam, he should rub it with the bristles of certain insects that live in the trees, and then, after rubbing it for ten nights with the oils he should rub it with the bristles as before.

Pretty steamy stuff - why would anyone bother with YouPorn when there's content like that available on the iPhone?

In a desperate attempt to appease Cupertino, the author has now resubmitted Eucalyptus with a specific block to prevent that particular smut being read using the app. If that fails, perhaps some Street View style genital-reference-blurring tech solution is in order? ®

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