Today in TechWant to track U.S. drone strikes? There will apparently never be an app for that
Apple's App Store is filled with a seemingly endless number of apps that can track, report, or otherwise alert you to everything that goes on in the world, but apparently the California-based company has finally drawn the line... at U.S. military drone strikes. An app titled simply "Drones+" has been banned from the virtual marketplace for what Apple consideres to be "objectionable and crude" content.
The app, which was created by a programmer in New York, shows GPS data and alerts when and where the United States utilized unmanned aerial drones to attack a target. The simple program even keeps a historical tally of recent strikes, showing exactly where the hottest hotspots are in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. Each strike notification includes details on the time of the attack, as well as casualties.
The strangest thing about this seemingly random rejection is that the data the app uses isn't gleaned from secret military intelligence — it's all widely available thanks to embedded media coverage of each strike that is carried out. Having dabbled in the world of iPhone app development myself, the app doesn't appear to be breaking any of the cardinal rules set forth by Apple, and it's unclear why the very plain GPS data could be seen as "crude." Unfortunately, Apple doesn't appear to be budging on this front, and we'll likely not see Drones+ — at least in its current state — on our iPhones any time soon.
This article was written by Mike Wehner and originally appeared on Tecca
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