Radiation app rejected by Steve Jobs

March 24, 2011 11 AM PT

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Want to monitor your iPhone’s radiation levels? So far, not to be found at Apple’s App Store.

Steve Jobs last year reportedly rejected, in a two-word email, an app for monitoring radiation from Tawkon. So the Israeli-based developer on Wednesday posted instructions on downloading the tool, also called tawkon, by circumenventing Apple via Cydia (an app for finding software unavailable through Apple’s App Store)

‘We tried the front door via Apple’s App store,’ a blog post on the developer’s site said, ‘But when Steve Jobs personally closed the front door with a curt 2-word email stating: ‘No Interest’ ... we were left with no alternative but to climb through the Cydia window to let iPhone users see and lower their exposure to cellphone radiation.’

According to the developer, tawkon measures radiation emissions from cellphones and warns users about their ‘exposure level,’ which varies depending on how people hold their phones, where the people are located (inside or outside, etc.) and how good the connection is.

Tawkon debuted its app last May on BlackBerry’s App World, later making it available on Google’s Android Market. A premium ad-free version costs $9.99, but a free version also exists.

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-- Shan Li

Technology Blog

Shan Li

Shan Li covered the retail and restaurant industries for the Los Angeles Times. She previously reported on the California economy and the technology sector. A Texas native, she graduated from the business school at New York University, where she decided journalism was much more interesting than a job on Wall Street. She left The Times in 2017.