me & her

Dear Jesus Diaz: A serious answer to your question.

Perhaps it’s a rhetorical question, but you ask:

Why the Hell Did Apple Pull Camera+ From the App Store?

More specifically:

Apple has pulled Camera+ from the App Store. Its only sin: Allow iPhone customers to press the volume button to take photos. But why are they taking away a feature that everyone has been demanding since the JesusPhone was introduced?

I’ve stripped the link, but in your article “everyone has been demanding” links to evidence that “everyone has been demanding” this feature, except it really just leads to an article in which you (as an aside) talk about how it’d be nice to have a hardware button for taking pictures. I’m not sure everyone is really demanding this, are they?

You’re still really fond of calling the iPhone the “Jesus Phone” but it just occurred to me that you seem to think that the iPhone somehow belongs to you, that it should conform to what you (representing everyone) want out of a phone. I’m not sure Jesus Phone means what you think it means.

Anyway, I told you I’d answer your question, so I will:

Camera+ was removed from the app store because Apple already rejected it once for including a disallowed feature, and the developers decided it would be clever to sneak that feature in through the back door. (It’s worth noting that this wasn’t an arbitrary rejection: This is a documented no-no and Tap Tap Tap was well aware of the likelihood of rejection and the ramifications of their hack.)

Apple didn’t allow camera+ (with the hardware hack) in through the front door, so they certainly weren’t going to allow it in through the back door, right?

Right. Jesus, Diaz: Pull your head out of your ass and stop being so dense.

Apple argues that allowing the volume buttons to be repurposed as shutter release buttons could cause consumer confusion and you argue that this is a “stupid” argument.

Perhaps.

On the other hand, if Apple allows the camera+ developers to make changes, suddenly, other developers will want to make changes as well. At some point, the volume buttons stop working as they’re supposed to, because every app has a different implementation, and then–what if music is running in the background? How do I change the volume? What sort of extra effort must Apple put forth to ensure that apps don’t interfere with the core functionality of their device or that bugs don’t cause the volume buttons to simply stop working?

What if I’m at work, attempting to watch a youtube video, and everyone in the office finds out I’m watching the first ever wheelchair backflip, because I can’t get the volume to go down? Who do you think is going to get the support calls? The developers? Apple?

(That is a rhetorical question.)

Granted, this probably isn’t going to be an issue if camera+ is the only app that makes these changes, but what if hundreds or thousands of apps (or dozens of installed apps) all make slight modifications to how the iPhone hardware works?

You also lodge the following complaint:

Like with the flashlight/tethering application, Apple pulled the Camera+ app minutes after learning about this—despite the fact that Apple’s own apps have disabled features that can be enabled in the same way.

Do they? I’m not aware of any of the core Apple iOS apps that allow this, but let’s just assume you’re correct: You fuck your wife, right? Great! So…when do I get to fuck your wife?

Let me know.