Apple May Be Able To Delete Apps From Your iPhone Without You Knowing

Even leaving the story along for a few hours, people are still freaking out over the revelation that Apple can remotely remove applications from any iPhone in the world. In English, that means Apple, without your knowledge or explicit approval, can remove an application from your iPhone. The company says it’s for safety, for your protection, but try telling that to the Internet.

The long and short of it is, Apple has an ace in its deck, and has a method to remove applications from all those iPhones out there. Reason being, if, somehow, an application gets through it quality control department is later found to have a trojan, Apple can simply pull the app at will. That’s the idea, anyway. The issue then becomes if Apple will remove apps for other reasons—AT&T tells it to; Apple doesn’t like the developer; Steve Jobs is feeling moody; etc.
The reaction was swift on MacRumors, where one user wrote:

“I own the iPhone. Not them. If I want to put a frikkin app on there that I paid for, or is free, that’s my business, not there’s. This is terrible, how is it any better than the other trojans that have been found in Sony, Real Audio, etc? I will hack it out as soon as I can!.”

Then there was this gem:

“Apple’s attitude to iPhone softare stinks a bit and is rather like Communism. ‘Apple knows whats best for its users, just like Communist countries knows whats best for it’s people and will prevent its population from being ‘corrupted’.”

Clearly people were ticked off.
Apple has yet to clarify what its position is on this remote application removal, but we’ll keep smiling until our MLB app goes kaput. Then we’re going to crack some skulls! Skulls!
Apple’s Ability to Deactivate Malicious App Store Apps [MacRumors]