Pulitzer Prize Board, Mark Fiore, via Associated Press

Update: Apple’s chief executive apparently believes that his company made a mistake when it rejected an iPhone app from a cartoonist who is now a Pulitzer prize winner. Steve Jobs, the Apple chief executive, responded by e-mail message to a customer who asked about Mark Fiore’s rejected app on Friday.

“This was a mistake that’s being fixed,” Mr. Jobs replied. Read more…

Original post: Here’s a digital-age perk of winning a Pulitzer Prize: Apple might invite you to re-submit your formerly rejected iPhone application.

Mark Fiore, who on Monday became the first online-only cartoonist to win a Pulitzer, for work that ran on the SFGate.com Web site, said this week that his app was rejected by Apple in December because it included cartoons that ridiculed public figures. Cartoons, it turns out, can violate Apple’s license agreement with developers, which states that apps may be rejected if the content “may be found objectionable, for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory.”

Objectionable, of course, only in the anonymous eyes of Apple.

After winning the Pulitzer prize for editorial cartooning on Monday and telling the Nieman Journalism Lab of his app’s rejection the next day, Mr.

Fiore was encouraged by Apple to submit it again. Mr. Fiore re-submitted his app on Friday morning. “We’ll see what happens,” he said in a telephone interview.

When his NewsToons app, which displays his weekly animated cartoons, was developed, Mr. Fiore said he had not heard of “the whole concept of getting rejected for ridiculing public figures.”

“That’s what I do. That’s my life!” he said. “That’s a tough one to get around if you’re a political cartoonist.”

After NewsToons was turned down in mid-December, Mr. Fiore did not try to submit it again, “mainly because it seemed like it would be so daunting.”

“It’s not like I had a phone number for someone at Apple,” he said, adding, “interestingly enough, I do now.”

Apple did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

Mr. Fiore said he felt somewhat guilty that his sudden publicity as a Pulitzer winner apparently helped his cause. “Sure, mine might get approved, but what about someone who hasn’t won a Pulitzer and who is maybe making a better political app than mine? Do you need some media frenzy to get an app approved that has political material? I wish they would accept decent political material based on merit, not on popularity,” he said.

Mr. Fiore said he used Apple products to create his cartoons.

His Pulitzer win this week is notable for at least three reasons. In addition to being the first Pulitzer for online-only work, it is the first Pulitzer awarded solely for animated video, as opposed to traditional cartoon strips or panels. Mr. Fiore is also the first self-syndicated editorial cartoonist to win the prize.

Several years before the Pulitzers started to allow online-only entries, Mr. Fiore submitted his work anyway. “I thought, if I keep submitting a good packet, maybe this will help turn the tide” toward online entries, he said.

Mr. Fiore said Pulitzer representatives would call — “your heart kind of flutters” at the possibility of winning, he said — but only to ask, “Do you want us to tear up your check or send it back?”

Of his win, he said, “it’s amazing but it’s also a little bit of vindication.”