Apple found itself in a bit of a row with users over allegedly censoring a dictionary app called Ninjawords. The crux of the problem was that Apple supposedly made the dictionary sensor certain words from its listings and then hit the app with a 17+ rating as well.

Apple VP Phil Schiller has responded to Darning Fireball’s original story and shed a bit more light on the subject. Schiller says that Apple did not sensor the dictionary and did not reject its application for objectionable words found in other dictionaries.

He says that reviewers at Apple found that the app provided access to objectionable terms not found in traditional dictionaries and the app was initially rejected because of this and suggested that the app be resubmitted after the parental controls were implemented on the iPhone. These came with the OS 3.0 update.

Rather than wait the Ninjawords devs chose to remove access to some terms and resubmit before parental controls. At that point, Apple hit the app with a 17+ rating. Apparently, Apple only said that Ninjawords needed a 17+ rating and didn’t tell the app to censor its content. You can read the full email from Schiller at the link below.

[via Daring Fireball]