Apple bars drone-strike tracking app from the App Store

Macabre iPhone fans hoping to track assorted unmanned drone strikes in real time on their smartphones are out of luck. Wired reports that Apple (AAPL) has repeatedly rejected submissions from the Drones+ mobile app to appear on the App Store because it displays content that Apple deems “objectionable and crude.” The app itself doesn’t display any images of mangled body parts and only presents a map showing where publicly reported drone strikes have occurred. It also shows estimates of how many people died in each strike. App developer Josh Begley says he designed the app to make Americans aware of how often their government is launching drone strikes and he thought the best way to do that was by “reaching into the pockets of U.S. smartphone users and annoying them into drone-consciousness.”

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