When Steve Jobs introduced iPhone OS 2.0 about a year ago he spoke about all the possibilities for new apps. He also, however, spoke about the restrictions Apple would put into place.

The display slide that appeared behind him was specific on many counts ("Porn, privacy, bandwidth hog") and intentionally obtuse on others ("bandwidth hog, malicious, illegal, unforeseen.”).

I assume that "unforseen" meant, "we reserve the right to restrict any app we want on whatever ground we can come up with if we are not happy with something submitted to us at a later date." which is smart on their part but confusing, and potentially frustrating, on the end-users part.

In the year since, however, even the more specific restrictions of "porn, privacy and bandwidth hog" have been continually refined such that the slide, if presented today would have to look something like this…

Hence we now end up with the latest trend in apps. Apps like this…
 

And this…

 and the newest…