‘Gay Cure’ App Removed by Apple

Apple found itself under fire from gay rights groups this week as it approved a controversial app from religious group Exodus International who aim to ‘convert’ gay people to heterosexuality.

After more than 146,000 signatures were gathered in an online petition on Change.org, Apple has bowed to the pressure and removed the app from the app store. Good riddance.

‘Gay Cure’ App Has Apple Stewing

We’ve all heard the slogan ‘there’s an app for that‘, well the Christian activist group Exodus International would have you believe that there’s now an app that can help cure homosexuality.

Apple approved the so-called ‘gay cure’ app for entry into their app store and have found themselves in the middle of a gay rights controversy this week as a result.

Over 80,000 people have signed an online petition on Change.org against the app according to a piece published in the Guardian today.  Gay rights group, Truth Wins Out, is now encouraging people on the site to send a letter to Steve Jobs ‘demanding the iTunes store stop supporting homophobia and remove the Exodus app‘.

They’ve been successful in this area in the past, handing over a petition with 8000 signatures to Apple last year against the app “Confession: A Roman Catholic App” which they described as “cyber spiritual abuse that promotes backward ideas in a modern package“.

Alarmingly the Exodus app currently sits 14th in the top free apps in the Lifestyle category.

News Bites – PR, Marketing, Media and General News

Some things that caught my eye this morning…

• @adrianweckler drew my attention to a recently launched site, Broadsheet.ie. Launched in July, the site has a number of contributors with content updated every 15 minutes. Follow the news on Twitter at @broadsheet_ie.

• Brand Ireland reports that a Government appointed committee is considering a ban on the sponsorship of sports events by drinks companies. More on this in the Sunday Business Post.

• Finance Minister, Brian Lenihan, is now looking at a ten year wind down of Anglo Irish Bank. How will Fianna Fails press officers shine a positive light on what Labour’s Joan Burton is describing as “one of the most historical U-turns in the history of the country”?

• Tony Blair may cancel his London book signing following the hoo-ha in Dublin according to the Daily Telegraph.

• More than one million users joined Apple’s new music-focused social network Ping in the 48 hours following its launch, according to Apple. Read more on this over at SiliconRepublic.com

• The next Measure it! brought to you by Damien Mulley is on in Dublin (venue TBC) on September 29th at 10am. The event lasts about two hours and looks at the measurement of social media initiatives – case studies, exercises, Q+A, etc. Register your interest here.

• ISME and Connector.ie are lauching a roadshow which will visit ten locations around Ireland. It will focus on banking and employment issues for the SME, tendering and digital media initiatives. For more info or to buy a ticket, click here.

• Conor Brophy is leaving Newstalk to join the RTE Business team - another blow for the station
• George Lee is back and is to take over The Business show on RTE
• Tadgh Enright (news journo) is leaving RTE to join Sky News
• Marie Boran has left SiliconRepublic.com, replaced by Laura O’Brien…Via Piaras Kelly’s blog

Press Conferences Apple-Style: Criticise the Media through Song

So incase you’ve been living under a rock for the last few weeks – newsflash – there’s a problem with the iPhone 4. Essentially the issue is with the phone’s antenna which means if you hold it the way you would a normal mobile phone, your signal drops off. A phone without phone signal. A phone that you can’t hold and make calls on. That’s a pretty big problem eh?

In a moment that could win awards under the dual categories of: ‘Customer service disaster’ and ‘The stuff PR people’s nightmares are made of’…Jobs acknowledged there was a problem with the phone at the end of June, telling an Engaget reader: “it is an issue, but just don’t hold it like that.” That’s right fool…don’t try to hold your phone and make a call…duh.

So after coming under increasing pressure from angry customers and the media, Apple held a press conference on Friday to resolve the problem once and for all. No doubt this press conference was the culmination of much strategising and planning. A chance to regain Apple’s ‘PR Golden’ status. So what happened? Did they roll out an apologetic Steve Jobs talking about how they’re sorry, they’re going to fix the problem, yada yada?

Nope. When you do a press conference Apple-style, you start with a song:

Steve Jobs felt the media had unfairly criticised the iPhone 4 and chose to start the press conference telling them all in a not-so-subtle way, exactly what he thinks through the medium of song: “The media loves a failure in a string of successes / the fact won’t ever matter if they can make their bigger messes … in terms of daily usage / I’ve yet to drop a call / so this whole damn thing is stupid.” Continue reading »