Alpha Mummy: A program that replicates violence against infants? Ha ha!

Apple has withdrawn a 99-cent iPhone game called "Baby Shaker" from its iTunes App store after its premise - quiet a crying baby with a vigorous shake - prompted outrage.

Baby Shaker displayed black-and-white line drawings of a baby. The iTunes description says: "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!" The user can then shake the phone and the on-screen baby is shown with large red X's over its eyes.

An applications review website called Krapps spotted Baby Shaker and protested about it. Within a few hours, other websites and Twitter had picked up on the outrage. Organizations including the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome condemned Apple for approving the game's sale.

The Sarah Jane Brain Foundation, a New York-based group which seeks to prevent brain injuries from so-called Shaken Baby Syndrome demanded "a personal apology to parents of SBS victims and survivors" from Apple chief executive Steve Jobs.

"Apple, Inc., which notoriously and routinely rejects new apps from developers with a 'rigorous' vetting process, nonetheless apparently allowed this horrible application to be sold through its store," the Foundation said.

The app appeared on the iTunes online store on Monday and was removed yesterday. It was designed by a company called Sikalosoft, which has produced other iPhone app games. In its description of the game Sikolosoft adds the line: "Never, never shake a baby." The company did not respond to e-mails seeking comment but also removed the game from its website.

Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris confirmed that Apple removed Baby Shaker yesterday. She would not comment on why the program was initially approved for sale nor about how many people downloaded the game.

Apple screens every iPhone application, a process which has come under fire for being slow and inconsistent. The company has rejected apps that let iPhone users throw virtual shoes at President George W. Bush or watch clips from the "South Park" cartoon. It has accepted numerous programs that simulate flatulence.

In an earlier example, one developer was told that his app had been rejected because his program did not "comply with Community Standards,” programs that have “any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.) or other content or materials that in Apple’s reasonable judgment may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users.”

The App store has been a huge hit for Apple. There are more than 35,000 different paid and free apps available and the company is about to pass the one billionth download from the store in just nine months. Apps are one of the reasons why Apple was celebrating selling 3.8 million iPhones in the last three months, more than twice as many as over the samer period a year ago, despite the economic downturn.

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