If you care about security you might want to move the iPhone Camera app(blog.jgc.org)
46 pointsby jgrahamc19 hours ago9 comments
  • bar000n13 hours ago
    When i think about it, I would be absolutely terrified by smartphone cameras. Think laptop accessories that cover the webcam - haven't seen any of those for smartphones. Yet we trust a green dot with all our heart nowadays. Back in the day when cameras started showing up on mobile phones there were even versions of popular business feature phones that lacked the camera (Nokia E51 if i recall correctly), probably triggered by requirements of clients with strict information security standards.

    It seems we all learned to stop worrying and love the cameras.

    • dghlsakjg12 hours ago
      Some industries still require camera-less phones, and there are companies who make them, or more interestingly, modify existing iphones!

      Here's one vendor https://noncam.com/

      • raw_anon_11119 hours ago
        And yet if you have your phone on you, you can still record everything that was said…
        • brewdad7 hours ago
          My wife worked in a facility that didn't allow phone cameras. You had to check it in anytime you went into one of the secure areas or prove you had one of their phones that had the camera disabled if you were important enough to require being contactable. While I'm sure one or more of the thousands of employees managed to leak some valuable info through conversations, pictures would have been worth 1000x as much if not more.
    • raw_anon_11119 hours ago
      There are so many things that would have to go wrong for a third party app to surreptitiously activate your camera and pick up images in the background on iOS, this is tin foil hat level concern.

      It’s also hilarious how many people worry about covering up their camera on the laptop not thinking that the microphone can pick up much more information in the surrounding area - again worrying about the wrong thing.

      Also see, not using biometric security because in the US, police can’t legally make you give up your password - even though police are not above rubber hose decryption, judges hold people in contempt indefinitely and iPhone and Android phones are laughable insecure after first unlock after rebooting your phone.

      • brewdad7 hours ago
        You ever see The Accountant? That scene where he goes home and ups the stimulation to 13/10? I live my life in that world. Good luck getting any useful intel from my phone's microphone.

        https://youtu.be/Mb8krWbv1CI?t=62

      • cindyllm9 hours ago
        [dead]
    • 0cf8612b2e1e13 hours ago
      Phone camera covers have been available for years.
  • pirates15 hours ago
    > if you hover your finger over the Camera app icon without actually opening the app, the camera starts operating iOS 18.3, cannot recreate this. If I long-press the icon then yeah obviously it triggers, but just “hovering” does nothing for me. In addition, if I put my finger on the camera app icon and then swipe pages it doesn’t trigger the dot either. Is this a new thing in 26.x?

    Edit: actually there is a timing sweet spot on the swiping that I can get to do it, but still nothing with just pure hovering

    • arachnid9212 hours ago
      I couldn’t get it to trigger until I opened the camera app and made sure to switch to the front facing camera before exiting. After doing that I was able to consistently trigger the indicator when swiping across and long-pressing the icon.

      EDIT: it also only seems to happen if the camera icon is on one of your Home Screen pages. I haven’t been able to reproduce the behavior when swiping across the icon while in the App Library. Wonder why they decided to do it that way? Do most people keep a camera icon on their Home Screen? That would be baffling to me. Why clutter your Home Screen when you can so easily access the camera from the lock screen or by using the physical camera button on newer iPhones?

      • supermatt6 hours ago
        > Why clutter your Home Screen when you can so easily access the camera from the lock screen

        Because if using the phone then you need to access the lock screen to use the camera?

        That means hitting the power button twice (slowly so you don’t trigger the wallet) and then a long press on the camera.

        Alternatively it’s just a swipe and a tap if it’s on the home screen.

        • fnoffan hour ago
          I swipe down to see the notifications/lock screen, then right to access the camera.
        • arachnid925 hours ago
          Fair enough, but then I can think of an even better place to put the icon: the control center that is a single swipe away from any screen in the OS. This is all moot in newer iPhones tho, as the physical camera button in the lower right is the easiest and fastest way to get to the camera.

          Anyhow, this is all just personal preference, of course. Anyone is free to put a camera icon anywhere they please. I just personally can’t stand clutter in my home or lock screens, so I tend to keep the number of apps there to a minimum and access everything else either via Spotlight or Control Center widgets.

          • supermatt5 hours ago
            Yeah, control centre also works, but that requires using 2 hands to do comfortably.
    • myrandomcomment13 hours ago
      No issue making this happen on IOS 26. Camera was lower left icon exactly where I touch go swipe, holding phone in left hand.Put finger down and swiped, green light on. Moved it to the right side.
  • Havoc2 hours ago
    >Because hovering a finger on the Camera app icon is enough,

    Like others I can't get this replicated either.

    And even if I did not sure I'd care. My iphone has so much information on me already an extra 500ms of camera on seems pretty immaterial compared to other risks (like tracker in your pocket 24/7, constantly leaking info to god knows what app's servers etc)

    • jgrahamcan hour ago
      I wasn't clear about what I meant by hovering: you touch the icon but then you move your finger somewhere else so the app never gets opened. I've edited the post to make this clearer.
  • ashleyn14 hours ago
    Wait, iphones now support detection of finger hover? I remember hearing about iOS introducing software support for this, presumably for when the hardware can catch up. But never heard of it actually being implemented.
    • concinds14 hours ago
      Of course not. Only tapping. But the camera hardware gets booted up as soon as you tap the icon, without waiting to see if the tap is a swipe, and without waiting for you to lift your finger (which is when other apps would open).
    • nozzlegear13 hours ago
      There's an API in iOS/iPadOS named UIHoverGestureRecognizer, but it only detects hover from cursors and from the Apple Pencil. The Apple Pencil hover is neat and actual "hover" detection in the way you're thinking; it can be detected up to 12mm away from the screen. But right now there's no actual detection for finger hover, even though Apple patented a technique for it almost 10 years ago.
    • stefan_12 hours ago
      I think this is more of an Apple specific hack to get latency down; boot the cameras up as early as possible.
      • varun_ch2 hours ago
        Can third party apps use this to speed up their use of camera hardware too?
  • pjot12 hours ago
    “Hover” seems to be causing some confusion. It’s more of a “shallow” press. Like the opposite of “pressing into” when 3D Touch was a thing
    • jgrahamc3 hours ago
      Yes, maybe hover wasn't the best word.
    • tosh3 hours ago
      touch + swipe away to cancel app opening
  • solarkraft12 hours ago
    I think it’s so smart of them to do this to improve UX, which I really care about. You can just tell they had a creative workshop around optimizing camera startup time (which is super important to optimize and one of the many reasons I own an iPhone!).

    I’m happy to see them being so open about it in the privacy report. It shows that it’s a real priority for them: It would’ve been easier to hide this as an implementation detail and not have people wonder about it. Another big reason to own an iPhone.

    However, it is yet another example of them making full use of owning the platform in ways I assume other players can’t. The Apple camera app will always start faster than others, which is a loss for customization and competition.

  • iknowstuff12 hours ago
    Hovering does not do anything. They mean pressing and dragging your finger away from the icon.
  • GranPC14 hours ago
    Beyond hover detection causing the app to preload (TIL that's apparently a thing? Can anyone confirm?), another case I've seen is trying to slide up to unlock but accidentally triggering the lock screen camera for a millisecond or two, which also causes the indicator to linger for a few seconds.

    edit: Is this actual "hover without touching screen", which is what I was shocked about, or is this more like "finger passes over the icon while swiping between pages"?

  • treetalker13 hours ago
    Trying to decide whether I'm taken aback more at the green dot when touching the camera icon during a swipe, or at my own failure to notice it before …