Honestly, I didn’t think the App Store’s approval policies could get any stranger. But Apple continues to amaze in what’s undoubtedly the weirdest incident yet: Even after they gave the Ninjawords dictionary a 17+ rating, they censored it. A dictionary.

Gruber recounts the entire three-month odyssey, which began with developer Phil Crosby submitting his app in May. Ninjawords’ dictionary was rejected for objectionable content, with a screenshots of the F-word (for example) in the search results.

The thing is, Ninjawords is designed so you have to explicitly search for them—typing a swear word won’t bring it up, even though other dictionaries in the store will do just that. A third submission, with the bad words like “screw” and “snatch” filtered, with Apple telling the developer it would have to rated 17+ no matter what.

Adding insult to injury, when the developer decided to give in, censoring their dictionary and taking the 17+ rating, Apple wouldn’t let them simply change the metadata to have a rating, they had to resubmit the entire app code, sending them to the back of the queue for approval. Apple didn’t just gut a dictionary, they stomped on the developers throughout the entire contradictory approval process that had let through other dictionaries which even more “objectionable.”

Gruber sums it up best: “Apple requires you to be 17 years or older to purchase a censored dictionary that omits half the words Steve Jobs uses every day.”

Here’s the link to his assessment: http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/ninjawords