At least eight public have a blinged-out iPhone, but they may be the only ones.

Apple has removed the “I Am Rich” application from its App Store. The program cost $999 and its sole purpose is to show society the owner has money. The program produces a red icon that sits on the iPhone deck with a the words “I Am Rich” underneath. After the user activates the application, it glows on the handset like a ruby.

Apple initially approved the application, which bumps up against the pricing limit for applications sold on its App Store. The company was not immediately available for comment on why it decided to pull the plug on the application.

Six folks from the U.S., one from Germany, and another from France are sporting red-gemmed iPhones, according to developer Armin Heinrich. Heinrich claims the gem includes a “secret mantra.”

“The application really does nothing. It’s about teaching you, in theory,

how to become rich through a mantra of some sort. It really was a functionless, useless application that served no one other than the developer. Unsuspecting folks bought it for $1,000 possibly hoping to get something in return,” asserted Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Forrester Research.

Easy To Purchase

Gartenberg doesn’t think many folks would spend $1,000 on an application for the iPhone anyway, but there were some complaints that it was easy to purchase it by mistake through the App Store’s one-click system. At least one App Store visitor thought the “I Am Rich” application was merely a joke and clicked on the “Buy App” button for a surprise.

“Apple has said from day one that it was going to, in some sense, police the App Store in terms of questionable composition that might be violating other people’s composition and trademarks and services,” Gartenberg said. “In that case, that…

Original post by dhiram