'Spell Number' iPhone app contains 'easter egg' to enable Emoji
‘Spell Number’ iPhone app contains ‘easter egg’ to enable Emoji
Previously: [1], [2], [3]. However, this is the first free app (to my knowledge) to do this.
Here’s my guess as to how this was accomplished:
- Developer adds Emoji ‘easter egg’ to existing app
- Developer submits app revision to Apple with no mention of the easter egg
- Apple approves app revision
- Developer edits app store description and title to indicate Emoji feature
If correct, this is certainly a novel approach to sneaking things past the Apple censors, and I bet we’ll be seeing a lot more of it, given all of the developer frustration with the restrictions that Apple imposes.
Don’t misunderstand: I’m not picking sides, I merely find the whole game of cat-and-mouse rather interesting. It seems to me that Apple’s reviewing process is inadequate for their intentions. They need to make changes to either the process or the intentions. Keeping it half-broken like this does not inspire confidence in the platform.
On a different note, one question I’ve seen tossed around frequently is: why doesn’t Apple just allow this Emoji setting for everyone by default? My guess is that it’s simply because Emoji is a hack that isn’t well-supported outside of Japan. The feature was added for Japan because Japan demanded it, but it’s nonexistent everywhere else. If you type Emoji on an iPhone and send it in an SMS to just about any other American or European phone, it will just come out as blank boxes, or a garbled mess. If this was enabled officially, it would result in annoyed customers and complaints. And you know Slashdot or someone would run an article about Apple’s evil proprietary format that isn’t compatible with anyone else.