"The most cynical apology I have ever seen"

KWillets

#1 – 12:42 AM April 24, 2009

This is how dictatorial regimes often fail. Not in there lack of freedom, but in their inability to achieve perfection in exchange for it.

The iPhone is the Singapore of modern computers.

technogeek

#2 – 1:49 AM April 24, 2009

Welcome to America, where it's OK to depict people being blown to bloody hamburger but offensive to admit most of us would rather be cuddling.

Anonymous Anonymous

#3 – 2:27 AM April 24, 2009

Is there a resistance group for everything in the US? Are you sure no one's son has been killed by a fart? That would make all the farting apps offensive and they'd have to be removed.

I'm sure there are many who lost a loved one during a war, but that doesn't make it "offensive" to sell war games.

Also, Apple does what it seems fit. @KWILLETS: Singapore did not just sell a billion apps, and Singapore's shares didn't sky rocket. The iPhone is a proven success.

blip

#4 – 2:38 AM April 24, 2009

So this app isn't acceptable but your 'British Nannies' gag is?

MichaelFoody

#5 – 5:10 AM April 24, 2009

The thing that I find strange is that their is an organization that part of it's mission seems to be saying "hey that's not funny." The game while looking stupid and to be in poor taste probably at the margin raised awareness of the danger of shaking an infant. What does the foundation think will happen as a consequence of this game existing? That people will discover how fun it is to shake babies and be unable to stop? That people will learn that shaking is an effective way to kill unwanted babies?

I'm not defending apple on this, exactly, requiring the approval of apps on matters of taste rather than just technical considerations is a recipe for problems just like this, but still...

Anonymous Anonymous

#6 – 5:50 AM April 24, 2009

So this app isn't acceptable but your 'British Nannies' gag is?

Politically incorrect humor is OK when we do it, but it is deeply offensive when other people do it! You see, we are 'fun' and 'cool' guys making jokes with hipster irony, where as everyone else in the world making bad humor are vicious hateful douchbags!

The game while looking stupid and to be in poor taste probably at the margin raised awareness of the danger of shaking an infant. What does the foundation think will happen as a consequence of this game existing? That people will discover how fun it is to shake babies and be unable to stop? That people will learn that shaking is an effective way to kill unwanted babies

When various political causes found out that corporations often make donations along with their half-hearted corporate apologies, it triggered an "I am deeply offended" arms race.

Now, most charitable and political organizations have a staff member or two scanning the media looking for corporations (or institutions with a bit of cash) to be deeply offended by.

That is why you see at least 5-10 "Party A 'deeply offended' by Party B" news stories each day. This one just happened to make Slashdot because of the Apple connection.

0xdeadbeef

#7 – 6:04 AM April 24, 2009

They refused my Operation clone. You'd think they'd want to cut out Steve's cancer.

jeffjonez

#8 – 6:15 AM April 24, 2009

So, Mike... Because the baby shaking ap is funny to some, you're not ''exactly'' defending what precisely? Apple's right to deny responsibility -- or at least provide insight -- into their explicit decision to allow virtual baby murder over other much less offensive content?

What's the source of your hesitation in bashing Apple for being hypocritical and crass?

Anonymous Anonymous

#9 – 6:28 AM April 24, 2009

This was a tasteless app to build and approve. And the campaign against the horrors of baby shaking deserves all the admiration it gets. But isn't calling Apple's response cynical, itself a bit cynical? What I mean is, if it's appropriate for the organization to air its grievance in the media (and it is), why is Apple's equally public response offensive?

Wovixo

#10 – 6:34 AM April 24, 2009

Nicely done #5! Nicely done sir!

dculberson

#11 – 6:48 AM April 24, 2009

So Jeff, virtual baby murder is worse than plain old virtual murder in what way?

Rob Beschizza

#12 – 6:49 AM April 24, 2009

0XDEADBEEF, damnnnnn.

Anonymous Anonymous

#13 – 6:53 AM April 24, 2009

At heart in this issue is the presentation of the game: Real life gives us the opportunity to shake a baby to death and thankfully most of us don't take it.

The game is presented thusly: "in which the user shakes a crying baby until it is dead."

What if the description of the game was presented like this:

"in which the user is presented with the moral conundrum of logging out of the game or shaking the crying baby until it dies."

The game isn't funny but it is also not going to cause people to kill babies. But maybe the game isn't supposed to be funny. Once again we're back to the core challenge faced by games today: much of society still thinks they are exclusively for kids and that they are exclusively for fun.

(on a side note, my 'captcha' test was "squishes last" . . . seems kind of ironic no?)

MichaelFoody

#14 – 6:59 AM April 24, 2009

I don't think the app is funny, my point was only that I don't really understand the role of this non-profit in opposing it. I guess I'm not eager to excoriate apple for the inconsistency because I think the problem is the framework of approving apps that makes inconsistencies like this inevitable my issue is with the general case rather than the specific. Also despite your bolding of BABY MURDER, you're still describing shaking a phone that displays an old fashioned drawing of a baby so that it stops making a crying noise then at the end there are x's over it's eyes. It's stupid and boring but it's pretty tame.

jeffjonez

#15 – 7:29 AM April 24, 2009

@dculberson Yes. Virtual baby murder is worse than plain ol' muder in that the virtual baby never got to live out it's virtual life, and virtual babies are virtually defenseless. However they're all games, and do little if anything to promote actual murder.

I think we all agree that virtual babies should grow up and become virtual hookers so we can have virtual sex with them, then run them over for their cash.

Back to the actual point, does Apple have any plain ol' murder apps in their store? The point is Apple has refused much more reasonable games, so their explicit approval of this one might come across as ranking virtual infanticide as somewhat less offensive than talking cartoon poop.

PS: Boingboing says I can use HTML tags for style, and by God, I'm gonna use 'em!.

Rob Beschizza

#16 – 8:09 AM April 24, 2009

Just you wait: We're thinking of letting people use images!

Bloodboiler

#17 – 8:13 AM April 24, 2009

One dollar for an application that is probably mostly from some motion sensor API tutorial?

It's good to know way too many people still have way too much money.

Brandon West

#18 – 8:33 AM April 24, 2009

@12 If you do I'm going post everything I say in massive blingee gifs.

Anonymous Anonymous

#19 – 8:53 AM April 24, 2009

Interesting, the theory of an edutainment-based DISincentive to shake a baby... Apple AppStore idiocy notwithstanding.

Rob Beschizza

#20 – 9:05 AM April 24, 2009

Also to be activated: BLINK and MARQUEE

Downpressor

#21 – 10:13 AM April 24, 2009

The App Store is the bete noir of BBG. Guess every BB family site needs a windmill to tilt at.

OM

#22 – 11:32 AM April 24, 2009

...Typical (cr)Apple.

knyghtryda

#23 – 11:41 AM April 24, 2009

I love the comments on InformationWeek... Its like 90% of the people totally missed the point of this. This is NOT about a stupid app (it IS a stupid app) and whether it was too offensive to or not to some group (I honestly don't care). This is about the utterly arbitrary nature of Apple's approval process. Apple will approve Heroes of Sparta which, besides the green and blue blood is a very violent game, while it will not approve something with even a little swearing, yet it has no problems approving those "hot girls" apps. Who's playing nanny in that company anyway and why is he/she so damn schizo? I've come to the conclusion it has nothing to do with good taste and everything to do with "can they sue us". By not including red blood (or blood at all, or swearing, or tits, etc) Apple can legally deny having broken any laws about selling inappropriate material to minors. This isn't even touching on the "nothing that effects apple apps" issue.

Halloween Jack

#24 – 12:00 PM April 24, 2009

Speaking of "cynical", the Sarah Jane Brain Rain Mainly in Spain Foundation isn't milking this for every bitter little drop of publicity that they can, are they? For Woz' sake, I swear that all these insta-advocacy groups all use the same "strike while the iron of your fifteen minutes is hot" manual.

Anonymous Anonymous

#25 – 12:32 PM April 24, 2009

This reaction is EXACTLY why they are being such prissy prudes about everything. They let one through and everyone goes apeshit.

Secret_Life_of_Plants

#26 – 3:39 PM April 24, 2009

Okay, I haven't read everything here, so pardon me if I am being repetitive but.

This is an application that demonstrates "If you shake a baby, you will kill it."

Isn't that called "education"?

Rob Beschizza

#27 – 7:19 PM April 24, 2009

@anon, "Politically incorrect humor is OK when we do it, but it is deeply offensive when other people do it!"

As others pointed out, it's not the App that's the issue, but the apparent incompetence or hypocrisy of the Appstore approval process.

The Raven

#28 – 12:17 AM April 25, 2009

Desensitization to violence is pretty scary. Which means...more food for us corvids! Krawk!

Rodney

#29 – 7:36 PM April 25, 2009

Images on Boing Boing. I predict a cavalcade of jocularity.

Anonymous Anonymous

#30 – 10:47 AM April 26, 2009

To me the question is: Is it Apple's job to be the judge of good taste?

Anonymous Anonymous

#31 – 5:10 PM April 26, 2009

How does Apple let something like this sneak through the cracks?! They should post a public apology on a website like Apology Center and let the Internet world decide if they are forgiven or not.
Apology Center

Anonymous Anonymous

#32 – 7:25 PM May 28, 2009

This just about makes me cry! How could this end up approved? That's just terrible.