Sticks and stones may break Apple’s bones, but Ninjawords will never hurt them. In what appears to be a change in policy, Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) SVP Phil Schiller investigated and replied to a critical Daring Fireball blog posted on Tuesday that accused Apple of unnecessarily censoring the Ninjawords dictionary and then giving it a 17+ rating anyway.

Schiller’s efforts show that Apple is starting to worry about the company’s perceptions when it comes to the App Store’s policies. In the past couple of weeks, Apple has received a ton of negative publicity regarding its App Store policies. The banning of Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Voice even prompted an FCC investigation. Ninjawords seemed like just another bad example. But clearly, Apple wants developers to believe differently and that their actions are not without reason—at least most of the time. (Note: In case you are questioning whether this was truly a publicity stunt—for the benefit of journalists, developers or federal investigators—Apple PR did indeed send me a link to Schiller’s comments this morning—even though I read the Daring Fireball post on my own.)

The controversy all started in Daring Fireballs’ initial post, which charged Apple with restricting a dictionary, which typically has free range in other places, even Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT). But in fact, Apple is now claiming—and Ninjawords is verifying—that Ninjawords decided to censor itself in order to make it into the App Store sooner. Otherwise, Apple suggested that Ninjawords wait until parental advisory mechanisms were put into place, at which point it could receive a 17+ rating.

Here’s an excerpt from Schiller’s response:

“Let me start with the most important points - Apple did not censor the content in this developer’s application and Apple did not reject this developer’s application for including references to common swear words. You accused Apple of both in your story and the fact is that we did neither….The issue that the App Store reviewers did find with the Ninjawords application is that it provided access to other more vulgar terms than those found in traditional and common dictionaries, words that many reasonable people might find upsetting or objectionable. A quick search on Wiktionary.org easily turns up a number of offensive “urban slang” terms that you won’t find in popular dictionaries such as one that you referenced, the New Oxford American Dictionary included in Mac OS X. Apple rejected the initial submission of Ninjawords for this reason, provided the Ninjawords developer with information about some of the vulgar terms, and suggested to the developer that they resubmit the application for approval once parental controls were implemented on the iPhone.”

So, is Schiller’s efforts to set the record straight working? Are developers more at ease knowing Apple’s policies are not without merit? I think it’s safe to say that if Apple keeps it up and continues to be more vocal and makes its policies more transparent, developers would not be as likely to see them as the bad guys. Afterall, what’s important is knowing what Apple will or will not reject—before spending the time and money on developing it. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

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