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iOS 5 Camera: Volume Shutter, Lock Screen, Remote Triggering

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MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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iphone_camera_icon1.jpg


Apple added a number of new features to the camera in iOS 5, as more and more users drop their point-and-shoot digital cameras in favor of the increasingly powerful cameras built-in to smartphones.

For users looking to take pictures quickly, when the phone is locked, simply press the home button twice -- then press the camera icon that appears to be taken directly to the camera. This works even when the phone is locked with a passcode.

Apple's engineers also added a feature that caused Camera+, a popular camera app, to be banned from the App Store for four months. Users of Apple's standard camera application can press the volume-up button to take a snapshot, rather than pressing the shutter button on the touchscreen. This makes the iPhone more like a standard camera, with the shutter release on the top.

Finally, as a corollary to the volume up shutter release, users can also plug in headphones with headphone controls -- like the headphones that are included with the iPhone -- and use the volume up on the headphones as a remote trigger for the camera.

Article Link: iOS 5 Camera: Volume Shutter, Lock Screen, Remote Triggering
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/10/13/ios-5-camera-volume-shutter-lock-screen-remote-triggering/
J

jared52

macrumors member
Nov 18, 2010
81
50
I wish they could make this work with a bluetooth headset as well. THAT would be useful.
 
S

samcraig

macrumors P6
Jun 22, 2009
16,779
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USA
I loved this feature in Camera+. I wonder where all the naysayers are now who claimed such a feature would be "confusing" for the general user and were against it. Now that Apple has implemented it - I am SURE it will be hailed by them as "magical."
 
wordoflife

wordoflife

macrumors 604
Jul 6, 2009
7,564
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Is there going to be another article on how we can delete individual calls from the call history too?
 
charlituna

charlituna

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Jun 11, 2008
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samcraig said:
I loved this feature in Camera+. I wonder where all the naysayers are now who claimed such a feature would be "confusing" for the general user and were against it.
Click to expand...

That was never Apple's issue with the feature. It was the fact that it required use of private APIs which is a no no under the developer rules.
 
supremedesigner

supremedesigner

macrumors 65816
Dec 9, 2005
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Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

MacRumors said:
Finally, as a corollary to the volume up shutter release, users can also plug in headphones with headphone controls -- like the headphones that are included with the iPhone -- and use the volume up on the headphones as a remote trigger for the camera.
Click to expand...

CIA anyone?
 
Last edited:
LanPhantom

LanPhantom

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Feb 28, 2007
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Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

Just warn your girlfriends when they go to the bathroom if there is an iPhone propped up on the counter with the headphones going somewhere else. There might be a creeper in the other room taking remote pics of them.
 
Ubuntu

Ubuntu

macrumors 68020
Jul 3, 2005
2,140
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UK/US
MacRumors said:
Finally, as a corollary to the volume up shutter release, users can also plug in headphones with headphone controls -- like the headphones that are included with the iPhone -- and use the volume up on the headphones as a remote trigger for the camera.
Click to expand...

Is this definitely new? I knew you could do this for videos for quite a while and just presumed you'd be able to do so with the camera as well, so is this definitely new?

EDIT: From the comments in the article it seems that the functionality was only there for videos in iOS4. Nice to have it for photos too, now.
 
L

lunarworks

macrumors 68000
Jun 17, 2003
1,972
5,213
Toronto, Canada
LanPhantom said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

Just warn your girlfriends when they go to the bathroom if there is an iPhone propped up on the counter with the headphones going somewhere else. There might be a creeper in the other room taking remote pics of them.
Click to expand...

As opposed to an iPhone propped up without headphones recording 1080p video?
 
S

steven64o

macrumors newbie
Oct 13, 2011
3
0
Lock screen

Is it just me... I locked the phone then double click the home button which allows me to press the camera button to access the camera without unlocking the phone. If I try to view my pictures, it says that the iPhone is locked and I must unlock it to view pictures. However, simply pressing the home button allows me to go to the main screen without entering my passcode or anything, and allows me full access to the phone!
 
mrgreen4242

mrgreen4242

macrumors 601
Feb 10, 2004
4,377
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steven64o said:
Is it just me... I locked the phone then double click the home button which allows me to press the camera button to access the camera without unlocking the phone. If I try to view my pictures, it says that the iPhone is locked and I must unlock it to view pictures. However, simply pressing the home button allows me to go to the main screen without entering my passcode or anything, and allows me full access to the phone!
Click to expand...

Just out of curiousity, is your device locked with a pin?
 
B

bretm

macrumors 68000
Apr 12, 2002
1,951
27
steven64o said:
Is it just me... I locked the phone then double click the home button which allows me to press the camera button to access the camera without unlocking the phone. If I try to view my pictures, it says that the iPhone is locked and I must unlock it to view pictures. However, simply pressing the home button allows me to go to the main screen without entering my passcode or anything, and allows me full access to the phone!
Click to expand...

Not if you'd normally have to enter your passcode. Try it. In other words, you went to the camera between screen sleep, and iPhone lock. You wouldn't have had to enter your passcode to access your phone. So... it should let you go to your photos, but it doesn't. Probably a bug. But it doesn't allow access to a locked phone.
 
S

steven64o

macrumors newbie
Oct 13, 2011
3
0
mrgreen4242 said:
Just out of curiousity, is your device locked with a pin?
Click to expand...

Yes... But I figured it out. I had my settings to require passcode after 1 minute. So even though the camera app said that the iPhone was locked, it really isn't within 1 minute of locking the device. If I try after 1 min and press the home button within the camera app while the phone is locked, it brings me back to the lock screen.
 
S

samcraig

macrumors P6
Jun 22, 2009
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USA
charlituna said:
That was never Apple's issue with the feature. It was the fact that it required use of private APIs which is a no no under the developer rules.
Click to expand...

Yes - I'm very well aware of what the issue was with Apple. If you read my post - you'll note that I was commenting on what posters HERE gave as a reason why that button shouldn't be designated as a shutter release.
 
nagromme

nagromme

macrumors G5
May 2, 2002
12,546
1,196
samcraig said:
I loved this feature in Camera+. I wonder where all the naysayers are now who claimed such a feature would be "confusing" for the general user and were against it. Now that Apple has implemented it - I am SURE it will be hailed by them as "magical."
Click to expand...

The users who said it was a bad idea were right. It shakes the camera as you’re taking the picture! Much better to use the onscreen button, which triggers gently as you lift your finger off the screen. And yes, having the volume button do double duty (or adding more buttons) is indeed a small amount of added confusion. And all those small confusions add up until you have Android :p

The users who wanted the clicky button for familiarity were right too. They wanted it, so that in itself is an advantage if Apple gives it to them. And those who don’t want it won’t use it.

Very few things in life are pure black or pure white. But one thing IS clear from this: a reminder that Apple very often adapts to what its users want. They listen and change and deliver. Constantly. Or they simply evolve where they were going all along. Either way, everyone forgets it instantly and calls them tyrants all over again. :p

Nobita said:
So, is the volume button API public now? It's not fair to 3rd party camera apps if it isn't public.
Click to expand...

iOS is designed to benefit the user first, and the developer second. As a user, I’m all for having a better phone whether it’s “fair” to certain niches of apps or not. Having volume buttons that sometimes work and sometimes don’t would be a bad extension of this (more or less) simple feature. If anything, though, it would make sense for Apple to allow this ONLY for taking pictures.

And I think they already do to some extent: the picture-talking interface is available to third-party apps to use, so they should be able to inherit this new feature automatically.
 
S

samcraig

macrumors P6
Jun 22, 2009
16,779
41,982
USA
nagromme said:
The users who said it was a bad idea were right. It shakes the camera as you’re taking the picture! Much better to use the onscreen button, which triggers gently as you lift your finger off the screen. And yes, having the volume button do double duty (or adding more buttons) is indeed a small amount of added confusion. And all those small confusions add up until you have Android :p

The users who wanted the clicky button for familiarity were right too. They wanted it, so that in itself is an advantage if Apple gives it to them. And those who don’t want it won’t use it.

Very few things in life are pure black or pure white. But one thing IS clear from this: a reminder that Apple very often adapts to what its users want. They listen and change and deliver. Constantly. Or they simply evolve where they were going all along. Either way, everyone forgets it instantly and calls them tyrants all over again. :p



iOS is designed to benefit the user first, and the developer second. As a user, I’m all for having a better phone whether it’s “fair” to certain niches of apps or not. Having volume buttons that sometimes work and sometimes don’t would be a bad extension of this (more or less) simple feature. If anything, though, it would make sense for Apple to allow this ONLY for taking pictures.

And I think they already do to some extent: the picture-talking interface is available to third-party apps to use, so they should be able to inherit this new feature automatically.
Click to expand...

We can agree to disagree. I don't think it's confusing. I can hold the phone much steadier by using the volume as a trigger.

I do agree that Apple "listens" - but I don't think it's as easy as that. They like to take credit for "innovating" while steamrolling over those that came before them. Sometimes they give credit (IE - Jobs said that they were stepping on the shoulders of Amazon's kindle with iBooks/etc) - and many times they do not - like with this shutter button (which they clearly saw was a wildly popular feature of Camera+ based on the up-in-arms opinions all over the web when it was pulled). In short - they see what apps are WILDLY popular - and often times adopt them into their iOS as if the other apps never existed. Is it good for the user? Sure. Ultimately. It's also, at times, a slap in the face to the developers who made the iPhone what it is today.

Yes. I said it. Apple did a great job with engineering the phone and creating a very good UI. But had it not been for the developers of Apps - the iPhone wouldn't be at all what it is today.
 
C

Commodore 64

macrumors member
Mar 12, 2009
94
47
Timer...

Still no self-timer? How come?
Well, as Jared52 suggested, if you could use a bluetooth headset as a remote trigger, that would be the best solution:)
 
N

Nobita

macrumors 6502
Oct 5, 2008
425
2
La la land
I just tried with Instagram, it does not take use of the volume button.

I guess it's fair enough that Apple wants to have this feature exclusively at first. This way they can tweak the API until they are really sure that it works and then release it.

Nevertheless I don't this is a particularly complicated API to make public. I understand that some more complicated API like dictionary or Siri may take a while to mature before releasing it. I don't think that's the case in here.
 
C

clibinarius

macrumors 6502a
Aug 26, 2010
671
70
NY
nagromme said:
iOS is designed to benefit the user first, and the developer second. As a user, I’m all for having a better phone whether it’s “fair” to certain niches of apps or not. Having volume buttons that sometimes work and sometimes don’t would be a bad extension of this (more or less) simple feature. If anything, though, it would make sense for Apple to allow this ONLY for taking pictures.

And I think they already do to some extent: the picture-talking interface is available to third-party apps to use, so they should be able to inherit this new feature automatically.
Click to expand...

If you don't like it, don't use it.

I'm all for using the buttons as, well, buttons. Imagine how much better Sonic the Hedgehog and other games would be on the iPhone if you could use the buttons to jump and only needed one finger on the screen.

Just a thought. Use your imagination. No need to restrict if its for a purchased app.
 
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