If you hadn’t heard, Apple recently pulled an iPhone application from the AppStore on grounds that it was “deeply offensive.” The “Baby Shaker” application went live on the iPhone App Store this past Monday, and immediately got Apple’s attention. “Baby Shaker” was a simple application, presenting the user with a crying baby that would only stop its aural assault with a vigorous shake of the iPhone. Shake the baby hard enough and the user would be “rewarded” with red “X’s” that appeared over the baby’s eyes – essentially indicating that the user had shaken the baby right out of our living-world.
Many cases of Shaken Baby Syndrome, which is a collection of symptoms that indicate a baby was severely injured by shaking, are triggered by a crying baby – just like the “Baby Shaker” application. It’s obvious that an iPhone application that seemingly condones shaking a baby until it stops crying, or dies, or both, is just wrong. To that end, Apple nixed the iPhone app on Wednesday, just two days after it went on sale on the AppStore.
Apple then issued an official statement of apology for letting the offensive iPhone app onto the AppStore. The statement reads:
This application was deeply offensive and should not have been approved for distribution on the App Store. When we learned of this mistake, the app was removed immediately. We sincerely apologize for this mistake and thank our customers for bringing this to our attention.
More worrying than the offensive nature of the baby-shaking iPhone game is Apple’s seeming lack of control over their iPhone app-approval process. Applications like “Baby Shaker” somehow make it onto the AppStore (mistake, as Apple claims, or not), but applications with true value and purpose, like Newber, get the cold shoulder. What gives, Apple?