Note that there are two versions of the status bar included in each file: one with actual text and another with rasterized text, in case you don’t have the original fonts on your machine.

We’ll probably create a landscape version, but we haven’t had the need yet.

Enjoy!

Let’s have some fun…we’ll issue a free U.S. iTunes store promo code for 3D Camera to the first three people who find any of our icons featured in the front window of other Apple stores. Send us a photo that shows the front of the store along with the icon to info (at) juicybitssoftware.com. Be sure to include your name and the location of the store.

For reference, here are all of the Juicy Bits icons:

Good luck!

Recently, we released Nature Images for the iPhone and iPod touch, and we thought we’d share the top 10 images ranked by the number of times our users save an image to the photo album. The percentages indicate the portion of “saves” for that particular image.

Images with water seem to be popular, and if we continued past the top 10, you’d see more water-themed images. It’s also interesting to note that the top 18 images account for more than 50% of the total saves.

Last, we track how many times a user swipes left and right while browsing images. Swipes to the left (to move forward to the next image) account for approximately 75% of the gestures.

Here is a small sample of the colorful images that are included in Nature Images.

Note that Nature Images replaces all three of our prior releases in the Nature Series (Nature 0, Nature 1, and Nature 2). These older apps are no longer available, and Nature Images includes all of the images from these prior releases and more.

Read the complete feature list, or come up-to-speed quickly by watching a short 3-minute video tour.

Nobody who’s followed our story will be surprised to learn that our yet-to-be-approved (and new) app was rejected—again—on November 14th. This time, we didn’t receive a rejection e-mail; instead, we happened to login to iTunes Connect and noticed the “Rejected” status. We immediately sent an e-mail to the app review team to ask why we were rejected:

After logging-in to the portal this evening, I see that [new app name] was rejected this morning. However, I have not received an e-mail nor a reason why it was rejected. Can someone please let me know the reason so we can make necessary changes?

For what it’s worth, 16 days later, we have yet to receive any response from Apple.

We speculated that the rejection may have been for the same reason we’ve been rejected many times before…namely that Apple (and/or its static analysis tool) thinks we’re calling private APIs. So, very reluctantly, we decided to create a version that only works on iPhone 3.1 or later, and we’ve submitted it for approval. The new app changed status to “In Review” yesterday morning (November 29th), and we’ll see what happens over the coming days. We’d really like to support customers who haven’t yet upgraded to iPhone OS 3.1 or later, but it appears that Apple is giving us no choice.

Separately, we submitted an update to our existing free app, 3D Camera Lite, on November 20th. It’s a very minor update that adds frequently-requested “Save to Album” and “Send to Facebook” features. While there were no changes at all to the camera functionality from the version that is currently available in the App Store, it was rejected today. You’ll never guess the reason:

Thank you for submitting 3D Camera Lite to the App Store.  Unfortunately it cannot be added to the App Store because it is modifying or extending an undocumented API, which as outlined in the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement section 3.3.1 is prohibited:

“3.3.1 Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs.”

There is no documentation for creating custom subclasses of UIImagePickerController, the organization or layout of the view hierarchy managed by UIImagePickerController, and any of the custom classes managed by UIImagePickerController in iPhone OS 3.0.1.

Camera APIs are available in the iPhone OS 3.1 SDK that allow applications to take pictures, provide camera view overlays, and add custom camera controls.  Please review these APIs to determine if they provide the functionality you require in your product.  If your product requires additional functionality that is not provided by the Camera APIs in the iPhone OS 3.1 SDK, please file an enhancement request using the Apple Bug Reporter, <http://bugreport.apple.com>.

Our speculation is that we’ve been bitten yet again by the static analysis tool. 3D Camera Lite runs on iPhone OS 3.0 or later, and we check the OS version before calling any of the new 3.1 APIs…exactly as Apple recommends in its own documentation. For 3D Camera Lite, we’re not sure what to do, so we’ve written e-mail to the app review team hoping for a useful response. We don’t want to require that users upgrade to OS 3.1 just to use this minor update. If we are left with no other choice, we may have to cancel this update, and that will only hurt our users.

Perhaps you’re wondering what Apple’s documentation has to say about using newer API features while remaining compatible with older versions. Well, in a post to the iPhone Dev Center on November 20th (how timely) titled “Adding iPhone OS 3.x Features to Your iPhone OS 2.x-compatible Apps,” they state:

By using “weak linking” in your Xcode project, you can include frameworks you’ll need for the newer features, and check for API availability when your application is running. This technique provides you with the broadest possible audience for your application.

Later, the same post references Apple’s SDK Compatibility Guide. In a section titled “Checking for Undefined Method and Function Calls” they state:

To run successfully, your code must avoid calling methods and functions in system versions that do not support them. It can do this either by checking the system version at run time and globally taking a different code path based on the version, or by checking for the existence of each Objective-C method or C function before calling it.

In the interest of full disclosure, here’s the relevant code from 3D Camera Lite and the yet-to-be-released app:

// If running OS 3.1 or newer, add overlay view
if (osVersion >= 3.1f)
{
    imagePicker.showsCameraControls = NO;

    // Add overlay view and controls
    imagePicker.cameraOverlayView = cameraView;
}

The showsCameraControls and cameraOverlayView properties are only available in iPhone OS 3.1 and later, which is why we follow Apple’s advice and check for the correct OS version before using them.

Frustrating.

Update on 12-1-2009: This morning, we received a response from Apple regarding 3D Camera Lite:

Thank you for your email. It would be appropriate to set the minimum OS to 3.1.  Once the needed changes have been made to your application, please resubmit your binary to iTunes Connect. Thank you.

Based on this response, it sounds like Apple’s own documentation is misleading at best. Our takeaway is that Apple isn’t interested in supporting users who haven’t upgraded to the latest iPhone OS version. So, reluctantly, we’ll resubmit a version that requires OS 3.1 or later.

Second update on 12-1-2009: This evening, Apple approved our new app called Spy Pix. While we’re thrilled to have it released, we’re disappointed that it requires iPhone OS 3.1 or later. Unfortunately, this appears to further confirm our suspicions.

Thank you for submitting 3D Camera & 3D Camera Lite to the App Store.  Unfortunately it cannot be added to the App Store because it is modifying or extending an undocumented API, which as outlined in the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement section 3.3.1 is prohibited:

“3.3.1 Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs.”

There is no documentation for the custom subclasses or self-contained views of UIImagePickerController in iPhone OS 3.0.1.  This includes PLCameraView and its custom subclasses (PLImageTile, PLRotationView, PLImageScroller, PLImageView, PLCropOverlay, PLCropLCDLayer, TPBottomDualButtonBar, TPPushButton and TPCameraPushButton).

Additional Camera APIs are now available in iPhone OS 3.1.  Please review these new APIs to see if they meet your needs.  If any additional APIs are desired, please file an enhancement request via the Bug Reporter, <http://bugreport.apple.com>.

While we haven’t announced anything on our site yet, we’ve been waiting for Apple to review a brand new Juicy Bits app that also happens to use the camera, and guess what? It was rejected for exactly the same reason (same text, except for the app name).

Funny thing is, neither 3D Camera, 3D Camera Lite, nor the yet-to-be-approved app use any undocumented APIs at all! As a matter of fact, all three apps have been built using 3.1.x SDKs, and they all use the new official camera APIs to implement their overlays. For astute readers, yes, this is exactly what Apple recommends that we do in the last paragraph of their rejection e-mail!

The nuance is that while we’ve compiled these apps using 3.1.x SDKs, we’ve set the minimum iPhone OS Deployment Target to 3.0 so that the apps will run on older devices (read the section titled Specifying the Runtime Environment in Apple’s Running Applications documentation for a good explanation). We still have a lot of users running 3.0.x devices, and we want to make sure they can upgrade and use our apps.

In the code, we check to see if the app is running on a 3.1.x device before calling any of the new 3.1.x APIs (like the camera overlay). If the app is running on an older 3.0.x device, we don’t use the new APIs and the standard built-in camera controls are used. This is exactly what Apple’s documentation says we should do.

For 3D Camera and 3D Camera Lite, Apple asked that we set the minimum OS to 3.1 and re-submit. Presumably, this is because the reviewer saw the camera overlay and also noticed that the app would run on a 3.0.x device. Our guess is that the reviewer never tried the apps on a 3.0.x device to see that the camera overlay feature is disabled. Because so many of our users are still running a 3.0.x device, we chose to ignore this advice and instead tried to explain the situation to Apple. After a very slow and non-interactive e-mail exchange, 3D Camera and 3D Camera Lite were both approved.

So, we weren’t surprised when our yet-to-be-approved app was rejected for the same reason, since it uses identical camera overlay code and logic and runs on 3.0.x devices. Thus begins the very slow e-mail “conversation” to re-explain the same situation all over again. It’s frustrating, because we’re doing exactly what Apple wants us to do, yet we’re paying for it with very long delays.

We’re now wondering if the static analysis tool sees the 3.1.x API call in our app, notices that it runs on 3.0.x devices (that don’t support the new APIs), and flags or rejects it as a result. This would actually make sense! The only problem is that the tool appears to be ignoring the code where we check the device version before making that call, and that may be the nuance that’s causing all of our delays.

Of course, we’re only speculating about the static analysis rejection, because we don’t know how Apple reviews apps for the App Store. Like others, we try to reverse engineer the black box that is the approval process, and also like others, we wait.

While we’ve only been collecting analytics for about a month, this data represents 23,190 unique users across 72,899 sessions. There is a lot more information than we could easily share in a blog post, so we’ve selected a few items that may help others decide which devices and/or firmware versions to target for their own apps.

The first chart shows the device breakdown. Note that 3D Camera and 3D Camera Lite only work with the iPhone, so no iPods are listed. We were (happily) surprised to see such a high percentage of 3GS devices.

The second chart reports firmware versions. As of version 1.3, 3D Camera and 3D Camera Lite both require firmware 3.0 or later, so no older versions are included in this report. For the curious, we haven’t received a single e-mail or complaint since we decided to require 3.0.

We also capture the amount of free memory available when the apps start. On average, there is 19,148,063 bytes available. This is important to us, because 3D Camera blends two bitmap images into a third, and the app is often skating on the edge of available memory.

For 3D Camera specifically, here are some other interesting statistics:

• The average length of a session is 3.3 minutes (a session includes app start through app termination).
• Photos are taken with the camera three times more often than they’re selected from the album.
• Most users save their 3D image to the photo album, followed by e-mail, Facebook, then Twitter.
• The most common 3D format to save to the album is a grey anaglyph. The next most common format is a parallel stereogram, and it’s saved half as many times.
• For users that send images to Twitter, the wigglegram format is the most popular (by far).
• Surprisingly, no errors or exceptions have been reported. While we pride ourselves on quality code, in our minds, this data point is suspect.

Hopefully, this data will help others understand the current breakdown of devices, firmware versions, and available memory so that they can make more informed decisions.

Of course, the biggest addition to version 1.3 is the return of the (much requested) translucent camera overlay. Apple added official support for camera overlays in the 3.1 OS, and if you’re running 3.1, the feature will automatically appear. Also note that—as of this release—3D Camera requires OS 3.0 or later so we can begin to take advantage of its new capabilities.

Have fun!

The biggest and—by far—the most requested feature is the return of the camera overlay. For those who haven’t been following along, Apple began rejecting apps that modified the camera view, and much to our dismay, we were forced to remove it from 3D Camera. However, Apple has now added official support for camera overlays to the 3.1 OS, and 3D Camera version 1.3 takes advantage of it. To use the new feature, make sure you upgrade your phone to the 3.1 OS, and it will appear automatically.

While we were at it, we also made the following additions and modifications:

• We streamlined the photo-taking process by removing the intermediate steps that required you to select “Use” after each photo. Now, two presses of the shutter/camera button and you’re done.
• We added the ability to send 3D photos via e-mail. This was a frequent user request, and the 3.0 OS made it easy to implement.
• We changed the default view to the alignment mode, since this step should always follow the capture/selection of left and right images. Again, user feedback drove this improvement.
• To alleviate the loss of color and brightness when viewing anaglyphs through filtered 3D glasses, we added an “Anaglyph Enhance” app setting that automatically boosts the saturation and brightness of color and grey anaglyph images. The setting is enabled by default.
• The iPhone camera tends to produce slightly dark images, so we added a gamma calculation to improve image brightness.
• We switched to using a high-quality JPG format (instead of PNG) when sending images to Facebook, Twitpic, and e-mail. In practice, the quality difference is negligible, but the file sizes are significantly smaller, so uploads are much faster.

3D Camera Lite picks up many of these advancements, but it doesn’t include any configurable app settings, and photos can only be sent to Twitpic (though in the new high-quality JPG format).

Thanks for sending us your suggestions and feedback! As you can see, we use it to shape each new release.