7 ms·

$500k Selling Camera+ pulled from AppStore over 'Easter Egg'

79 points by ajg1977 16y ago

thewileyone 16y ago
Doesn't seem much of a "backstab" ... Apple's Easter Egg policy is shit.
- geedee77 16y ago
  Maybe it is shit, but it's also documented and the punishments for ignoring the policy are clearly laid out. As much as you or I may think it's a bit dumb that Apple won't allow the easter egg, we can't be surprised by their reaction to it once they knew about it.
  - notahacker 16y ago
    It's hardly "backstabbing" to allow an additional feature that users want that has no negative consequences for Apple whatsoever
    - powrtoch 16y ago
      I certainly thought it was a stretch to call it "backstabbing", but of course that's not Apple's choice of language. Really though, if you get rejected specifically for a certain feature, then secretly enable it anyway and try to slip it past the reviewers... obviously Apple cannot be expected to say that's okay. Even if you dislike the review process, surely you can't expect Apple's policy to be "it's okay to include functionality we've specifically rejected and hide it from us".
  - apgwoz 16y ago
    Apple will allow easter eggs, but you have to disclose them to the review team (they promise to keep them confidential). This "easter egg" wasn't disclosed, and was an attempt to get a feature into the phone that was rejected by Apple before. Right or wrong, this violated Apple's documented restrictions--this shouldn't even be a story.
    - andrew1 16y ago
      > this shouldn't even be a story. If people are interested in the issue then of course it should be. Just because a law or rule exists doesn't mean that people should be happy with it, or accepting of it. If my government passed a law that I didn't agree with and prosecuted someone for breaking it, then I'd be happy for that issue to be discussed in the media. It doesn't matter whether the person knowingly broke the law or not, I'd still want the issue to get publicity.
      - apgwoz 16y ago
        The story isn't about that though. The story is about how someone created an Easter Egg and Apple took the app down--exactly like they said they would. If this story was "$500K worth of users want to use the volume button to take pictures, but Apple won't let us" now you have a story that might actually be worthy. Until then, no story. I'm getting awfully annoyed at all these stories about how the App Store sucks, and the approval process sucks. Non-developers don't care about this. They buy the apps that are approved and follow Apple's guidelines. Apple doesn't care because its vetting process protects its users, and its brand. Only developers care. And if developers care, they shouldn't waste their time writing software for the platform. And they shouldn't use it either. Force Apple to change by voting against them. Until then, they'll only see it as good exposure, and find another app that users will tolerate.
  - thewileyone 16y ago
    It doesn't make it right to shoot someone in your garden just because you put a sign that says you'll do so.
msy 16y ago
$500k Selling Camera+ politely pulled from AppStore with explanation, over deliberate attempt to circumvent ban on functionality that had been explicitly denied. An easter egg is putting a flight simulator in a spreadsheet program, this was just hiding a feature that had previously got the app rejected and then bragging about it. That they did so after talking about how other apps tried to sneak things past and it was a stupid idea boggles the mind. When Apple finds out about these incidents, they tend to crack down pretty hard on them, sometimes going so far as completely banning the developers from the App Store. So this is definitely not the smart way to go. - http://taptaptap.com/blog/cameraplus-volumesnap-rejected/ http://taptaptap.com/blog/cameraplus-volumesnap-rejected/
- malbiniak 16y ago
  Like when Yelp snuck in Monocole in before the iPhone 3.1 release? Except in that case, there was a very different outcome (they weren't removed from the store).
  - djcapelis 16y ago
    Are we sure they snuck it in? It's possible they disclosed it appropriately... Apple's policy allows easter eggs if they're disclosed confidentially to the appstore review team.
    - awad 16y ago
      But the point is that Yelp was using a private (at the time) api to support the monocle. Edit: According to dieterrams, I am mistaken and stand corrected.
      - dieterrams 16y ago
        This is apparently untrue, according to the (then) intern who created it.
        newhouseb 16y ago
daleharvey 16y ago
was this post written in a sarcacstic tone or did they really call it "backstabbing"? that is almost creepy
bryanlarsen 16y ago
This just goes to show how user-unfriendly Apple is. I understand why they have their HIG, and why they reject apps for breaking it. However, when a user goes to the trouble of entering in a secret URL they obviously want the secret feature very badly and are not going to get "confused" by it.
- tjogin 16y ago
  This ban has nothing to do with the user. This is the developer circumventing the AppStore reviewers, including functionality that they know for a fact isn't permitted.
  - bryanlarsen 16y ago
    If the user can't buy an app the user wants to buy, then the user is being screwed just as much as the developer is. Maybe it's the developer's fault that the user is being screwed, but I argue that the developer was giving the users their most requested feature, and Apple is the one being user-unfriendly.
    - gaius 16y ago
      Am I "screwed" because I can't swap the brake and the clutch on my car?
      - shabble 16y ago
        is there a legal requirement to have them in a particular order? Otherwise, I'm fairly sure you could have a mechanic do that, although it could end up being fairly expensive. To extend your analogy to the issue at hand, Apple are in the position of owning every mechanic shop around, and explicitly forcing them not to offer this service or risk being shut down.
      - ZeroGravitas 16y ago
        They said "being screwed", not "are screwed". If you are screwed then you're up the creek without a paddle, in a hopeless situation. If you're being screwed then someone is taking the mickey, taking advantage of their power over you to your detriment. Now, if someone is prohibiting modifications to your motor vehicle, then you probably are being screwed, though unless you have some health issue that prevents you from driving with the standard controls (or taking steady photos via an awkward touchscreen control) then you're likely not screwed by this imposition, just inconvenienced.
jacquesm 16y ago
http://www.eeggs.com/items/43501.html http://www.eeggs.com/items/43501.html What's good for the goose... Apple really goes out of their way to tell developers that they can be penalized for circumventing their restrictions, but if both developers and end users want to circumvent the restrictions you really have to wonder as a company if you are on the right path. The bad press that Apple has gotten because of stuff like this in the last year is really starting to add up, and I think this is one of the best examples to date of why such control is wrong. Strictly speaking this is not an 'easter egg' but a user interface policy violation, presenting it as an easter egg including a very difficult activation sequence should prove beyond doubt to Apple that these users are going to be perfectly happy with their volume control not working in the Apple dictated way. It is their volume control button after all (the users', not Apples).
- mechanical_fish 16y ago
  if both developers and end users want to circumvent the restrictions you really have to wonder as a company if you are on the right path And most people do wonder, and then they cave. Which explains the dynamic that drives 90% of the designs out there: CUSTOMER: "I want to be able to receive email from inside my blog." DEVELOPER: "No, really, you don't. Email is a complex beast. It will make your blog software much bigger and more complicated and fragile. You will spend a lot more to develop it and a lot more to maintain it. It will be hard to design in such a way that it's easy to learn and understand. And you may think you need it, but you don't." [five minutes pass] CUSTOMER: "The most important missing feature is: I want to be able to receive email from inside my blog." DEVELOPER: "We talked about that five minutes ago. It is a really bad idea!" [iterate fifty times] CUSTOMER: "I want to be able to receive email from inside my blog." DEVELOPER: "Okay! Okay! I want that, too, so that I can charge you money to implement it instead of fending off the request every five seconds." [two months later] CUSTOMER: "Why is my blog software so difficult for my new employees to learn, and why is it so complicated, and why does it cost so much to maintain?" DEVELOPER: [stabs self with pen] --- Design integrity is hard. Hard on everyone. Maybe that's why so few products have it.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
statictype 16y ago
I would have bought the app just to be able to use a hardware button to take photos. I'm a bit confused though: If Apple doesn't want to let Apps override the behavior of the volume keys, why did they even make it possible?
- markkanof 16y ago
  I assume the API provides notifications when the volume buttons are pressed so that an app that has music/sound can adjust it's own volume. Of course there is no way for apple to determine programatically that the app is using those notifications for some other purpose. So features like this end up being in the app, until a human spots it and rejects the app.
pistoriusp 16y ago
IMHO it seems fair for Apple to have removed the app. I can only imagine how many more copies they are going to sell once the app is added again. The people from TapTapTap/ MacHeist are incredibly smart. I think they planned it to go exactly this way.
markstahler 16y ago
I wonder how long their next app will take to get 'reviewed', if ever.
corin_ 16y ago
While it was dumb of the developer to try and do it behind Apple's back, and they should have known they would get caught... The logic behind Apple's rule that volume buttons cannot be used to control anything other than volume is that it may confuse users. Surely based on that, the fact that users had to go out of their way to enable the feature (more so than even changing settings within the application), the feature is only accessible to users who won't get confused. Of course, once they discovered it, Apple did have to take the action they did (or risk opening themselves up to all developers taking the same risk), but they should consider allowing an exception to the rule for developers who make it hard enough to enable that kind of feature, while also providing users with valid warnings, documentation and an option to disable it again that is far easier than it was to enable it.
skalpelis 16y ago
They just cannot please everybody. There was a fuss when they were being arbitrary with their rejections and now there's a fuss when they reject an app for not following the rules.
- biafra 16y ago
  Which rule of the developer agreement disallows using volume controls for anything else than volume control?
  - steveklabnik 16y ago
    The HIG (I don't have time to find a citation right now, but that's where it'd be.)
  - skalpelis 16y ago
    Don't know and don't care much about it, but it says in the article that sneaking in undisclosed easter eggs is verboten and that is why [this version of] the app was rejected.
marknutter 16y ago
When I saw the first pictures of the new iphone and heard about its camera, I looked at the volume buttons and automatically assumed that they would be used to take the picture; just like a real camera. The fact that you can't really baffles me. Touching a software button on the screen that you are trying to line up for a good shot is awkward and inelegant. Good for the camera+ guys for trying to include this feature. I only wish I had heard about it sooner so I could have gotten a copy. Maybe it is yet again time for me to jailbreak my phone.
- absconditus 16y ago
  What happens when one receives a call while taking a photo and wants to turn the ringer volume down?
  - marknutter 16y ago
    The phone application comes to the forefront and the volume buttons then function normally under that context. Do you have an iPhone?
    - absconditus 16y ago
      I do, but I rarely receive phone calls.
      - marknutter 16y ago
        Yeah, it basically kicks you out of whatever app you're in. Now, you can navigate back to apps once you're in the phone call, which could potentially cause a problem if both the phone app and the camera app are vying for the same control over the volume buttons, but Apple could just make it so the phone app always has priority over those buttons.
    - jsz0 16y ago
      The bigger problem is music. If you have shuffle on you can get pretty big variations in loudness.
aw3c2 16y ago
Slightly Off-Topic: How safe are those application controlling URLs? Can one do a CRSF like <img src="camplus://enablevolumesnap" /> ?
- bradleyland 16y ago
  I don't know much about them specifically, but if they're anything like all the common schemes (http, ftp, ldap, etc), your application would be responsible for implementing a security policy. For example, there is nothing about HTTP that implicitly prevents CRSF. However, web servers that speak HTTP pass information about the requester that can be used to prevent CRSF at the application layer.
- cmelbye 16y ago
  It's not an HTTP server, so that example wouldn't work. The URL needs to be visited (with an anchor or just by typing into the Safari address bar), and Safari will close and open the application associated with the URL scheme.
demallien 16y ago
Huh. So you can access the volume buttons without using a private API? Or did Apple's tools somehow fail to pickup that the app was linking to a private API? That would be news!
- PanMan 16y ago
  I guess you can read the volume change without using a private API (like, a music player could use that function). If the volume changes, the user pressed the volume button. Makes you wonder if this app also works with the volume on the iphone remote..
jokermatt999 16y ago
Although I generally dislike App Store model, I'd say this is a fair ban in the context of Apple's rules. They'd outlawed that functionality, so they removed the app when they tried to sneak it back in. This is perfectly logical. However, if users want the functionality enough to bother going to secret URL to enable it, perhaps the rule is a bad one. Users clearly want something as simple as using a physical button to take a picture, but Apple won't let them because it violates their guidelines. On one hand, this means apps are consistent and follow Apple rules, but on the other hand, it means you simply cannot have a ridiculously simple feature simply because Apple says so. Would you rather have consistency or freedom?
- kristiandupont 16y ago
  I agree - the fact that you have to actively unlock this feature should mean that you are aware what you are doing and thus, the risk of confusion is not an issue.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
joey_bananas 16y ago
The policy outlined in the submission tip image seem pretty reasonable to me. With so many people building apps for iOS, one has to assume that some of them are malicious assholes.
rmc 16y ago
What's interesting is that Apple's App Review process clearly did not know that that functionality is in the programme. I thought they were supposed to be evaulating and testing apps to ensure they are high quality?
jsz0 16y ago
I want my volume buttons to always be volume buttons. I don't know if that's an unreasonable way of looking at the world or not. Having the ringer on/off switch helps but there are lots of times when you're wearing headphones that a sudden burst of loud sound (either on a call or un-normalized MP3s) is very uncomfortable. I don't want my SmartPhone to cause me pain.
- dannyr 16y ago
  You can have your volume buttons to be ALWAYS volume buttons by NOT downloading the app. It's your choice.
- shasta 16y ago
  If you want your volume buttons to stay volume buttons, I recommend not going out of your way to reprogram them. Or did you mean that you want MY volume buttons to stay volume buttons?
10char 16y ago
If anyone is interested, I whipped up a stand-alone app this morning that does the same thing: http://github.com/clayallsopp/VolumeCamera http://github.com/clayallsopp/VolumeCamera Made it pretty quick, so YMMV
jrockway 16y ago
Hey look, yet another problem that Android developers and users don't have. Make any button do anything. And the antenna works.
mkramlich 16y ago
And developer/producer interest in the Android platform just notched up a little farther.

79 points by ajg1977 16y ago

thewileyone 16y ago

Doesn't seem much of a "backstab" ... Apple's Easter Egg policy is shit.

geedee77 16y ago
Maybe it is shit, but it's also documented and the punishments for ignoring the policy are clearly laid out. As much as you or I may think it's a bit dumb that Apple won't allow the easter egg, we can't be surprised by their reaction to it once they knew about it.
- notahacker 16y ago
  It's hardly "backstabbing" to allow an additional feature that users want that has no negative consequences for Apple whatsoever
  - powrtoch 16y ago
    I certainly thought it was a stretch to call it "backstabbing", but of course that's not Apple's choice of language. Really though, if you get rejected specifically for a certain feature, then secretly enable it anyway and try to slip it past the reviewers... obviously Apple cannot be expected to say that's okay. Even if you dislike the review process, surely you can't expect Apple's policy to be "it's okay to include functionality we've specifically rejected and hide it from us".
- apgwoz 16y ago
  Apple will allow easter eggs, but you have to disclose them to the review team (they promise to keep them confidential). This "easter egg" wasn't disclosed, and was an attempt to get a feature into the phone that was rejected by Apple before. Right or wrong, this violated Apple's documented restrictions--this shouldn't even be a story.
  - andrew1 16y ago
    > this shouldn't even be a story. If people are interested in the issue then of course it should be. Just because a law or rule exists doesn't mean that people should be happy with it, or accepting of it. If my government passed a law that I didn't agree with and prosecuted someone for breaking it, then I'd be happy for that issue to be discussed in the media. It doesn't matter whether the person knowingly broke the law or not, I'd still want the issue to get publicity.
    - apgwoz 16y ago
      The story isn't about that though. The story is about how someone created an Easter Egg and Apple took the app down--exactly like they said they would. If this story was "$500K worth of users want to use the volume button to take pictures, but Apple won't let us" now you have a story that might actually be worthy. Until then, no story. I'm getting awfully annoyed at all these stories about how the App Store sucks, and the approval process sucks. Non-developers don't care about this. They buy the apps that are approved and follow Apple's guidelines. Apple doesn't care because its vetting process protects its users, and its brand. Only developers care. And if developers care, they shouldn't waste their time writing software for the platform. And they shouldn't use it either. Force Apple to change by voting against them. Until then, they'll only see it as good exposure, and find another app that users will tolerate.
- thewileyone 16y ago
  It doesn't make it right to shoot someone in your garden just because you put a sign that says you'll do so.

msy 16y ago

$500k Selling Camera+ politely pulled from AppStore with explanation, over deliberate attempt to circumvent ban on functionality that had been explicitly denied. An easter egg is putting a flight simulator in a spreadsheet program, this was just hiding a feature that had previously got the app rejected and then bragging about it. That they did so after talking about how other apps tried to sneak things past and it was a stupid idea boggles the mind. When Apple finds out about these incidents, they tend to crack down pretty hard on them, sometimes going so far as completely banning the developers from the App Store. So this is definitely not the smart way to go. - http://taptaptap.com/blog/cameraplus-volumesnap-rejected/ http://taptaptap.com/blog/cameraplus-volumesnap-rejected/

malbiniak 16y ago
Like when Yelp snuck in Monocole in before the iPhone 3.1 release? Except in that case, there was a very different outcome (they weren't removed from the store).
- djcapelis 16y ago
  Are we sure they snuck it in? It's possible they disclosed it appropriately... Apple's policy allows easter eggs if they're disclosed confidentially to the appstore review team.
  - awad 16y ago
    But the point is that Yelp was using a private (at the time) api to support the monocle. Edit: According to dieterrams, I am mistaken and stand corrected.
    - dieterrams 16y ago
      This is apparently untrue, according to the (then) intern who created it.
      - newhouseb 16y ago

daleharvey 16y ago

was this post written in a sarcacstic tone or did they really call it "backstabbing"? that is almost creepy

bryanlarsen 16y ago

This just goes to show how user-unfriendly Apple is. I understand why they have their HIG, and why they reject apps for breaking it. However, when a user goes to the trouble of entering in a secret URL they obviously want the secret feature very badly and are not going to get "confused" by it.

tjogin 16y ago
This ban has nothing to do with the user. This is the developer circumventing the AppStore reviewers, including functionality that they know for a fact isn't permitted.
- bryanlarsen 16y ago
  If the user can't buy an app the user wants to buy, then the user is being screwed just as much as the developer is. Maybe it's the developer's fault that the user is being screwed, but I argue that the developer was giving the users their most requested feature, and Apple is the one being user-unfriendly.
  - gaius 16y ago
    Am I "screwed" because I can't swap the brake and the clutch on my car?
    - shabble 16y ago
      is there a legal requirement to have them in a particular order? Otherwise, I'm fairly sure you could have a mechanic do that, although it could end up being fairly expensive. To extend your analogy to the issue at hand, Apple are in the position of owning every mechanic shop around, and explicitly forcing them not to offer this service or risk being shut down.
    - ZeroGravitas 16y ago
      They said "being screwed", not "are screwed". If you are screwed then you're up the creek without a paddle, in a hopeless situation. If you're being screwed then someone is taking the mickey, taking advantage of their power over you to your detriment. Now, if someone is prohibiting modifications to your motor vehicle, then you probably are being screwed, though unless you have some health issue that prevents you from driving with the standard controls (or taking steady photos via an awkward touchscreen control) then you're likely not screwed by this imposition, just inconvenienced.

jacquesm 16y ago

http://www.eeggs.com/items/43501.html http://www.eeggs.com/items/43501.html What's good for the goose... Apple really goes out of their way to tell developers that they can be penalized for circumventing their restrictions, but if both developers and end users want to circumvent the restrictions you really have to wonder as a company if you are on the right path. The bad press that Apple has gotten because of stuff like this in the last year is really starting to add up, and I think this is one of the best examples to date of why such control is wrong. Strictly speaking this is not an 'easter egg' but a user interface policy violation, presenting it as an easter egg including a very difficult activation sequence should prove beyond doubt to Apple that these users are going to be perfectly happy with their volume control not working in the Apple dictated way. It is their volume control button after all (the users', not Apples).

mechanical_fish 16y ago
if both developers and end users want to circumvent the restrictions you really have to wonder as a company if you are on the right path And most people do wonder, and then they cave. Which explains the dynamic that drives 90% of the designs out there: CUSTOMER: "I want to be able to receive email from inside my blog." DEVELOPER: "No, really, you don't. Email is a complex beast. It will make your blog software much bigger and more complicated and fragile. You will spend a lot more to develop it and a lot more to maintain it. It will be hard to design in such a way that it's easy to learn and understand. And you may think you need it, but you don't." [five minutes pass] CUSTOMER: "The most important missing feature is: I want to be able to receive email from inside my blog." DEVELOPER: "We talked about that five minutes ago. It is a really bad idea!" [iterate fifty times] CUSTOMER: "I want to be able to receive email from inside my blog." DEVELOPER: "Okay! Okay! I want that, too, so that I can charge you money to implement it instead of fending off the request every five seconds." [two months later] CUSTOMER: "Why is my blog software so difficult for my new employees to learn, and why is it so complicated, and why does it cost so much to maintain?" DEVELOPER: [stabs self with pen] --- Design integrity is hard. Hard on everyone. Maybe that's why so few products have it.
- jacquesm 16y ago

statictype 16y ago

I would have bought the app just to be able to use a hardware button to take photos. I'm a bit confused though: If Apple doesn't want to let Apps override the behavior of the volume keys, why did they even make it possible?

markkanof 16y ago
I assume the API provides notifications when the volume buttons are pressed so that an app that has music/sound can adjust it's own volume. Of course there is no way for apple to determine programatically that the app is using those notifications for some other purpose. So features like this end up being in the app, until a human spots it and rejects the app.

pistoriusp 16y ago

IMHO it seems fair for Apple to have removed the app. I can only imagine how many more copies they are going to sell once the app is added again. The people from TapTapTap/ MacHeist are incredibly smart. I think they planned it to go exactly this way.

markstahler 16y ago

I wonder how long their next app will take to get 'reviewed', if ever.

corin_ 16y ago

While it was dumb of the developer to try and do it behind Apple's back, and they should have known they would get caught... The logic behind Apple's rule that volume buttons cannot be used to control anything other than volume is that it may confuse users. Surely based on that, the fact that users had to go out of their way to enable the feature (more so than even changing settings within the application), the feature is only accessible to users who won't get confused. Of course, once they discovered it, Apple did have to take the action they did (or risk opening themselves up to all developers taking the same risk), but they should consider allowing an exception to the rule for developers who make it hard enough to enable that kind of feature, while also providing users with valid warnings, documentation and an option to disable it again that is far easier than it was to enable it.

skalpelis 16y ago

They just cannot please everybody. There was a fuss when they were being arbitrary with their rejections and now there's a fuss when they reject an app for not following the rules.

biafra 16y ago
Which rule of the developer agreement disallows using volume controls for anything else than volume control?
- steveklabnik 16y ago
  The HIG (I don't have time to find a citation right now, but that's where it'd be.)
- skalpelis 16y ago
  Don't know and don't care much about it, but it says in the article that sneaking in undisclosed easter eggs is verboten and that is why [this version of] the app was rejected.

marknutter 16y ago

When I saw the first pictures of the new iphone and heard about its camera, I looked at the volume buttons and automatically assumed that they would be used to take the picture; just like a real camera. The fact that you can't really baffles me. Touching a software button on the screen that you are trying to line up for a good shot is awkward and inelegant. Good for the camera+ guys for trying to include this feature. I only wish I had heard about it sooner so I could have gotten a copy. Maybe it is yet again time for me to jailbreak my phone.

absconditus 16y ago
What happens when one receives a call while taking a photo and wants to turn the ringer volume down?
- marknutter 16y ago
  The phone application comes to the forefront and the volume buttons then function normally under that context. Do you have an iPhone?
  - absconditus 16y ago
    I do, but I rarely receive phone calls.
    - marknutter 16y ago
      Yeah, it basically kicks you out of whatever app you're in. Now, you can navigate back to apps once you're in the phone call, which could potentially cause a problem if both the phone app and the camera app are vying for the same control over the volume buttons, but Apple could just make it so the phone app always has priority over those buttons.
  - jsz0 16y ago
    The bigger problem is music. If you have shuffle on you can get pretty big variations in loudness.

aw3c2 16y ago

Slightly Off-Topic: How safe are those application controlling URLs? Can one do a CRSF like <img src="camplus://enablevolumesnap" /> ?

bradleyland 16y ago
I don't know much about them specifically, but if they're anything like all the common schemes (http, ftp, ldap, etc), your application would be responsible for implementing a security policy. For example, there is nothing about HTTP that implicitly prevents CRSF. However, web servers that speak HTTP pass information about the requester that can be used to prevent CRSF at the application layer.
cmelbye 16y ago
It's not an HTTP server, so that example wouldn't work. The URL needs to be visited (with an anchor or just by typing into the Safari address bar), and Safari will close and open the application associated with the URL scheme.

demallien 16y ago

Huh. So you can access the volume buttons without using a private API? Or did Apple's tools somehow fail to pickup that the app was linking to a private API? That would be news!

PanMan 16y ago
I guess you can read the volume change without using a private API (like, a music player could use that function). If the volume changes, the user pressed the volume button. Makes you wonder if this app also works with the volume on the iphone remote..

jokermatt999 16y ago

Although I generally dislike App Store model, I'd say this is a fair ban in the context of Apple's rules. They'd outlawed that functionality, so they removed the app when they tried to sneak it back in. This is perfectly logical. However, if users want the functionality enough to bother going to secret URL to enable it, perhaps the rule is a bad one. Users clearly want something as simple as using a physical button to take a picture, but Apple won't let them because it violates their guidelines. On one hand, this means apps are consistent and follow Apple rules, but on the other hand, it means you simply cannot have a ridiculously simple feature simply because Apple says so. Would you rather have consistency or freedom?

kristiandupont 16y ago
I agree - the fact that you have to actively unlock this feature should mean that you are aware what you are doing and thus, the risk of confusion is not an issue.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

joey_bananas 16y ago

The policy outlined in the submission tip image seem pretty reasonable to me. With so many people building apps for iOS, one has to assume that some of them are malicious assholes.

rmc 16y ago

What's interesting is that Apple's App Review process clearly did not know that that functionality is in the programme. I thought they were supposed to be evaulating and testing apps to ensure they are high quality?

jsz0 16y ago

I want my volume buttons to always be volume buttons. I don't know if that's an unreasonable way of looking at the world or not. Having the ringer on/off switch helps but there are lots of times when you're wearing headphones that a sudden burst of loud sound (either on a call or un-normalized MP3s) is very uncomfortable. I don't want my SmartPhone to cause me pain.

dannyr 16y ago
You can have your volume buttons to be ALWAYS volume buttons by NOT downloading the app. It's your choice.
shasta 16y ago
If you want your volume buttons to stay volume buttons, I recommend not going out of your way to reprogram them. Or did you mean that you want MY volume buttons to stay volume buttons?

10char 16y ago

If anyone is interested, I whipped up a stand-alone app this morning that does the same thing: http://github.com/clayallsopp/VolumeCamera http://github.com/clayallsopp/VolumeCamera Made it pretty quick, so YMMV

jrockway 16y ago

Hey look, yet another problem that Android developers and users don't have. Make any button do anything. And the antenna works.

mkramlich 16y ago

And developer/producer interest in the Android platform just notched up a little farther.