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Denying iPhone Apps…For Science!

By The Angry Drunk

Satan’s balls I hate TechCrunch; they truly are the ultimate bottom feeder of the tech industry. One of my favorite tricks that Mike Arrington and his carnival of imbeciles like to pull is the “highlight yet another App Store denial” routine. Today’s example from Roi Carthy, though, is a doozy. The headline reads: Tawkon Measures The Radiation Spewing From Your iPhone. No Wonder Apple Doesn’t Approve It.

The idiocy is summed in the first paragraph.

Here we go again . . . Apple App Store Fail No. 5102928. A few weeks ago stealth Israeli startup Tawkon gave me a sneak-peak developer build of what I believe is the most important app on my iPhone. What does it do? It analyzes the cellular radiation your iPhone emits at any given moment, at any given location, whether in standby mode, or within a call.

First of all, I’m declaring a fucking fatwa against the use of the word “fail.” You’re (presumably) not a giggling school-girl, stop fucking writing like one. But more to the point, let’s be clear about what this application does. This piece of crap measures the signal strength of the iPhone’s cellular radio, then does some alchemy to determine the level of “EM radiation” you’re being exposed to.

Now, why would you care to know about that. Well simple, there is a huge profit to be made from the whackaloon belief that the electromagnetic radiation output by modern electronic devices is somehow harmful to the human body. I’m going to say this once, so hopefully no one comes here trying to debate this point, if you think that electromagnetic radiation (of the kind produced by cell phones) causes cancer then you are either ignorant, or a loon. Electromagnetic radiation at the frequencies and power levels output by a cell phone are physically incapable of doing damage to the human body.

I honestly don’t care what justification Apple uses to block crap like this. Paranoiac ludditism like this has no place on the iPhone. Fucking deal with it.


As an aside, in doing some Binging (fuck you Google) before writing this, I found a nice random write-up about the issue. Read and be educated.

March 4th, 2010 | Keywords: , , , | View Comments - (Comments are closed)


  • whofuckingcares
    Only blog worth reading on the fucking net.
  • That anyone could believe this is nothing short of amazing. Truly, a sucker is born every minute. And they all swarm on Tech Crunch. Thanks for the laugh.
  • David (israel)
    Excuse me, but I am capable of deciding on myself wether the app is good or bad and trust me that most I phone buyers are not complete idiots to the extent that they need apple to decide what's good or bad for them.
    The real issue here is that Apple is acting like a bully as the last thing on their mind is the scientific basis behing the apps.
    You are allowed to think as you wish but apple should present a clear and honest policy and act by it. I think apple should take a step back and adopt a policy similat to the one youtube uses - if it's leagal, not offensive and doesn't breake copyright rules then it's ok.
  • not offensive? yeah, THAT'S a clearly definable standard for humanity.
  • Like all right-thinking people, I'm offended by woo-addled pseudo-science. Tits, on the other hand, are Allah's gift to mankind.
  • Silicone? Not for me.
  • To each their own, but I don't discriminate against boobs. They are all equal in the eyes of Cthulhu.
  • Well then Cthulhu hasn't seen enough porn.
  • Problem is: There is no scientific basis for this app. It's guesswork, thus useless.
  • Oh how convenient, a visitor from Israel, the very place where the developers of this bullshit app are located. Your opinion is duly noted, and summarily dismissed.
  • "It analyzes the cellular radiation your iPhone emits at any given moment, at any given location, whether in standby mode, or within a call."

    This sentence is a straight-out lie! This app cannot run in the background while someone is taking a call. All it can do is access this kind of data while it is running, but this doesn't matter, because every fucking hypochondriac will leave it running all the time.

    The discussion about whether cell phone radiation can cause cancer or not is pointless.
    Every kind of radiation has some effect on the body, bad thing is; we don't know what effect it has.
    If people are worried about cellphone radiation they should better leave civilisation, because cell phones aren't their problem; the cell phone towers are.
  • jamesbailey
    Someone did a study of brain cancer rates from before 1995 and after. Basically there was no difference. So, since cell phone use sky rocketed and radio waves cause cancer, shouldn't brain cancer rates show a notable increase as well? Of course simple logic is of little use in trying to convince the marching morons.
  • There are studies pointing in this and that direction, so far everything is inconclusive.
    What scientists have found out, is that cell phone radiation has some kind of effect on the cells (they're being heated), but this process cannot yet be linked to the mutation of healthy cells to cancer cells.
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