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Bug Blamed for Instagram Unexpectedly Accessing Camera in iOS 14

zackkitzmiller said:
I'm sort of amazed at all of the comments in this thread. It's like not a single person in this thread has written software before
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I'm afraid, your assessment might be correct...
However, you have to admit the amount of high profile apps with such weirds bugs is quite high... So either they are not so unintentional or all those software companies (their business is literally software) have poor code quality.
Sadly, I'm pretty sure it's the latter. Most coders don't give a flying f*** if the code is clean or not, let alone efficient or secure as long as it works.
 
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Wonder if these "bugs" will only be fixed for iOS apps or Android too? Or they don't have that "feature" (the bug) there.
 
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This is an interesting phrase from the article:

"Instagram's bug is the latest in a series of unexpected app behavior controversies revealed by iOS 14's aggressive privacy notifications."

So it is confirmed this is indeed a bug? I suspect not. Lazy journalistic wording.
 
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Lucas284 said:
What would happen if Apple decides not to allow Facebook on any iPhone?
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Very interesting question. Would more people avoid iPhone to be able to use Facebook, or would more people stick with iPhone and simply not use Facebook? My not-so-sure guess is that Facebook is not that essential for many people so it would not change many iPhone users to drop iPhone for access to Facebook. In fact, I cannot think of any app in the US that is popular enough to draw people away if its banned in iOS. I could think of a few such apps outside the US.
 
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The big is that it shouldn't have alerted the green light, they will spend a whole lot of time and effort circumventing that in future itterations.
 
mozumder said:
Apple needs a hardware tally light on their iPhones to notify users that their camera/mic are on. Full stop.
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This. I don’t know exactly how it works in iOS 14, but if the light can be added with software then I assume it can be nefariously taken away with software as well. Hardwire would make me feel much safer.
 
BasicGreatGuy said:
I am rather surprised so many MacRumors veterans use Instagram and Facebook, in spite of the fact said company has been caught lying numerous times to the public. They shouldn’t be trusted in any fashion. For safety purposes, it would be a good idea to remove from your Apple devices and close down accounts.
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I think you'd be mostly safe if you sandbox the app by not giving it any permissions since they use system API calls to access the data. Of course, what Facebook does with the collected data is another matter.
 
Lucas284 said:
What would happen if Apple decides not to allow Facebook on any iPhone?
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Apple is more important to people than Facebook. Facebook is basically Adobe Flash at this point, it's just a matter of whether Apple has the balls to do it.
 
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WordsmithMR said:
What you call "aggressive" I call transparent and consumer-friendly. Words matter. Please use them accordingly.
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In the same token, words can have positive or negative connotations.

If I aggressively scrub the paint off my skin, is that a bad thing?

Now go back and re-read what MacRumors originally wrote, and you might see it in a different light.
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Lucas284 said:
What would happen if Apple decides not to allow Facebook on any iPhone?
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In Asian countries, Facebook has basically "bought" users. The addiction level in such countries as the Philippines is off the charts. Many people get Facebook "for free" with their mobile phone "data load", which is a common way to get a functioning phone at low cost in those countries. So Facebook becomes pretty much their primary connection to the outside world.
 
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now i see it said:
Catch-all phrase when getting busted; "it's a bug!"
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“Your honor, I have no idea how that gun got in my hand.”
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Remember when FaceBook was caught playing silent audio files in order to remain running in the background? I think they don’t have anyone there who asks, “okay, this new technique we’ve found, should we do this?” The company has no conscience, it’s essentially sociopathic, doing whatever benefits Facebook without considering if it’s ethical or reasonable.
 
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This is getting serious... I wonder if the green light is connected to an "camera is on" mode only ?

What if Apple did this ? My sister has tape covering her camera.

CarlJ said:
“Your honor, I have no idea how that gun got in my hand.”
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Don't people use that similar when they get framed.. smuggled something slipped into other peoples bags across country?
 
Can see the Product Manager frantically searching JIRA to reclassify this 'feature' as a 'bug'.

To the devs here, don't worry, we'll bring it in next sprint.
 
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought unless you disable it in settings, Facebook always has your camera on, supposedly so that if you do want to open the camera and upload a picture, it’ll open it quicker.

This was problematic for people with phones with less memory as it meant the camera was always consuming most of the memory when you were just scrolling through your timeline and made it slow and prone to crashing, thus why they made it an optional feature.
 
I guess that as a developer, you either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself work at Facebook or Instagram. Makes you wonder what really goes on in those app planning meetings and how developers convince themselves that it’s okay to implement stuff like this.
 
Just waiting on the release version and how many apps will all of a sudden claim their access was a bug.
 
edgonzalez32 said:
There is a legitimate reason to always be accessing the camera: when you swipe over from your feed into the camera, Instagram wants the camera to be instantly ready to take a photo, which means initializing the camera before the user even enters the camera. (Otherwise there would be a few second delay. Try force quitting your Camera app and then re-opening it. It takes a second or two for the camera to initialize.)


I'm not trying to defend Instagram/Facebook, because they absolutely have some real ****** privacy-invading development tactics—but I'm not interested in vilifying them over this specific case without the full information like everyone else is.
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But then why didn't just say that? Instead, they called it a bug. You have a valid point for the app to function that way and sure, the code would naturally reflect that. But by calling it a bug, it causes suspicion. And Facebook doesn't have the greatest reputation for protecting user data to begin with. Hence the reaction. Just my thoughts. 🤷🏽‍♂️
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ghostface147 said:
Just waiting on the release version and how many apps will all of a sudden claim their access was a bug.
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I wouldn't be surprised if they’re running the beta and scrambling to release an update before they get caught in the official release.
 
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You would think there would be a governmental agency watching out for the public. Maybe they should be there with the fine per user as well. Yes my cameras are covered but wish it was built in.
 
"Bug Blamed for Instagram Unexpectedly Accessing Camera in iOS 14'

Hey, Zuckerberg, you keep using the words bug and unexpectedly. I do not think they mean what you think they mean.
 
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