Pull My Finger Back in App Store

We are not pulling your legs -- the controversial app Pull My Finger (iTunes link) by the developer Air-O-Matic.com is again for sale in the iTunes App Store for $.99

As our colleagues at CNET News reported in September, Apple rejected the app because it was "of limited utility to the broad iPhone and iPod Touch user community." However, it's back to stay in the Entertainment category of the iTunes App Store.

If you are interested in a demonstration you can see a video of the new app in action. Pull My Finger does what you would expect it to do--it generates numerous flatulence sounds from your iPhone. When it was first released it produced about five unique sounds, but it has been re-released now with a total of 18 high quality sounds and cartoon characters per the vendors website. The sounds can be played randomly, in Chorus mode for a continuous loop and it even vibrates now to add to the realism.

According to an article on Mac|Life.com, the developer of Pull My Finger said "The Apple representative also confessed that, originally, they didn't want to reject the Pull My Finger app. Apple is still determining how this new genre of apps would be handled."

We find this revelation to be a bit lacking. What does it mean, exactly, for an app to have "utility?" Perhaps fart joke humor was beyond the app reviewer's level of comprehension, but we'll never know. We'll also never really know why it was finally accepted. Is Apple finally coming around letting the market decide what is good or bad? Let's hope so.