Apple has finally approved the gorgeous-looking e-book reader, Eucalyptus, for the iTunes App Store. The application was previously banned for pornographic reasons: not because it contained objectionable material but because it could be used to download the Kama Sutra, an ancient text which acts as a manual for living a good and full life.

Whoever was on Approval Duty at Apple that day obviously saw the name "Kama Sutra" in the list of downloadable books and had such a knee-jerk reaction that they likely smashed in their own teeth, believing that the book is some kind of sex manual (it isn't, although it does contain some sex advice – take a look at an issue of Cosmopolitan if you want some real, juicy sex talk). After the now familiar fuss, accompanied by blog posts and Twitter tweets, Apple has relented and allowed Eucalyptus into its inner sanctum of taste.

Eucalyptus costs $10 and has access to around 20,000 Project Gutenberg texts. As we said, it looks gorgeous, with proper hyphenation, a hand-rolled typesetting algorithm and a rather lovely page-turning animation (there's a video on the website). The problem is that you can't add your own books: It's all public domain, which often, although not always, means old.

In other news, Apple issues official statement of outrage at the "filthy" Lady Chatterley's Lover.

Product page [Things Made Out of Other Things]

Product page [iTunes]

See Also:

E-Reader iPhone App Rejected Because Users Can Download Kama Sutra