Apple removes ‘Baby Shaker’ from App Store
Apple has removed the Baby Shaker application from the App Store, just hours after it was discovered. — The application still shows up in the App Store search, but upon clicking on the title, an error message appears.
Context & Ripple Effects
Baby Shaker went live on the App Store and was pulled within hours of being discovered — Apple confirmed the removal on April 22, 2009, though the listing still surfaced in search behind an error message. TechCrunch amplified it the same day under a deliberately provocative headline — 'Feel Like Shaking A Baby To Death? There's An App For That.' — which is how the story escaped the developer community and became a mainstream embarrassment rather than a catalog correction.
The timing raises the stakes for Apple specifically: the company just reported its best March quarter in history ($8.16 billion fiscal Q2 2009 revenue, $1.21 billion net profit), and iPhone OS 3.0 betas are cycling through developers ahead of launch. The App Store is the centerpiece of that growth story, so a review process that approved an app mocking shaken-baby syndrome is a governance problem, not just a PR nuisance.
First-order effects
- Baby Shaker's developer loses a live distribution channel overnight, and Apple absorbs the reputational hit — the removal came only after outside discovery and criticism, not proactively.
- Apple's App Store review team now faces direct questions about what its approval process actually screens for, since the app cleared it and reached customers.
Second-order effects
- Expect pressure on Apple to tighten and clarify App Store approval criteria; developers of shock or edgy content will face stricter screening as the review queue hardens in response.
- Rival phone platforms courting developers can pitch lighter-touch curation against Apple's gatekeeping, turning an approval-process failure into a competitive talking point.
Third-order effects
- If this pattern holds, app-store curation becomes a standing governance function: every controversial approval forces the platform operator to formalize content standards, and the gatekeeping decisions themselves — not just the catalog — become part of Apple's brand management.
The trend: Mobile app marketplaces are evolving from open catalogs into curated gates, with each high-profile approval failure pushing the platform operator toward explicit, defensible content policies.