Maneki Neko: Too Cute to be Rude – Quick Look

iPhone and iPod Touch applications developer Vanilla Breeze, just released "Maneki Neko – Too Cute to be Rude". They describe it in this way–

The Maneki Neko(???), aka Welcoming Cat, Money Cat or Fortune Cat, is a popular Japanese sculpture, which is believed to bring good fortune.

Will it bring good fortune? or will it bring bad luck? Touch the cat and see it in the action!

Features:
– Realistic hand motion (Normal)
– Reverse hand motion (Rude)
– Awesome Japanese-style music
– Beautifully designed backgrounds

The $0.99 app offers a number of nice, Japanese-style, melody and the image of the porcelain cat can either automatically wave it hand or move once the user touches the screen. I suspect one has to be up on Japanese culture to truly appreciate all of this since it doesn’t particularly grab and hold my attention. This, however did…

Change one setting and instead of waving at you to wish good luck the cat flips you he bird. David Hahn, Chief Innovation Officer at Vanilla Breeze commented: "The reverse hand motion makes the cat rude and show its finger at you. Apple has been very picky with which application can enter the AppStore and which cannot. Apple seems to be more generous with its decisions these days."

Sure that gave me a short laugh this morning but, more than that, it shows how arbitrary Apple remains when it comes to accepting and rejecting apps. Even the developer was surprised it didn’t get rejected.

Finally, the PR material notes "While there is already a similar application called "Maneki Neko" in the AppStore, is the only application that features a fingering cat."

Hey, if you are going to spend a buck on a cat’s image why WOULDN’T you pick the one that flips you the bird????

You can get it here in the App Store.