Apple's new patent may stop you from sending sexy texts over your iPhone

[Renew Deal]

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Yesterday, Apple received a patent for technology that allows it to read text messages before they're sent and censor or block them as needed. TechCrunch immediately described this as a patent on an "anti-sexting device" -- because the surest path to getting big Web traffic is to put the word "sexting" in a headline (you clicked on this story, didn't you?), despite the fact that "sexting" appears nowhere in the http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7814163.html">patent documents posted online. That was enough to incite the usual blogger stampede.

At first glance, this appears to be another weapon in Steve Jobs' somewhat selective anti-porn crusade -- you know, the one where the iPhone App Store bans images of semi-nude hotties found in hundreds of obscure apps, but allows similarly fleshy forms from Victoria's Secret, Sports Illustrated, and Playboy.

But it's really more cunning and capitalistic than that. The iPhone is already the uber-status symbol among the sub-18 set. If you're going to sell the thing teenagers covet most, you might as well make it more attractive to the people who'll end up paying for it -- i.e., the parents. The pitch that "our phones make your kids safer (as well as cooler)" beats the hell out of "it's time for a phone to save us from our phones."
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http://www.infoworld.com/d/adventures-in-it/sexting-message-has-been-censored-steve-jobs-632

[hobbit709]

1. so what happens when the sexting generation finds out

Will they find a different phone to be trendy with?

[Iggo]

3. They'll use code, like they always do. (n/t)

[onehandle]

2. Apple and other tech companies file thousands of patents a year. Few ever come to be.

There are a lot of patents out there for phones that emit smells.

Where are our smell phones?

[nunyabidness]

4. Just jailbreak your iPhone or use an android phone.

DoJ says that jailbreaking is legal. Then you can do almost anything you wish with your iDevice. Or don`t use one. And BTW, I tell my children what they can and cannot have. It`s called Parenting. I don`t let some uber-corporation dictate the rules.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

5. Soo all the money I spend on an iPhone and at&t, I get censored

Yet another reason not to get one.