Apple doesn’t want its users to use their mobile devices to monitor drone strikes
Two mobile apps which publish openly available drone strikes data from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism have been banned from Apple’s App Store.
The Metadata+ and Ephemeral+ apps were removed from the app store for reporting on drone strike deaths which Apple deemed to have breached its guidelines on “excessively rude or objectionable content”.
Both apps were developed by news organisation Intercept's editor Josh Begley as a project to highlight the publicly available data published by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism about drone strikes. Metadata+, which was forced to change its original name of Drones+ by Apple, has been available on the store since early 2014 however it was removed this week.
Begley’s second app, Ephemeral+, also reports on drone strike deaths and was removed shortly after Metadata+. He reported the bans through his Twitter account, including screenshots of the message from Apple.
Hope you downloaded it. Ephemeral just got pulled too http://t.co/OWsYel6na4 pic.twitter.com/QvOOZHItRe
— Josh Begley (@joshbegley) September 30, 2015
Apple’s decision to pull the apps is a continuation of its cautious approach to deciding what it allows into the store. Interestingly, neither of the two apps showed images of any deaths, instead they used text and maps to report the data.
Metadata+ will continue to work for users who have already installed it but will no longer be available for download on the store. Begley will still be able to promote the information through one of his twitter accounts, @dronestream, which performs a similar role to the two apps.