Pendragons Princess

Only approved by morons everywhere. Keep reading:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/163717/baby_shaker_app_approved_then_removed.html

Baby Shaker App Approved, Then Removed

Jim Dalrymple, Macworld.com

Apr 23, 2009 10:30 am

Flatulence applications are one thing, but sometimes you really have to scratch your head and wonder how certain apps could possibly make it through Apple’s approval process. The release (and subsequent removal) of an iPhone app called Baby Shaker this week has Apple in hot water with angry parents and children’s groups, who are demanding answers from Apple.

Developed by Sikalosoft, Baby Shaker features a crude drawing of a baby, and the object of the game is to stop the baby from crying by shaking the iPhone until red X’s appear over the baby’s eyes. The description of Baby Shaker read: “On a plane, on the bus, in a theater. Babies are everywhere you don’t want them to be!

They’re always distracting you from preparing for that big presentation at work with their incessant crying. Before Baby Shaker there was nothing you could do about it.”

Patrick Donohue, founder of the Sarah Jane Brain Foundation (dedicated to children suffering from Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury) was so upset with the app, he wrote a letter to Steve Jobs and other Apple executives.

“As the father of a three-year-old who was shaken by her baby nurse when she was only five days old, breaking three ribs, both collarbones and causing a severe brain injury, words cannot describe my reaction,” said Donohue. “You have no idea the number of children your actions have put at risk by your careless, thoughtless and reckless behavior!”

Macworld spoke with Jennipher Dickens, the communications director for the Sarah Jane Brain Project, about the app being removed from the App Store.

“I’m very relieved that it’s been taken down,” said Dickens. “I would still like clarification from Apple on how it got up there in the first place. It’s horrifying that they were selling it.”

Dickens is well aware of the dangers of Shaken Baby Syndrome. Her son Christopher was shaken by his biological father when he was only seven weeks old. Her son, now 2, has irreversible brain damage.

We tried to contact Sikalosoft, but the company’s Web site is currently offline.
Representatives from Apple confirmed that the app had been removed today.

We’ve openly wondered at Macworld how some iPhone apps make it through the approval process at Apple while others have been rejected. In this case, common sense lost.

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I don’t know whether to be amused or disgusted at this bizarre piece, but here is the original news item:

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/pcworld/20090423/tc_pcworld/

appleapprovestastelessbabyshakeriphonegamethenremovesit_1

Apple Approves Tasteless Baby-Shaker iPhone Game, Then Removes It

By Daniel Ionescu, PC World - Thu Apr 23, 2009 8:41AM EDT

Apple has landed in hot water with children’s groups and angry parents after temporarily approving the Baby Shaker game in the iPhone App Store on Monday. Under pressure and criticism, Apple has now removed the application from its store.
The Baby Shaker iPhone app, developed by Sikalosoft, featured multiple drawings of a baby. The player had to stop the baby from crying by shaking the phone until red X marks showed up over the baby’s eyes. Baby Shaker reportedly appeared in the App Store on Monday and cost 99 cents. The app was later removed on Wednesday night.

Child advocates were at the core of the app’s removal, claiming the Baby Shaker game is saying that killing babies is acceptable. Apple caved in to requests to remove the app from its store. But the surprising thing is that Apple actually allowed this app to make it in the AppStore, while other less offending apps have been previously banner — see South Park and many more.

However, there is another side to this story. Although Apple has been very strict in the past with what kind of applications make it into its App Store, the approval of Baby Shaker — just black humor in some people’s views, could be seen as a relaxation in those strict rules. But the app’s removal might signal that these relaxed standards are not in the company’s best interest.

Still, would we want Apple to be able to dictate which apps are ethical or too offensive for the public? In comparison, the iTunes Music Store sells music with both sexual content and strong language, of course, with a system in place for parents to control what their children can buy. Maybe a similar system for the App Store could be a good idea, and we would be able to judge for ourselves what is offensive and what is just sick humor…

Apple’s App Store success has inspired other manufacturers and developers like Research in Motion, Nokia, Microsoft, and Google to release their own version of the store. Meanwhile Apple’s store is counting down to 1 billion application downloads.
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What Apple initially created for its iPhone here is a game where one can shake a baby in order for it to stop crying. Once the baby stopped crying, red X marks showed up over its eyes, designating the baby was dead, and not just silent (stopped crying.) It sounds like the creator of the game was probably shaken as a baby to the point of brain damage to come up with this idea. While Apple is to be commended for removing this retarded game from its iPhone, I’m thakful my own cell phone is used for making phone calls and not as a toy. My toy is my computer. Even so, the only games I play very occasionally are solitaire and backgammon.

As for shaken kids, I wonder if any of the creators of the stupid game conceived their idea while hanging around the Tucson Mall on weekends whene everyone in the city drags their kids inside the mall and start playing with them, holding them upside down, throwing them up in the air then catching them, and shaking them all around. Yes, I’m sure they have.