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Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/26/ifart/

If you can fart, you can earn $10,000

As Apple relaxes, stinkers escape

By Rik Myslewski in San Francisco

Posted in Mobile, 26th December 2008 22:01 GMT

Watch Now : Virtual Machine Movement with Hyper-V

iPhone developers have discovered that there's big money to be made in - as Mark Twain once described it [1] - clearing one's nether throat. According to stats published [2] on his website, developer Joel Comm's unsubtley named iFart Mobile [3] is the current point-poot in a silent-but-deadly rise in the popularity of cyber-flatulence.

Either the apocalypse is drawing nigh, or shareholders of GlaxoSmithKline - makers of Beano [4] - should sell, sell, sell.

Websites such as CNN.Money, [5] TechCrunch [6], and VentureBeat [7] have reported that iFart - the most popular of the new and gaseous gang of iPhone and iPod Touch "entertainment" apps - is pulling in around $10,000 per day.

The immediate reason for this surge in colonic purge is Apple's recent relaxation [8] of its previously more-stringent App Store standards - a move that immediately inspired a concomitant relaxation of cybersphincters among developers of mobile "crapware [9]."

Consider, if you will, the following representative digifarts now available for your edification and enjoyment (these links are to the iTunes App Store):

We could go on. But that would be wrong.

It remains to be seen - or detected by some other, more olfactory sense - what other directions Apple's relaxation of its guidelines may lead, seeing as how even the mildest form [16] of sexual titilation remains verboten. Maybe the App Store will next feature iPuke? Or iRidiculeEthnicMinorities? Only time will tell.

One thing's for certain, though: The success of iFart and its fellows is no mere poot in the pan. Expect further refinements of audio excellence and flatulential functionality - as Comm says, "Watch for v1.1 ... we’ve got some great new features that you are going to love."

We can hardly hold in our excitement...