Mark my words, you don’t want to get on the wrong side of a bunch of Israeli developers, but that’s just what Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, recently did with his rude and curt “no interest” rejection email to Israeli firm, Tawkon.
Tawkon, whose app lets users see and avoid exposure to mobile phone radiation, received the odismissive two word email from Jobs himself, who ironically should know a thing or two about wanting to watch out for one’s health and avoid potentially cancer inducing radiation.
Tawkon isn’t taking the brusque brush off lying down, however, sticking its app on Cydia, the unofficial alternative to the iPhone App Store, for free.
Gil Friedlander, CEO & Co-Founder of Tawkon – who has long been hopeful Apple would take the same brave path as RIM took in approving the app explained, “after encouraging discussions with iPhone executives at Apple Cupertino headquarters, their generous compliments about our application functionality and graphic appeal weren’t enough to sway the executive decision to reject tawkon from the app store.”
Friedlander, however, said he believed it was every phone user’s fundamental right to know the level of radiation they’re exposed to, and to take precautionary measures if they see fit. “Tawkon makes it easy for people to use their iPhone with lower exposure to cellphone radiation,” he said.
Tawkon subtly alerts you when your exposure to radiation rises during a call. Through the use of simple prompts like “go back,” “hold your phone vertically,” or “activate speakerphone,” the app helps users avoid radiation when it can be avoided. It also shows users how much radiation they avoided by using tawkon during the last call, day, week, month or even up to six months.
The firm also claims to have created the world’s first user-generated radiation map, and allows users to identify potential ‘avoid’ zones in their homes, office or neighborhoods using “prediction mode” to see low and high radiation zones.
Thus, while Steve Jobs may have “no interest” in giving iPhone users the choice to monitor their level of radiation absorption while using the phone, Friedlander believes it’s a must, and worth circumventing the app store for.
We’ve reviewed and talked about this app before, and from experience, we highly recommend it. So, iPhone users, while we can’t actively encourage you to jail break your phones to access the app on Cydia, we do very much encourage you to sign the public petition on the tawkon website, which goes straight to Apple executives. With the right amount of pressure, who knows what kind of a revolution radiation sensitive iPhone toting hipsters might foment.
