Baby Shaker is an iPhone/iPod game that shows an image of a baby, coupled with audio of an infant crying. The user shakes the handset and red x's appear in place of the childs eyes. Click play again and you're presented with another, different image and more crying.

You can sorta see how such an application would strike a bum note with some folk. Shaken Baby Syndrome is a term used to describe the constellation of signs and symptoms resulting from the violent shaking of an infant or small child. According to the National Center On Shaken Baby Syndrome, research shows crying as the number one trigger leading caregivers to violently shake and injure babies. SBS affects thousands of babies and parents in the United States.

Aside from the National Center On Shaken Baby Syndrome being pretty upset by the application (along with countless other groups/people touched by SBS), many wondered how Apple would let an application like this slip through the approval process when other apps had been rejected for containing swear words. Apple responded to press inquiries yesterday with the following apology:

"This application was deeply offensive and should not have been approved for distribution on the App Store. When we learned of this mistake, the app was removed immediately. We sincerely apologize for this mistake and thank our customers for bringing this to our attention."