Apple has been granted a patent on a system that allows a user to “control the content of text-based messages sent to or received from an administered device.” In plain English: Apple could expand the parental controls in iOS to include restrictions on text messages sent from or received by an iPhone. Any message that meets a certain set of criteria could be redacted or blocked entirely. More importantly than just quashing the exchange of dirty talk via SMS, Apple’s patent also has a facility whereby the linguistic value of the message can be rated, and the device can force a user to update the message before sending.

I’m happy to announce that Eucalyptus, an iPhone ebook reader that was banned from the iTunes store because it gave users access to the Kama Sutra (the text of which could also be accessed by Safari for iPhone), is now available for purchase. However, the problem remains. It was only after other people raised a stink about it that the developer was able to get ahold of someone who realized how ridiculous the situation was.

Dear Apple: What, exactly, are the qualifications for working as an application reviewer for the iTunes store? Because while you have a great many of brilliant people working as programmers and designers, you seem to have gone to the trouble to have first invented time travel so that you could open a portal to the Victorian era and pass the jobs on to the people who went around covering piano legs so as not to inspire lust in the young lads.

Metaversal Studios has an iPhone game called “Hot Dog Down a Hallway.” In it, you launch a hot dog…down a hallway, tilting the iPhone to avoid traps. The game features some mildly risque humor—and I use “mildly” in the strongest possible terms, if that contradiction makes any sense. Anyhoo, Metaversal submitted a bug fix (v1.2) of the game, which was (say it with me, now) rejected for explicit content.

The nuttiness that is the iPhone App Store has finally reached the destination it’s been heading towards: Apple has banned an eBook for containing dirty words.

CNET’s own David Carnoy has a new detective thriller out called Knife Music, but you won’t find it on the App Store.

That’s because when Carnoy enlisted a software developer to submit the book to the App Store, Apple rejected the book for containing “objectionable content,” citing a clause in the iPhone SDK that states: “Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple’s reasonable judgement may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users.”

Let’s all pause for a moment to think about the idiocy of this…