Handy Light. How a teenager tricked Apple

Khoja Nasreddin is a folk character of the Muslim East and some peoples of the Mediterranean, an internally contradictory image of an anti-hero, a tramp, a free-thinker, a rebel. Not otherwise, this image inspired 15-year-old Nick Lee to the “knight's move” described below.

Handy Light - a program that appeared in the App Store recently, at the standard, for useless mulk, the price of $ 0.99. It looked like a regular flashlight program. But in fact, it was much more useful ...

Handy Light allows you to fill the canvas with a random color from the set provided. Run it, click the desired square and voila - see the world in 8-bit color. Another stupid flashlight application, some hundreds. The App Store team thought the same way.

Inside, the application contained hidden code implementing tethering - a functional that allows you to turn the iPhone into a 3G modem. This allowed surfing the Internet from a laptop, connecting to the phone via WiFi and using it as a bridge to the Internet. Many users from Russia know this, because WiFi modems do the same Yota.
')
However, in the US, the iPhone is most often sold with a contract from AT & T. Tethering can be turned on using the iPhone itself, but then automatically the user will be charged $ 20 a month for using this “service”. Regardless of the plan, regardless of the amount of data - just for the inclusion of this feature, you pay $ 20 a month. Handy Light gave this Internet light for free. Well, not for free, but for $ 0.99.

It gave . Unfortunately, the carnival did not last long and the application was banned in the App Store, as soon as it became clear. But those who downloaded it before the ban can continue to use it.



The sad, though predictable, end of this epic story. One can only hope that, sooner or later, the developers will try again to make a daring outing and deceive the Emir.