Slasher Escapes Approval Limbo, Returns to App Store

You'd be excused for thinking that the case on Slasher, the iPhone app that showed a picture of an ordinary kitchen knife to the accompaniment of a "horror" sound, had long gone cold. The app was brutally, er, slashed from the App Store last August, on the basis of "objectionable" content--one of the very first to fall prey to Apple's reign of terror, which has continued unabated to this day.

But, lo, what's this? Slasher developer Josef W. Wankerl dropped Macworld a line yesterday to say that he'd received a call from Apple--we notice it's always a phone call when Apple apologizes: is it pure politeness or do they not want a paper trail? In either case, Slasher is once again on the App Store in all of its knife-wielding, horror-sound-playing glory. The latest version, 1.1.1, even features faster startup time, proving that Wankerl was hardly twiddling his thumbs while the program was lost in Apple's approval limbo.

Is this the sign of a kinder, gentler Apple? Or is the company just finally clearing its backlog from last August? Seriously, guys, ten months for an app with just one function? I know these programs need thorough testing--heaven forbid there be some sort of Easter egg--but still, what is going on over there?