Apple debuted a new gay pride watch face for Apple Watch this year at WWDC, but developers have recently discovered that it’s literally impossible to install it if you live in the homophobic land of Mother Russia.
Apple’s Russian version of Siri launched earlier this month, and while the presence of the virtual assistant in Russia is certainly welcome, its early bigoted views were not.
According to one YouTube user, Siri not only refused to answer questions about gay bars but went a step further, providing downright homophobic responses. In the video, Siri supposedly claims to be embarrassed by the topic, suggesting that gay marriage is a bit of a downer.
It was only a matter of time. Just a few hours after Tim Cook bravely and historically made his sexuality open, the gay-bashing has already begun.
Where? In Russia, where Vitaly Milonov, the politican behind Russia’s anti-gay laws and the politican who threatened to arrest gay athletes at the Sochi olympics, argued that Tim Cook should be banned from Russia because he could be a carrier of AIDs or Ebola.
Tim Cook has led Apple into the front of the LGBT-rights movement with company appearances at Gay Pride parades and Wall Street Journal op-eds demanding equal rights for gay workers, but according to one Apple Store customer in Portland, some of Cook’s employee don’t share his enthusiasm for inclusion.
Adam Catanzarite, who self-identifies as queer, has taken to social media after an Apple specialist printed off his receipt for a set of EarPods with a not-so-subtle homophobic slur tossed in the spot reserved for his email addresses.
Take a look:
