Oh Snap! Apple Pulls Top Selling Camera App Over Easter Egg Feature

We’ve all heard stories about how draconian the App Store policies can be.  There was the whole debacle over political cartoons when Apple realized that satire wasn’t defacing public figures.  There’s also the fact that even magazines like Playboy have to remove any hint of nudity from apps in order to get the approved.  Now we have Apple pulling an excellent camera app because it put in an extra feature to use the volume buttons as shutter buttons.

The app in question is taptaptap’s popular app Camera+.  Camera+ was featured as the “App Of The Week” by Apple shortly after it’s release, and was on the top of the paid app charts as of Wednesday.  Camera+ added useful photo editing and two-finger focusing (one for focus, one for exposure) to the mix, which was a vast improvement over the Apple-made Camera app. {Gizmodo}

For version 1.3 of Camera+, taptaptap decided to include “Volume Snap,” which would allow the volume buttons (on the phone as well as headphones) to act as shutter buttons.  The idea being it would make it easier to get steady shots by holding the phone with two hands, or just easier than having to press the touchscreen button.  Apple rejected version 1.3 of the app, citing iPhone Developer Program License Agreement version 3.3.7.  Basically, changing the function of the volume buttons to do anything but change volume is not allowed by Apple.  Apple claims it would confuse users if the buttons were use in a “non-standard way.”

Volume Snap was originally said to be part of the version 1.2.1 release, though it was nowhere to be found, and with Apple rejecting version 1.3, it looked like Camera+ fans would never get the feature.  It then came out that Volume Snap was included in version 1.2.1, it just wasn’t obvious.  Turns out that if users who had the app went to Safari and went to the address “cameraplus://enablevolumesnap” the feature would be turned on.  A bit convoluted, but it worked and gave users the functionality.

When the news struck, bloggers urged iPhone owners to buy the app before ithe feature was taken away.  Sure enough, shortly after, Apple pulled Camera+ from the App Store while it was still high in the paid apps chart.  That’s where we are now, a great camera app pulled from the store, with no way of getting updates unless the functionality is removed.  It may not seem right, given that Volume Snap isn’t enabled by default, and the current process is such that only those who would want it would bother to turn on the feature.  However, Apple does say you can’t change the functionality of buttons, and it is clear about that in the license agreement.  Perhaps Apple will reconsider, but for now those who are lucky enough to have the app can still use it, and those who want it are out of luck.