If controversies surrounding rejection or approval of iPhone apps so far wasn't enough, it looks like Apple has another problem to worry about while approving iPhone apps to the App Store.
According to the folks at Wired, the walls of the App Store have been breached as developers of the latest version of Lyrics (1.0.1) have included an Easter egg in their iPhone app.
The Easter egg allows users to turn the profanity filter off and thus be able to view the objectionable and explicit lyric content. We have seen Easter egg in iPhone apps before but this one was a little sneaky as the iPhone app was initially rejected from the App Store because it didn't have a ‘profanity filter’.
Easter Eggs are features, messages, images etc that can only be seen if the user is aware of the required commands or actions.
In case of Lyrics - iPhone app, the profanity filter can be turned off by scrolling down to the bottom of the "About" screen three times, once done, a filter button will appear with an on/off options. Turn it off, and the app works flawlessly.
According to Jelle Prins, developer of Lyrics:
"It’s almost impossible for Apple to see if there’s an Easter egg because they can’t really see the source code,” Prins said. “In theory a developer could make a simple Easter egg in their app and provide a user with whatever content they want.”
We can probably give the developers the benefit of doubt on this one as the Easter egg didn't have any malicious intent and the idea was to give users a choice. Ideally, Apple shouldn't have rejected the iPhone app in the first place as rejecting apps because they show dirty words is quite lame, which will hopefully get sorted with the age based parental controls in iPhone OS 3.0. But having said that, I think it was quite sneaky on the part of the developers to include an Easter egg to turn off a feature which Apple had explicitly requested for, to approve the iPhone app.
The iPhone app is currently not available on the App Store. The developer has confirmed that it wasn't Apple who removed it, but they took it offline temporarily for the following reason:
"The Lyrics application will be temporary offline while we make the necessary changes to our filter (will be much better, Apple will love it!) and take care of the licensing issues."
This incident raises a concern that a developer with malicious intent could easily use an Easter egg to violate user's privacy by accessing the camera, address book etc. Nullriver CEO Adam Dann points out:
“If people start putting in naked pictures of their ex-girlfriend as an Easter egg to get revenge, or something like that, that isn’t quite right,” Dann said. “It has the potential to really mess things up for everybody.”
Jonathan Zdziarski, iPhone hacking expert and author of the book iPhone Forensics gives some examples:
"An audio app with a malicious Easter egg, could potentially allow a developer to record a user’s conversations without him or her knowing about it. And a harmful photo app could snap photos with your camera even when a user is not pressing the shutter button. Third, a malicious app could steal your address book contacts."
This again raises questions about Apple's approval process for iPhone apps. If Apple has to prevent such potential time bombs from exploding and avoid a PR nightmare, they will have to closely scrutinize each and every iPhone app including its source code. But with more than 46,000 iPhone apps on the App Store and submissions growing at a rapid pace, it seems like a daunting task and would further delay the approval of iPhone apps.
Do let us know what you think in our comments section below.
hmmm seems like we have a predicament
I'm not surprised by this comment or this position/mentality. I sit often enough with Big Blue types to know how boxed in our (us humans') brain can be. What does surprise me is who the comment is coming from. Devasting easter eggs running amok? Thank god for Apple's watchful eye? Regurgitated, diluted content? How about Cydia developers? Couldn't they have freely built disastrous applications? What about regular computer's easter eggs? Or viruses etc. Have they caused the world to end?
Is this another case of WE cannot allow people to manage themselves? Far as I know, as a legal corporation, Apple is ONE person, albeit only a moral one. That does not give it any rights to censor. It is taking advantage of it's position to censor what developers can and cannot post to the app store, for one and only one purpose: to position itself for optimal revenue generation. If it's corporate goons decide they'll make more money by appearing more moralistic (higher standards), they'll do just that. Good for them that we live in a country where people don't know their rights and are intentionally prevented from exercising those rights, if/when they do know them. If parents don't want their kids to see or hear "questionable" content they need to know how to police their kids. They applied for the job of being parents, that job comes with responsibilities. Trying to offload those responsibilities onto a government, a corporation or onto the queen mother does not change that they made the choice of having and raising children in the 21st century with all that that entails. In offloading that responsibility onto some other entity they are in effect giving that entity an implicit power of censorship, not only on themselves and their children but on society in general, thereby curtailing the power of the very tool they were given to enable then to read/say/hear whatever THEY want.
"I think it was quite sneaky on the part of the developers to include an Easter egg to…"
If iPhoneHacks had wrote that comment it would have read:
"I think it really sucks that the developer had to figure out a way to hide a simple on/off setting to bypass some company's idea of what is or is not suitable…"
But you are iPhoneHacks! iPhoneHACKS!!! Not iPhoneLEMMINGS.
Wake up buddy! All you're doing is letting big brother rip you (and I) off, and letting him crack up laughing on his way to the bank.
Ryan,
I must admit that I felt the same way when I heard the news, which is why I mentioned that the app should not have been rejected in the first place. Its good that it actually lets the user decide.
But as the owner of App Store, Apple is partly responsible for the apps it approves and any damage they might cause. Apple is doing the moderators job, and yes, making money in the process.
lemmings?!?! Now, c'mon I am too young to die.
P.S. I think that your response was very lucid, a good balance between being critical and logical. I liked it.
I'm constantly amazed that more developers don't jump on the Easter egg bandwagon. Good EE get great PR. Core gamers LOVE talking about them. Love sharing them. Love finding them. Why don't more devs schedule Easter egg time? It really isn't that costly. Seems like studios frequently push back on such initiatives.