Sketchy "Baby Shaker" iPhone App Yanked From App Store

Just days before Apple is gearing up to celebrate hitting an epic milestone of one billion App Store downloads, controversy has taken the lion's share of headlines surrounding a new app that encourages quieting annoying, crying babies depicted in charming drawings, by shaking them until silenced. The now immensely controversial $.99 "Baby Shaker" iPhone app was been abruptly pulled down from being sold by Apple in the App Store after strong objections were raised by the Sarah Jain Brain Project, a group working to prevent pediatric traumatic brain injury.

"The group called for the removal of the application from the store and demanded an apology from the company." according to a report by The New York Times.

The Baby Shaker app released on Monday, was initially uncovered by the snarky geniuses over at "Krapps" who typically lampoon iPhone apps that represent tragic comedies. On Wednesday the website ran a post entitled, "It's Not Funny Apple", apologizing in advance for their non-typical post protesting the app for obvious reasons. The story broke at 1:00 AM PST on April 22nd.

"Combining the title Baby Shake with the objective of stopping an annoying crying baby is simply irresponsible and utterly idiotic. You would think Apple would stay totally clear of any iPhone app remotely resembling child abuse … but if you’ve paid any attention to KRAPPS, it’s really not surprising." the website's author wrote.

Shortly after making mainstream headlines on CNET at 11:07 AM on Wednesday, the app was quickly yanked from the App Store, banished to the App Store graveyard along with an elite few including the epic "iNorris", the Chuck Norris joke app rejected by Apple, citing that it "ridicules a public figure".

Developers Sikalosoft, chose to pull down the Baby Shaker page on their website once the storm hit. Leaving behind only an ominous "Page Not Found" message in the apps place. It appears Apple chose to distance itself from the decision to approve such an obviously tasteless app before it whipped up a proper shit storm in the press, potentially soiling their upcoming one billion app milestone. While fanatical iPhone faithful have a short memory, it may be too late to overt a media feeding frenzy on this one.

Our interview request to the Baby Shaker developers was not answered by the time of this post. Though we were able to uncover a video demo of the app posted on YouTube by Matt Marshall over at Parislemon (below). New York Times writer Saul Hansell came out in defense of the app, convinced that Apple should not be placed in the position of "the gatekeeper of what ideas are too offensive for the public."

"I’m troubled by the way Apple caved into pressure here. Of course this application is deeply offensive, with no redeeming value except to people who like to play gross games or have twisted senses of humor." wrote Saul Hansell.

I'm inclined to agree with Mr. Hansell. The current App Store approval process is flawed and sorely in need of a good shaking of it's own. Maybe Apple will rethink the entire shiteree after surpassing one billion downloads. I'm totally annoyed just thinking what will happen if they don't.

[Krapps and New York Times]

Comments

[MindBlowing]

Jasmine, personally I would find satisfaction if they were to replace the picture of the baby with a picture of you with a broom handle up your ass and called it "Ass Shaker". Whenever people feel like they cannot take anymore of your mindless ramblings, they can pump the hell out of you until you shut up. I feel that would be the best solution.

[Jasmine.]

My opinion:

You find it offensive?
Don't fucking download it.
Problem solved.

Got a problem with my solution?
email me.
[email protected]

[Jack Steele is great]

Wow Mac hammer, really? what r u a mom? i get it that you dont like this, and quite frankly niether do i, but "They are the morons who sat in their bedroom, doing bong-hits and Redbull, while playing Halo, and decided that making an application that let you shake a baby would be "totally wicked dude...hey! I can't feel my skull!" was uncalled for. So what you are saying is that Halo players are numskulls who create games like this? Do i sense a bit of jealousy that whatever game you play isnt nearly as good? or is it that you are a parent who hates video games altogether? I play hours of Halo 3 a week and i make straight A's, have a life and girlfriend, and i am very social and smart.You *&%$#% idiot and your kind sicken me that you cant accept that games sell 50 times more than movies every single year this decade. Maybe you need to chill because your being a jackass.

[Mac Hammer]

I too, was horrified by the release of Baby Shaker. I wrote a letter to Steve Jobs asking that it be removed. I'm sure it wasn't my letter that did it, but the application is now removed. I completely understand the outrage expressed here, and I share it with many of you.

However, put the blame where blame is due. Sikalosoft. They are the morons who sat in their bedroom, doing bong-hits and Redbull, while playing Halo, and decided that making an application that let you shake a baby would be "totally wicked dude...hey! I can't feel my skull!"

Then get pissed at the Apple reviewer who, after looking at the 400th version of yet another application to let your friends know "What are you doing?" on Twitter, accidentally double-tapped the approval button and released this terrifying piece of shit on the world.

But please, please, please, quit acting like Apple developers programmed this and had malice in their hearts when they nefariously released this on an unsuspecting population. It just wasn't the case.

Besides, if Apple released it, it would have been called, "iBabyShaker".

Want to really vent your spleens in the appropriate direction? Send your email here: [email protected] They are the teenage dumbasses that are responsible. And I'll bet that they become the first teenage dumbasses to actually exceed the server space of a GMail account.

Let them have it. They deserve every ounce of your vitriolic rage. Apple does not. They deserve a few ounces. Not more.

Mac Hammer

[Christopher Ronk]

This completely stupid application will probably only gain in notoriety because of all this and be downloaded a million times from other sources.

I'm sure that whoever approved this for sale at iTunes will surely be fired. As well they should.