I've just seen the most OUTRAGEOUS offensive thing I can imagine. Apple release a bunch of APs for it's i-phone Friday. One of them depicts a baby crying. You hear the baby crying loudly. If you violently shake the phone, the baby stops crying, and red X's appear over the baby's eyes!!!!! For the LOVE OF GOD, what was some pin head thinking when they developed this atrocity, and what string of decisions allowed something so hideous to be brought to market?

Naturally, it brought a howl of outrage. Apple offered a lame excuse and took it off the market. Claimed it was a "mistake". However; thousands of the horrible APs were downloaded. Where are they now? When will some stupid 14 year old think this is the way to get his baby sister to stop crying? A "mistake?" A mistake is ruining something. A slip of the hand. You don't sit around and develop hideous software of babies being killed, and then put it thru the entire marketing system, by mistake. That's a conscious plan, for which you should be detested for the rest of your life.

I saw this on FOX Sunday. There was a man on there, who had a beautiful little girl on his lap. I think it was his daughter. The child was clearly damaged ... and it was said that she'd suffered brain damage from shaking. This man heads an organization to raise awareness of shaken baby syndrome. And, he clearly didn't buy Apple's lame excuse, and wanted them to vigorously track down who had downloaded these subhuman game APs. I think the fact that ANYBODY would even download such a thing is quite a condemnation on the sorry state of society.

I wanted everyone to be aware of the subject. Wanted you to know the background. I sincerely pray that no children are mamed as a result of this tragic and pathetic attempt at humor.

Gary

actually, FWIW, Apple doesn't write these apps, individual programmers do, and then offer them on the "Ap Store" that Apple hosts. Some of them are pretty ridiculous, all right...but then there are also idiots who write viruses, Trojan horses, spyware, etc!

computers are great...except when some fool is misusing them ;-)

So - who's minding the AP store? Who's profiting?

I've grown tired, to the point of no return, with just writing off all the crap to fools, whom we have to overlook. It's well past time to make someone responsible, when they profit from fools.

Gary

The app. written by an independent is the only explanation that makes sense.

Gary, it was probably some young programmer who doesn't have kids and thinks everything is funny no matter how distasteful, comes with the age. Not all young people are like that but enough of them are.

Lon

No matter. I was young once. My kids were young once. My grandkids are now young. Nothing like this was, or is tolerated. We've grown so numb with overlooking fools, that nobody is outraged by anything anymore. Such is what we now have all around us.

Gary

It was definitely an independent app. I'm not a huge fan of Apple and their overpriced hardware but I do understand that marketing and the image folks have of their products is their #1 priority (from a business standpoint), and I sincerely doubt they would consciously allow something like this to be published. My guess is that the app (along with thousands and thousands of others) was probably approved for sale in the App Store by some low-level Apple employee, who was probably terminated or moved around after this incident.

Just my .02 . . .

-- Jim



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/26/2009 09:54PM by Jim.

What I see, is that Apple has set up a structure, where they can sell anything any person will actually purchase; and yet there will be several layers of deniability built in too. That way, they make the profit, and if something goes wrong, there's always a few layers of "inexperienced junior people" who can be tossed under the bus. It's the standard business model today. And, it appears, it's worked really well. The low level people are always believed to be the culprits, some low level employee is tossed under the bus, and Corp. is assumed to not have known anything about it. Same story, every time. They know most things will pass. Many will just be ignored - since we're not supposed to have opinions about anything anymore. An awkward item, will be attributed to low level silly decisions, and; the very remote seriously awkward matter, can always be handled by a legalistic press release - and tossing some low level under the bus.

Gary

I agree Gary -- like most companies these days, that infrastructure exists in Apple. But -- and again just my .02 -- I think this is a case of incompetence instead of premeditated malice. Any marketplace where just about anything can be bought or sold has these same issues. I suspect Apple will be reviewing its App Store policies in the immediate future.

-- Jim

Gary,

I agree 100% with you but my time is better spent trying to prevent the public school system from indoctrinating 4-8 year olds into the homosexual lifestyle. There is only so much energy a person can spent "righting" the world and there are some HUGE problems.

Not trying to diminish this but I don't own an I-phone.

Hi Lon. I don't own an i-phone either. And, I applaud your public school effort. I was just multi-tasking ... I have the ability to be outraged over several things at once. I'm aware of quite a list. I don't have the ability to ignore all of them except the top two, etc. This morning, a game, sold for profit by a major US Corp., depicting shaking a baby until it dies, struck me as quite an outrage. It still does. I just passed it on, because millions of people do own an i-phone. Glad you agree.

Gary

I agree entirely that the app in question is disgusting!

For some perspective, though, remember that the vast majority of these apps are FREE - they are done by creative types who want to see their stuff "out there"

There are 1000s of apps, and actually more than 1 billion have already been downloaded - again, mostly free.

I sincerely doubt there is someone at Apple who monitors the "Ap store" constantly - more like they take action when someone complains. This was not the first one that has been a problem. I think it is just a sick individual who thought this was funny, not a corporate thing.

if anything, Apple is OVERLY PC ( hehe) as a company, so I think there is no chance they were happy with this

Ok ... I have to admit to being completely dumbfounded.

The idea that a corp., as large as Apple, with the number of employees they have, and the income they generate, is completely absolved from any obligation to monitor their Ap Store, or it's products ... just leaves me stunned. Consensus is that their responsibility just get lost in the numbers.

I sure didn't set out to start some controversial post. Didn't bring up Bush/Obama. Nothing about waterboarding/terriosts, or the Pakistani Nukes. The absolute last thing I thought, was that anybody would think I was off on some tangent, and had lost perspective.

I was just noticing. By my Avatar ... everything on this thread says I have 830 posts. That must not include "comments" ... or all of these would not display the same number. So - that must mean I've started 830 individual "topics". I'd say I've stuck to the subject pretty well. But, this one sure surprised me. Guess I better not start my thread telling you the number of times I've noticed that the cash register has rung up a price higher than that which was displayed. You know, when I'm the one person in a thousand that noticed it, and the store told me some low grade stock clerk must have screwed up the display ... while they had been overpaid by the other 999 that didn't notice?

Gary

OK ...I see. The counter changed every post anywhere on the site to my total contributions of 831.

Gary