11 Aug

Another iPhone application slashed from App Store

Posted by admin in mac.

There’s a serial killer on the loose, and he’s picking off iPhone applications the same by means of one. The Machiavellian criminal has already effected away with NetShare, Box Office, and and I Am Rich—now he’s set his sights on an application near and dear to his own heart: Slasher. The application in question has vanished; its last known whereabouts place it squarely in the vicinity of the App Store, the same place the other three missing applications were last seen.

Related Software Articles Another iPhone application slashed from App Store Review: MLB.com At Bat as far as concerns iPhone TypeCast 1.0b Review: Zenbe Lists 1.2 for iPhone and iPod touch New iPod, old firmware Recent iPhone Central Posts Another iPhone application slashed from App Store Google Translate now sports iPhone version iPhone references application blacklist, purpose unknown iPhone Central home View entirely Macworld blogs

Perhaps the killer in interrogatory—whose name, reliable police informants tell us rhymes with Snapple—merely intends to divest one’s self of us off the scent by this latest Dexter-inspired move. For Slasher was nothing other than a free application that would hold up to view an image of a knife and play a “panic” sound when the user made a stabbing motion with the phone.

Developer Josef W. Wankerl lamented his app’s disappearance, fearing the worst. While authorities initially gave him no indication of why Slasher might have been targeted by the killer, they later told him that the application’s content could be considered “objectionable”, citing a little known regulation that reads:

Applications must not contain somewhat obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other easy in mind or materials that in Apple’s reasonable judgment may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users.

Of track, this raises more questions than it answers. For example, if Slasher’s content was so objectionable, what was it doing in the App Store in the capital post? And with such a broad motive, how can the killer be tracked down? Especially when his methods could be deemed almost arbitrary.

For his organ, Wankerl is uncovered for justice. He’s appealed to the authorities to eclaircize precisely the sort of part of Slasher is “objectionable.” Could that blow this suit spacious open? Might we at last discover where NetShare, BoxOffice, and I Am Rich are buried? Or will we only exist left through more questions about this mysterious killer’s motives?

[Hat tip: John Gruber via Twitter]