That being said, this creeps me out just enough that I’ll think twice before opening the damned thing.

Joby, if you read these things, let me propose this: Give a thought to being proactively, openly, vocally cool and cut this crap out loudly. Bill your free app not only as among the finest available but also the first photo app to say ” We don’t want to be one more douchbag in an app-market overflowing with douchbags! There’ll never again be creepy shite in our products. Further, we believe the best way to improve our apps is to ASK YOU how you use it and what you want it to do better and let’s crush the amateur douchebags together!”

Then create an interactive area for the open exchange of info…
- throw up some polls
- figure out what we motivated iPhoneographic obsessives (ie those likely to buy a tripod) *really* want from their camera
- give away some product

In other words, start making Joby the non-douchebag brand – the cool guys who make and sell the cool stuff. Next thing you know you’ll be the company with so much mojo that you’re sponsoring MTV Spring Break orgies hosted by supermodels.

…supermodels that need tripods !

-milo

thanks for your reply and your effort. I really apriciate your work. And also that of Joby's Gorillacam – so far.

The answer from developers is always the same. They get only anonymized data from Pinch Media and they need this information to make their apps better. Dont get me wrong. I have no problem to tell Joby that i used it nearly every day on a 3GS with 3.1.3 no jailbreak etc. Or that i wish that they could improve saving speed after the very good burst mode. And i have a relationship with them because i am their customer – ok the app is free till now.

BUT i have nothing to do with Pinch Media. And Pinch Media is STEALING personalized data like – as i read:

- your telephone number

- your iPhone's hardware identifier

- your phone model and OS version

- app name and version

- is your device jailbroken

- length of time app was running

- your location if not disaggreed

- your gender and age if using Facebook Connect

from your phone. Pinch Media could do a lot more as the developers themself with the data. And from all "their" apps!. The only way to avoid this – thats what Pinch Media suggests – is to run the app in "airplane mode"?! No button to switch off!

And why does no developer mention that he is collecting data with his app if it is sooo harmless? In Joby's case its especially awful. They got the trust of me and a lot of users. Also you recommended it to your readers. And then they update to the backdoor with this spyware. They lost all my trust. Some other may think: Hey, Marty recommended me spyware…

To know how many pics are taken with the app could this really help Joby to improve their app?

The only advantage i could think of is – for paid apps – to know how many apps are paid or broken. For free apps i dont know. I only can think of marketing activities or selling some data or selling advertising in my app…

Its really sad. I liked the app and saved also some money to buy a gorillapod. But now my postive appraisal is gone.

First i deleted the app like i do with all other apps the scanner detected in the past.

Gorillacam was the first photo app that was detected. Second i dont know if i still want to have a gorillapad.

Just my 50 cents

Tomba

Thank you for looking into this and pointing this out. Personally, I don't have an issue with Joby's data collection, but I realize that other users may.

I contacted Joby, the company that created Gorillacam. You are correct in that they have added reporting to the app using Pinch Media. Here's what they had to say:

"We decided to use Pinch Media in order to gather anonymized data in aggregated form to help make our app better. For example, we can tell that so far in February, people have taken over 250k photos. Pinch Media doesn't show us information that can be traced back to individual photographers. And it's a heck of a lot better than trying to get information from iTunes Connect, the interface Apple presents to developers.

"We do essentially the same thing with our website, through Google Analytics, and use that data to try to make our website better too."

Again, I realize that some users are uncomfortable with Pinch Media data collection in iPhone apps and I've reposted Joby's response here so that users can make an informed decision on whether or not to use Gorillacam.

=M=

i checked .ipa's today with IPA Scanner 0.2. Version 1.1 includes SPYWARE now.

I am very sad and downgraded to version 1.0 which seam to be clean.