Apple’s CEO and now busy emailer Steve Jobs, has responded to an Apple customer over concerns that the company is playing the role of moral guardian, banning anything deemed inappropriate from the iTunes App Store. Mac fan Matthew Browing emailed Jobs following news that Apple had apparently banned an iPhone application from Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist Mark Fiore, ruling it had broken App Store rules by lampooning public figures. “Apple’s role isn’t moral police – Apple’s role is to design and produce really cool gadgets that do what the consumer wants them to do,” Browing pleaded to Apple’s CEO. Jobs, who has significantly upped the number of times he replies to emails recently, reportedly sent the following reply: “Fiore’s app will be in the store shortly. That was a mistake. However, we do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone. Folks who want porn can buy and Android phone.” Jobs took a dig at Google’s Android platform earlier this month when Apple unveiled the next iPhone OS. “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,” Jobs told invited guests during the Q&A session after the iPhone 4.0 OS event. TechCrunch, who first revealed the email correspondence, believes the reply is real. Jobs has been increasingly critical of Google in recent months, reportedly saying the search giant is out to “kill” the iPhone.
