Apple apologies for its 'baby shaker' iphone application

Apple has apologised for a "deeply offensive" iPhone application called Baby Shaker, which made a game of quieting crying babies by shaking them. It removed the $0.99 (£0.59) game from its iTunes Store on Wednesday, two days after it went on sale. It sparked outrage from children's groups and brain injury foundations.

The 99-cent game, which showed black-and-white line drawings of a baby, had the description: "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!"Shaking the motion-sensitive phone meant that the onscreen baby would get large red Xs over its eyes.

US-based organisations which seek to prevent brain injuries from Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) - including the National Centre on Shaken Baby Syndrome and the Sarah Jane Brain Foundation - condemned Apple for approving the game's sale. 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," the Daily Telegraph reported her as saying.