Apple rejects iPhone app that measures radiation levels
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Apple has reportedly rejected an iPhone application that promises to minimise your exposure to mobile phone radiation.
Israeli company Tawkon invested a year and a half developing the application it hoped to sell on the iTunes App Store for between US$5-$10.
On Friday, The Washington Post quoted Tawkon co-founder Gil Friedlander after TechCrunch first reported the story: "Our message is moderate, we don't claim to try to stop users from using their phones. We just say to do so responsibly."
In rejecting the application, Friedlander was told by Apple the information about radiation levels provided by the application may be confusing for users despite an excellent interface.
"They are very clear about the fact that they make content decisions about what they want to post or not."
The Washington Post reports an Apple spokesman declined to comment about the issue.
According to the company, Tawkon's RRI patent pending technology alerts the user when radiation levels cross a predefined threshold and provides simple, non-intrusive suggestions to reduce exposure to radiation. The application leverages various smart-phones capabilities including the built-in Bluetooth, motion and proximity sensors, GPS and compass to determine the results.
The technology collects and analyses your phone's dynamic SAR (Specific Absorption Rate) levels, network coverage, location, environmental conditions and phone usage at any given moment to help determine those results.
Posted by Anonymous at 9:22:50 on March 11, 2010
Its been a well known fact for years that Apple is an anti-competitive company, and which routinely instructs and enforces its worldview about what its customers can and cannot do with their own purchased products.
Apple users *know* that they will be forced to comply with Apple's whims ( and pay a premium for the "privilege"), and they happily buy such restricted products. They can complain about restrictions they have to endure until the cows come home, but in the end have nobody to blame but Apple and themselves.
App Store Developers see the money pot that is the App Store, and knowing full well what Apple's history is, and yet have the audacity to complain about having their too-useful app rejected or pulled from the App Store.
Come on Tawkon, you *knew* exactly who you were dealing with, and you got burnt. Dont come crying to mummy because you taunted the schoolyard bully and got your nose bloodied.
Posted by gek at 11:50:17 on March 10, 2010
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