5 ms·

I wish I could. It's not just that I am still bound by my NDA, but telling anyone what the application actually did, would result in bad things happening to co

I wish I could. It's not just that I am still bound by my NDA, but telling anyone what the application actually did, would result in bad things happening to completely innocent people.

MichaelCrawford 12y ago
I also have a legitimate reason to snap still photos on a smartphone, without making the shutter sound. On an iPhone, it sounds just like an SLR film camera, and is very loud. However, it turns out that it is unlawful to do that in such countries as Japan. Asking how to silence the iphone camera on stackoverflow resulted in 20,000 views of my post, several people saying you can't do that, and several people telling me it's against the law, that it would be a bad idea and so on. Nevertheless, I have a completely legitimate reason to do so. I expect Apple would reject it from the App Store. I may do it for Android, as well as for jailbroken iOS devices, but then sell it through the Cydia App Store.
- jacobsimon 12y ago
  Lol silent mode?
  - yzzxy 12y ago
    Not in Japan.
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  I have an Android phone that's not rooted, an Acer. Turning off shutter sound is in the camera settings, it's one of the first things I do with a camera as I prefer natural photos of family to posed ones.
- nradov 12y ago
  You can disable the shutter sound in Android by just putting the phone in silent mode.
  - MichaelCrawford 12y ago
    Hey Thanks! It's just like Apple to be a corporate nanny. I've done some Android Platform Development, but not yet any real Android App Development. I'll do that after I ship the iOS App I'm working on.
    - tedunangst 12y ago
      My iPhone doesn't make a peep in silent mode using either the builtin camera app or Camera+.
      - MichaelCrawford 12y ago
        I haven't actually tried this for quite a long time. Perhaps Apple added a silent mode so as to compete with Android. There's a lot of stuff that at one time would only work on jailbroken devices, only for Apple to "add support" for it as a result of some App becoming a huge hit at the Cydia App store. At first one could not even take still photos programmatically, the user had to use Apple's own App for that. But Snapture - if I remember correctly - was able to do it on jailbroken devices, so Apple added the public API so that Snapture would be sold on the App Store, rather than through Cydia.
        rimantas 12y ago
        > Perhaps Apple added a silent mode so as to compete with > Android. Every single iPhone I had (and I had 3G, 4, 4S, 5, 5S) was able to take photo without sound if it was switched to silent. Probably differs by the region, i.e. those shipped to Japan make camera sound no matter what, others don't.
        MichaelCrawford 12y ago
        Is there a way to silence the shutter sound from code? It doesn't have to be Objective-C and Cocoa Touch. I'd be completely cool with C and system calls.
- jclarkcom 12y ago
  I read someone was able to "remove" the click sound by playing the same click sound phase shifted when taking a photo - so when the OS sound mixer adds the two waveforms together it results in silence. Clever idea - it is the same as noise canceling headphones, except it all happens in software. As others have mentioned, if you put your iphone in silent mode there is no click sound except in Japan. I'm not sure if a) phones sold in Japan have disabled this feature or b) the phone knows when it is located in Japan and then disables silent mode.
  - adsr 12y ago
    I doubt that would work well in practice. The reason is that timing is extremely important for this to work, if you're even one sample off you'll here a faint sound, and more than a few then it's quite obvious. So if the sound is generated by a separate OS process, you'll never know exactly when the sound is generated and you will not even have control over exactly when your own sound is played back in relation to the other process, think sub ms accuracy.
tasdafsdfasdf 12y ago
You realise that this just makes it more intriguing. Personally, I wonder if that's not a way of saying "actually my justification isn't really valid". I don't mean to be inflammatory, I'm voicing my concern -- it sounds fishy.
- FeeTinesAMady 12y ago
  The whole thing really does sound like he didn't have any legitimate reasons to be doing that and is just deflecting criticism.

I wish I could. It's not just that I am still bound by my NDA, but telling anyone what the application actually did, would result in bad things happening to completely innocent people.

MichaelCrawford 12y ago

I also have a legitimate reason to snap still photos on a smartphone, without making the shutter sound. On an iPhone, it sounds just like an SLR film camera, and is very loud. However, it turns out that it is unlawful to do that in such countries as Japan. Asking how to silence the iphone camera on stackoverflow resulted in 20,000 views of my post, several people saying you can't do that, and several people telling me it's against the law, that it would be a bad idea and so on. Nevertheless, I have a completely legitimate reason to do so. I expect Apple would reject it from the App Store. I may do it for Android, as well as for jailbroken iOS devices, but then sell it through the Cydia App Store.

jacobsimon 12y ago
Lol silent mode?
- yzzxy 12y ago
  Not in Japan.
pbhjpbhj 12y ago
I have an Android phone that's not rooted, an Acer. Turning off shutter sound is in the camera settings, it's one of the first things I do with a camera as I prefer natural photos of family to posed ones.
nradov 12y ago
You can disable the shutter sound in Android by just putting the phone in silent mode.
- MichaelCrawford 12y ago
  Hey Thanks! It's just like Apple to be a corporate nanny. I've done some Android Platform Development, but not yet any real Android App Development. I'll do that after I ship the iOS App I'm working on.
  - tedunangst 12y ago
    My iPhone doesn't make a peep in silent mode using either the builtin camera app or Camera+.
    - MichaelCrawford 12y ago
      I haven't actually tried this for quite a long time. Perhaps Apple added a silent mode so as to compete with Android. There's a lot of stuff that at one time would only work on jailbroken devices, only for Apple to "add support" for it as a result of some App becoming a huge hit at the Cydia App store. At first one could not even take still photos programmatically, the user had to use Apple's own App for that. But Snapture - if I remember correctly - was able to do it on jailbroken devices, so Apple added the public API so that Snapture would be sold on the App Store, rather than through Cydia.
      - rimantas 12y ago
        > Perhaps Apple added a silent mode so as to compete with > Android. Every single iPhone I had (and I had 3G, 4, 4S, 5, 5S) was able to take photo without sound if it was switched to silent. Probably differs by the region, i.e. those shipped to Japan make camera sound no matter what, others don't.
        MichaelCrawford 12y ago
        Is there a way to silence the shutter sound from code? It doesn't have to be Objective-C and Cocoa Touch. I'd be completely cool with C and system calls.
jclarkcom 12y ago
I read someone was able to "remove" the click sound by playing the same click sound phase shifted when taking a photo - so when the OS sound mixer adds the two waveforms together it results in silence. Clever idea - it is the same as noise canceling headphones, except it all happens in software. As others have mentioned, if you put your iphone in silent mode there is no click sound except in Japan. I'm not sure if a) phones sold in Japan have disabled this feature or b) the phone knows when it is located in Japan and then disables silent mode.
- adsr 12y ago
  I doubt that would work well in practice. The reason is that timing is extremely important for this to work, if you're even one sample off you'll here a faint sound, and more than a few then it's quite obvious. So if the sound is generated by a separate OS process, you'll never know exactly when the sound is generated and you will not even have control over exactly when your own sound is played back in relation to the other process, think sub ms accuracy.

tasdafsdfasdf 12y ago

You realise that this just makes it more intriguing. Personally, I wonder if that's not a way of saying "actually my justification isn't really valid". I don't mean to be inflammatory, I'm voicing my concern -- it sounds fishy.

FeeTinesAMady 12y ago
The whole thing really does sound like he didn't have any legitimate reasons to be doing that and is just deflecting criticism.