Apple bans mobile game from App Store after developer created it with intention of breaking as many iPhones as possible

Apple was forced to ban a mobile game from its App Store when it discovered it was created to break as many iPhones as possible.

It may sound like a slightly dull episode of Black Mirror, but Send Me To Heaven, or SMTH, is a legitimate app.

The app was released back in 2013, by a company called Carrot Pop. 

But it wasn’t long before it was banned from the Apple App Store for very good reason.

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Apple bans mobile game called Send Me To Heaven

These days, there’s an app for just about everything, from hailing a robotaxi, finding the love of your life, and even avoiding being hit with a fine. 

But back in 2013, an app launched with an altogether more nefarious purpose: to break as many iPhones as possible. 

But this wasn’t some sort of bug or malicious software; Send Me To Heaven was simply a game. 

A game that involved hurling your phone as high into the air as possible and then… well, hopefully catching it before it crashed to the ground. 

Almost as soon as the app was launched, it was banned from App Store, quite possibly saving a fair few iPhones in the process. 

Apple said the game was ‘encouraging behavior that could result in damage to the user’s device’.

However, the ban was disappointing to Send Me To Heaven’s creator Petr Svarovsky. 

In a 2013 interview, shortly after the ban, Svarovsky was reported to have said he ‘had hoped to have people shatter as many iPhones as possible’.

“The original idea was to have very expensive gadgets, which people in certain societies buy just to show off, and to get them to throw it,” he told Wired.

But the game wasn’t banned everywhere

While Apple was swift in banning the app, it was released on Google Play, where it can still be downloaded. 

And it seems there are plenty of folks who were willing to give it a try as it’s amassed thousands of reviews.

Although several of the reviews posted urged others to be careful. 

“Destroyed my phone,” one reviewer said in 2021. 

“I broke my phone, do not play,” another wrote.

While a third noted: “Can’t say they didn’t warn me I’d smash my screen.”

Despite the warnings and countless smashed screens, the app is rated quite highly, currently sitting at 4.3 stars out of five.