“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. See how long you can endure his or her adorable cries before you just have to find a way to quiet the baby down!”

Those are the words of app designers Sikilasoft, who have designed an application called ‘Baby Shaker’ that’s just been pulled from the app store after complaints from parenting groups. It’s a surprise that it got through Apple’s rather rigorous approvals procedure.

The app first appeared on the store on Monday, and was withdrawn yesterday after intense criticism. Patrick Donohue, founder of the Sarah Jane Brain Foundation, responded: “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.”

Apple’s been relaxing its approvals procedure lately, but a scare like this could see them ramp it right back up again. We’ll have to hope that’s not the case.

(via the Guardian)