The App that Apple Blocked

Why Did Apple Really Block a Radiation-Measuring iPhone App?

Apple, Inc. recently banned an iPhone app that would come in very handy for users concerned about radio frequency emissions and cell phone use. Inquiring minds want to know why.

Gil Friedlander, a well-reputed software developer, created an app called “Tawkon” thats uses algorithms to measure the rate at which your entire body, not just your brain, absorbs electromagnetic radio frequency energy from your cell phone. The app also measures surrounding environmental factors in order to give you a reading of your EMF exposure in any given location, at any given time. *

The Controversy:

Apple informed the developers that the app would “create confusion” for users and that the diagnostic tool was not going to be included with available iPhone applications.

I have no idea what kind of “confusion” Apple is referring to. Maybe we’d be more likely to shut off our phones if we knew current radiation levels. Maybe that would confuse the profitability of the mobile phone industry. Maybe big corporate interests would be confused about how they can get their hands on more of our money.

The app would alert the user to the amount of radiation being generated while talking on the phone, accessing the Internet or carrying the phone on one’s person.

The app's readings would be valuable health information and might indeed inspire limiting cell phone and mobile device usage. We would benefit by having an idea of real-time radiation information. This information could help us counteract potentially harmful effects of EMF’s from Wi-Fi, mobile phones, and cell masts that are transmitting into our bodies and our surroundings.

Big Business Self Interest?

It certainly isn’t much of a stretch of the imagination to extrapolate just why Apple Corporation would want to ban an application that might lead to consumers nervously switching off their iPhones.

If Apple wants to create suspicion about their business practices and have us start shopping for a BlackBerry (which is scheduled to launch its own version of the app), then they are doing a bang-up job.*

It is vital that protective software, like the radiation-measuring app Tawkon,be developed, because technology shows no signs of slowing. Since science created electromagnetic radio frequency transmitting and receiving devices that put our personal–and especially our children’s–health at risk, certainly science ought to encouraged to create ways to ameliorate the damage caused by EMF exposure.

A diagnostic tool, such as the app that Apple banned, would be a boon to nearly everyone, as it is virtually impossible to completely insulate one’s self from all electromagnetic frequency radiation in the environment.

Apple, Inc., a forerunner in the technological industry and a company that has always been regarded as trendsetting and “hip”, might do well to consider the pressing need for such tools, lest we start to regard them as cruel instead of cool. **

To learn how to protect you and your family from cell phone radiation click here.

References: *Matyszczyk, C., Apple bans iPhone app that measures cell phone radiation, Cnet News.com, Mar. 5, 2010 http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10464388-71.html

**Cyberfrequencies, Apple Blocks Radiation App, The Huffington Post, Apr. 17, 2010