Apple Crushes iPhone Developers' Dreams
In a much needed antidote to the jealousy even those of us with minimal tech skills harbor toward people who have made a fortune inventing iPhone applications, many disgruntled developers are venting about how unfair it is that their apps didn't make it into the Apple store. On Wednesday, Apple dropped the "Baby Shaker"—users had to shake their phones to get a digital baby to stop crying; last year's "I Am Rich" app, which served no purpose but still cost $999, was initially accepted by Apple but then pulled shortly thereafter. So what other juvenile pleasures are iPhone users being denied by Apple's inscrutable screening process?
Well, our delicate sensibilities have been protected from games involving drug dealing or politics—one pro-Obama app even elicited a response from Steve Jobs saying: "Even though my personal political leanings are democratic, I think this app will be offensive to roughly half our customers. What's the point?"
But most significant of all, iBoob—an animated woman's chests that shakes when the phone does—was rejected as "inappropriate sexual content." Because God only knows what would happen to the nation's morals if cartoon boobies were exposed for all to see.
