Apple withdraws 'horrific' Baby Shaker iPhone application

The San Franciso-based firm pulled the Baby Shaker application after parenting organisations branded the game horrific.

The game shows a cartoon of a crying baby which becomes less animated as players shake their phone until red crosses appear over the baby's eyes indicating it is dead.

Jetta Bernier, executive director of Massachusetts Citizens for Children, said: "I am disheartened that with this new application Apple is encouraging frustrated adults to shake infants, not only to end their crying, but to end their lives.

"There are many effective infant soothing strategies that adults can use to calm their fussy, crying babies. Shaking is not one of them."

Text displayed next to the application in the iTunes store reads: "On a plane, on the bus, in a theatre. Babies are everywhere you don't want them to be! They're always distracting you from preparing for that big presentation at work with their incessant crying. Before Baby Shaker there was nothing you could do about it."

It adds the disclaimer: "Never, never shake a baby."

The application created by Sikilasoft, first went on sale on Monday.

Patrick Donohue, the founder of the Sarah Jane Brain Foundation, which is campaigning to raise awareness of the dangers of shaking babies, has written to Apple chief executive Steve Jobs.

"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," he wrote.

Marilyn Bar, founder of the US Centre for Shaken Baby Syndrome, said: "Not only are they making fun of shaken baby syndrome, but they are actually encouraging it. This is absolutely terrible."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/apple/5207287/Apple-withdraws-horrific-Baby-Shaker-iPhone-application.html

I saw this on the new this AM.  I can not even  begin to understand what would make a person think to come up with this game and what kind of person would even want it.