The fight to protect your kids from porn has gained an unusual ally. Apple, the makers of revolutionary products like the iPod, iPhone and iPad. Steve Jobs (Apple’s CEO) has commented in the past about keeping porn away from kids but in the last two month Jobs has made several statements regarding porn in connection with Apple products:
• According to CNNMoney.com during the iPhone OS 4.0 announcement event in April Steve Jobs answered a question regarding porn apps on the iPhone this way: “You know, there’s a porn store for Android. You can download nothing but porn. You can download porn, your kids can download porn. That’s a place we don’t want to go – so we’re not going to go there.”
• Steve Jobs is known for occasional responding personally to customer’s emails. In April, according to TechCrunch.com, Jobs responded to a customer’s email that stated a concern about Apple becoming the moral police. Jobs response, “we do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone.”
• This month Steve Jobs had an interesting email exchange with Ryan Tate (writer of the Vallywag blog). Mr. Tate wrote Jobs challenging a statement in a new Apple commercial that said the iPad was revolutionary. Mr. Tate wrote, “If Dylan was 20 today, how would he feel about your company? Would he think the iPad had the faintest thing to do with “revolution”? Revolutions are about freedom.” To which Jobs replied, “Yep, freedom from programs that steal your private data. Freedom from programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn. Yep, freedom. The times they are a changin’…” Mr. Tate responded, “I don’t want “freedom from porn”. Porn is just fine!”. Jobs reply is classic, “…you might care more about porn when you have kids…”
Although Apple cannot do anything to keep porn off the Internet they are trying to make sure it’s not readily available through their products. I don’t know of any other major company or CEO that is taking this kind of stand again porn so Apple and Steve Jobs, “Thank You!”.