Apple exec's secret fart app shame
One of the major brains behind what is allowed in the Apple apps store has been unmasked as an anonymous guerrilla developer with a healthy interest in farting and peeing
The director of applications technology at Apple is a secret developer of hilariously immature apps that simulate peeing and pooing, Wired has uncovered.
Phillip Shoemaker, who runs the App Store process and is one of the guys responsible for what is allowed in it, is an iPhone app developer called Gray Noodle. His credits include an app called Animal Fartw, and a urination simulator called iWiz.
Clearly the work of a genius, iWiz allows you to "simulate the experience of urinating for a long time". The app's description promises it will "convince your friends that you'll never stop. iWiz allows you to simulate urination: faster, slower, or just a trickle."
Animal Farts is described as "an easy to use application, targeted for anyone interested in hearing and feeling the natural sounds of animal gas." That's surely everyone.
During his day job, however, Shoemaker is one of the people making decisions about which apps meet approval or rejection. Granted, the reasons why apps are rejected are not often due to their maturity.
As Wired writer Brian X Chen writes, "Apple has long been an icon for quality products, but its overflowing iOS App Store is a crapshoot: nuggets of quality are buried in a vast, steaming heap of inanity."
App employees are usually not permitted to sell apps from the store (even in this case, where Shoemaker isn't likely to be making a fortune from these $1 and $2 gems).
Apple didn't quite see the funny side of the story. In a statement to Wired, a spokesman said, "Phillip's apps were written, submitted and approved before he became an Apple employee. His experience and perspective as a developer is one of the valuable things he brings to Apple's developer relations team. Apple's policy allows for employees to have apps on the App Store if they're developed and published prior to their start at Apple."
In the past, apps have usually been rejected for technical reasons, but also for moral reasons such as 'overtly sexual content'.
Fortunately, it has nothing against farts. Or pee for that matter. Go for a search in the Apps store and you'll find more than a few. What are your favourite fart apps?
Image credit: Wired