This has the potential to get ugly and hack a lot of people off — users and developers.
Since the release of iOS 5 and the addition of the Volume Button Shutter in Apple’s Camera, many third party developers have followed suit and implemented the feature in their own apps. Jeff McMorris from CodeGoo, creators of Camera Genius tells Life In LoFi that Apple has approved these apps “by mistake.”
Earphone Camera By Signal9 [ ] is a simple camera app that enables you to easily take photos and take videos by using the iPhone’s earbuds like a wired remote.
Earphone Camera is a simple but handy app. I’m not sure whether the app’s funtionality changes the use of the iPhone’s hardware and violates Apple’s terms of the SDK like the VolumeSnap feature that caused several camera apps to be removed a few months ago. Regardless, there’s nothing else like it currently available. Just in case, grab it now in case Apple change their mind.
Back in August 2010, the number one photo app at the time was Camera+, which was suddenly deleted from the App Store for 4 months because of VolumeSnap, an undocumented Easter Egg allowing users to use the volume buttons on their iPhones as a shutter release.
The feature is back in several minor apps — mostly coming from Russia and China. The latest is Quick Snap – Camera Plus by a developer called Good Code, which was released on December 15, 2009 shortly before the App Store went on its holiday break. They are pretty blatant about the feature, describing VolumeSnap in the first line of the App Store description and they even use photos of the Easter Egg. As of today, December 27, 2009, Quick Snap is still available in the App Store and is an app that I do not recommend.
It was bound to happen sometime. I’m surprised this version of the app was allowed to stay in the App Store for as long as it was.
Camera+, the excellent camera replacement app from tap tap tap, is gone from the App Store. Usually perched high atop the “Top Paid” app ratings, it looks like the recent version 1.2.1 of the app has been pulled, most likely because of the hack that activates the hidden VolumeSnap feature in the app. The blogosphere was ablaze with the hack a couple of days ago — we were among the first to report it.
What to do if you want to keep the VolumeSnap hack after the jump. >>>
UPDATE: Based on Dean’s comment below, at 10:40: am CDT, I deleted and redownloaded Camera+ to my iPhone 2G, where I had NOT previously performed this feature unlock. Sure enough, the unlock didn’t work on this newly downloaded copy of Camera+. The app still says version 1.2.1. It may be because the “exploit” has already been closed and a revised version of Camera+ has quietly been uploaded to the App Store — that was fast. Or, perhaps the hack doesn’t work on an iPhone 2G. I’m still able to use VolumeSnap on my iPhone 4 where I’d applied the hack on an installed copy.
Purchase, update or reinstall Camera+ at your own discretion. At this point, the hack may not work with the app. Or it simply may not work with your device.
Are you getting this unlock to work? Let us know in the comments below.
=M=
–
Camera+ is one of the best, most full-featured camera replacement apps in the App Store currently. Click here to read our recent review of the app. According the tap tap tap blog, the latest update of the app has been rejected because of a cool new feature, VolumeSnap. You should head over there – it’s an interesting peek into the backroom of the App Store.