Grab TapShot While You Still Can
April 12, 2012
Apple is now rejecting camera apps that use the volume shutter feature like their own native app. A few months ago, I reviewed TapShot, which employs just such a feature. In fact, TapShot goes beyond simply having the ability to take a photo with the volume up button like the iPhone's native camera can. TapShot also has a volume shutter burst feature, which means that you can can take a number of shots in a row simply by holding down the volume up button. The developer, Josh Patterick, tells me he has spoken with Apple at length and they made it clear to him that the feature is leaving the app store for good. He has made his app temporarily free in order to give everyone who ever wanted to try it a chance to do so. So, if you ever wanted to have the volume shutter burst feature in a camera app, you may want to download TapShot right now.
Read my review to get a full run-down of the app's features, but the basic idea is to let you essentially create your own camera replacement app. As you can see from the menus, there are many customization options for both actions and interface. For example, you decide whether you want a double tap gesture to set focus and exposure points, or zoom in and out, or take burst photos, or a whole host of other choices. This is just one of the many, many ways you can customize this app to make it your own.
But the important point is that apps with the volume shutter and volume shutter bursting features that TapShot employs will soon no longer be allowed into the app store. So don't miss your chance to try this feature for yourself with TapShot, currently free as of this writing. So why do you suppose Apple is doing this? Simply to make more people use the native camera?
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