When iPhone shipped, any time you emailed a photo it would append "Sent from my iPhone" to try to virally market. Same or at least similar slimey tactics
I actually really like this approach. The action button isn't relevant in this context, and it doesn't occlude the content.
There's certainly situations where you wouldn't want this (ie if you're developing the app and you want to redesign starting from a screenshot), but for the average user I think this isn't overly hostile. I understand that people are dogmatically opposed to intent being modified, but I think you need to balance nuance. I actually enjoy having an attributable source in shared elements, and I think this is a low-impact way of achieving that.
Do you/should you (we) really expect that though? I regularly use color filters on my apple devices— grayscale to avoid distractions during the day and red tint at night. More recently I’ve been using the motion dots. I don’t know that I can say with confidence that I never want any of those “personal-perceptional-modifiers” to appear in a screenshot, but for most folks, I would guess it’s approximately never.
It somehow is perfect example of how modern software engineering feels to go astray for me. A feature in my device working completely in benefit of the one providing said software. I wish, and wish only I can, that this trend goes away at some point.
The app knowing I took a screenshot feels adjacent to me to a keylogger. Imagine how many apps are capturing that information silently. To my mind, a screenshot is something that is happening outside of the app context, the app knowing about it is a security flaw imo.
To my knowledge, this is a misunderstanding. The app does not know that you are taking a screenshot, rather iOS knows you are taking a screenshot (as it must) and is excluding an element on display that has been designated by the developer as sensitive information. This is the same technology that prevents you from accidentally screenshotting your password manager; the developer has simply performed a nifty trick to display a small icon behind where the “follow” button would otherwise be displayed.
There are plenty of instances where this sort of thing can be annoying, such as when you try to screenshot a streaming service app and DRM enforcement leaves you with a blank screenshot, but IMO this particular instance is actually very tasteful; seeing “follow” on every screenshotted post is just useless noise, but a small unobtrusive platform icon is a useful reminder that the post came from Bluesky and not another very visually similar service like X(cancel) or Mastodon.
Android does it too: https://developer.android.com/about/versions/14/features/scr...
So in this instance, am I right in understanding that iOS posts a notification after the user has completed a screenshot, which would make it impossible for the developer to use this notification to trigger anything that would modify that screenshot? Hence the developer’s work around?
I dislike this hijacking for that reason and wish there was a way to turn it off.
If you screenshot what you are listening to, after the screenshot is taken spotify will open a full-screen popup to "share" the song you are listening to. This is quite dumb, especially since if you wanted to share a song via the screenshot, you can do so in the OS-level screenshot UI, and then you would close it and see Spotify's own similar version of the same UI. Spotify just really wants you to use their own share button so that they can track you.
Yes, and I would say it's a bad thing that the OS tries to prevent this.
> seeing “follow” on every screenshotted post is just useless noise, but a small unobtrusive platform icon is a useful reminder that the post came from Bluesky and not another very visually similar service like X(cancel) or Mastodon.
I would say it's a bad thing that Bluesky makes the screenshot look different from what was on screen for the user. If I cared about excluding the "useless noise" from a faithful depiction of the pixels on my screen, I could address that myself.
As someone who develops apps for confidential conversations, making it harder for people to screenshot the confidential stuff is a feature the sending party wants, that is why they send in your app as opposed to others. It doesn’t make things impossible, just hard enough that 95% of people won’t bother to take a copy.
Same for example with disappearing audio messages on whatsapp
What I don’t like is the app being informed that I took a screenshot. The OS can hide things in screenshots without this.
And that is reasonable, but it is also a surface where an app touches the OS, which should be a permission boundary that I can control. Allowing the option to opt-out of screenshot blocking with a proper double-confirm warning and biometric auth is also reasonable.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uiapplicatio...
pretty sure i was pointing out it is best not to think you are safe sending a message without considering the fact that people do these things.
RIP rational.
>To my knowledge, this is a misunderstanding.
re: an OS informing an app of a user action (but didn’t downvote ya)
> accidentally screenshotting your password manager;
I could not think of a more useless justification for installing malware into the OS. Okay, you've accidentally screenshotted your password manager. So what? Are you going to accidentally upload it to the internet too? I'd much rather live in a world where people who are that stupid face minor consequences for their actions than one in which all of our own computers are used against us.
It’s very obvious why this feature of the OS is useful and desired by many stakeholders. People who send each other risqué photos want them to disappear and not be screenshotted. Your employee doesn’t want you to screenshot your company confidential info or save it to your personal device. A password manager company is desperately trying to save your uncle from his own bad habits.
We can lament the lack of control of our devices but every consumer device has to save people from themselves at some point and draw a line somewhere. Perhaps we can’t assume that Uncle Larry screenshotting his password manager will be a minor consequence and a valuable learning experience.
Your microwave won’t let you turn it on with the door open. Your super modern push button transmission car won’t let you open the door with the car in drive. The GFCI outlet in your kitchen won’t let you shock yourself.
In your opinion that’s malware, in my opinion it’s a pretty useful feature. It’s totally fine that you feel this way and I am not saying you shouldn’t, but it’s worth considering the idea that a lot of people find this feature helpful.
That is what this article is about and why you should read it before commenting. The whole point is that it doesn't need to know you're taking screenshots. That's why it's a clever trick.
Otherwise userDidTakeScreenshotNotification only fires for your own app
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uiapplicatio...
Found in the HN commenting guidelines, linked at the bottom of most pages
If someone from Google Maps or LinkedIn team is here, please, when I take a screenshot it's because I want to a screenshot, not share the friggin location/post.
Not sure who got the idea that it was useful, it isn't.
If I'm sending a screenshot it's because I want to send exactly what I see on my screen and not have my recipient's gmaps instance happily recompute a route it thinks is better or leave out the routing information I included, or switch from biking to driving directions, or whatever else.
Ah... to imagine a world where you could just share a coordinate string and people could open it in whatever map app/page they wanted. Geo URI is probably the closest we have today but I don't think much of anything outside the OS Geo community accepts it.
A lat/lon/zoom/start?/dest? is kind of what a Google Maps share currently is, but it's neither an interoperable standard nor a reliable capture of the current state, so really the worst of both worlds.
(Also, hi AB! Nice to see you on here)
It's not clear who it is protecting against, it does not seem to be effective at protecting against anything at all, it is actively annoying to the user, and has no way to disable. Perfect example of the usual "security theater" feature.
I don't have an iOS device handy to compare against, but it surprises me that Apple wouldn't also recognize that Wi-Fi passwords in particular are extremely common things to share.
Unsecure: open Shortcuts, tap Gallery, search “Adjust Clipboard”. Add to Action Button folder and run from Action Button. - Or add “Dismiss Siri and Continue” action after “Get Clipboard” so you can say “Siri, Adjust Clipboard”.
Type in the still-unreasonably small window, tap Done, paste password. (Then clear clipboard I suppose and consider privacy implication if your clipboard syncs to Mac.)
Just like their iCloud Keychain API that lets apps secretly track users across app reinstalls and device resets.
Do you use the same password on every site? How do you deal with data breaches?
And I prefer to see and choose the data an app stores on my fucking ICLOUD ACCOUNT. And fucking DELETE it when I want.
There's no way to do that from an iOS device.
But this one looks like you actually mean it? Yikes.
Oh wait it absolutely does.
Hijacking the screenshot process is a privilege that you ought to be able to revoke, it's insane to allow software to be given more control.
And don't tell me it's anything to do with security when it can be circumvented in any number of ways.
Screenshots allows you to get a point in time reference to what you are sharing.
Screenshots are clunky and unideal, but at least they're fast and I know that they don't fail or break or send the wrong info to my contact.
If it were a one off message, this wouldn't be an issue, but if you zoom out on the issue and see you're sending up to a hundred messages a day, points of failure become major life frictions and you're trained out of using things like links in messaging apps.
In 2026, we now know that the information can be edited, or completely removed for many reasons, some legitimate, and some nefarious.
Taking a screenshot is the easiest way to ensure the original is kept for folks to see. Frankly, it'd be even better if (a) the app can signal to the OS information about the url to the page for the screenshot, (b) timestamps were captured in the image and not cropped, and (c) the OS can authenticate the screen shot and digitally sign that it came from an unaltered device.
The toast shows up after the screenshot, but my phones's long screenshot feature captures the top part a second time, so the top part of the chat becomes unreadable.
Of course this is doable on open source OSes like GrapheneOS, it just sucks that you have to keep modifying the OS every time they release a new version
You don't have to wish, in this scenario. Bluesky supports third-party clients, you can use one that has a more minimal featureset if you prefer.
Android and iOS should not let apps do this, because it can be (ab)used by apps that you can’t really choose not to use.
I know there’s a popular bank in my country that completely blocks screenshots and screen recordings on Android somehow.
That was the expectation of using the product so it fits and isn’t anything like this discussion.
Yellow.
They fuckin did it. Not construction not a warning of some type. Not yellow pages. Yellow - cool looking yellow.
Is what I said to myself as a 20-something product designer
Sent from my Ryobi Riding Lawnmower
I agree this can be defined as cool and very very likely someone did this on their free time/prompted Claude on the side.
Their product UI kind of looks like X, so it's helpful to know the source of a post
Does this indicate that the privacy feature has a gap, where you could reveal the length of your password if you take a screenshot mid app switch?
Having a follow button on the screenshot brings nothing and a logo is helpful when sharing (“hey it’s not twitter, I know it looks like it but it’s bluesky”) and looks subtle.
It’s just it’s a forum so people say things for discussions sake and get outraged by anything that a platform they don’t like is doing.
I point not 1 but all 5 fingers at them.
With both hands so all 9 (I lost one in the Reddit Wars)
(a) the freedom to screenshot any content on your own device (b) the freedom to share content with others that cannot be screenshotted
It can be annoying when DRM or privacy features block a screenshot, but I think it can also benefit the platform ecosystem that you participate in as a user too. Idk!
https://github.com/mozzius/expo-privacy-sensitive/blob/main/...
He smokes them
You’d have to smoke that shit to come up with the decentralized/centralized fuckware that is Bluesky
Where anyone can say anything?
Maybe it’s so decentralized there is a dark web within BlueSky now! DarkSky
Now anyone can access the decentralized shadowhose from our server
Mothers Against Decentralized Development
He’s a madd mother, fucker
Quick! Everyone!
Over to blue sky where all the big stars in tech and VC and entertainment are feverishly sharing their thoughts and ambitions.
Only on blue sky will you find:
• knowhow
• gossip
• trends
• “ads that add” (Paul frazee thought of this one, the kid is a genius. He coded his own decentralized network on the blockchain)
Come on over to Blue Sky - all the stars are there. I mean here. On Bluesky where I am. Come on guys