Apr 23

Apple Removes Baby-Killing iPhone App Amid Outrage

Posted in: Apple, iPhone, Today's Chili

Babyshake1thumb
Apple has pulled an iPhone game that involved shaking a baby to death in response to widespread outrage from parents.

The premise of Baby Shaker was to quiet a baby by shaking the iPhone. But the animation suggested a player was silencing the baby by murdering it: A successful shake caused two large red Xs to appear on the baby’s eyes.

"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 Patrick Donohue, founder of the Sarah Jane Brain Foundation, a New York-based group that educates the community on pediatric brain injuries, in a letter to Steve Jobs and other Apple executives.

Baby Shaker launched in the App Store on Monday. Apple pulled the game Wednesday after it gained attention from various media outlets, including New York Times, Washington Post and LA Times. Krapps, a "different and funny iPhone app review site," was the first to report on Baby Shaker.

Albeit short-lived, the approval of Baby Shaker brings into question Apple’s App Store approval process. When Jobs introduced the App Store, he laid out the rules of what wouldn’t be approved — and the list did not include offensive apps like Baby Shaker.

"There are going to be some apps that we’re not going to distribute," Jobs said. "Porn, malicious apps, apps that invade your privacy."

Though the approval of Baby Shaker appears to be a slip, Apple has approved other peculiar apps as well. For example, the app Spank snaps a photo of a person and then displays a talk bubble above his or her head that says "Spank." Then, when you shake the iPhone you hear the sound of a spank followed by a man yelping.

"As the grandmother/adopted mother of a ‘shaken baby’ I can’t even start to explain the anger and rage at this game that someone was trying to promote," Wired.com reader Debbie Dunlap said in an e-mail. "My son is now 6 and was very fortunate … but is faced with many problems now and more to come…. How could any one with a brain think a game like this would be OK?"

See a video of Baby Shaker below the jump.

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