CUPERTINO, CA — Those clever little programming monkeys and their love of saucy computerized content. Try as society may to depict code crunchers as asexual basement dwellers, the real world keeps proving that they’re just as pervy, irreverent and entertained by colorful language and bare flesh as the rest of us. Perhaps even more. The latest supposed assault on the decency of honest citizens comes in the form of Easter eggs. Not the kind children search for among the dried dog turds found in moist lawns each holiday season, but the kind hidden in computer games and iPhone apps.
iPhone apps? But those are supposed to be pristine and family-friendly; except for the ones that recreate the joys to be by farting or shaking infants, of course.
Nonetheless, according to Brian Chen of Wired.com, there are nefarious nerds gleefully hiding profanities and naked adult fun in their iPhone apps in spite of Apple’s persistent and sometimes heavy-handed efforts to keep the spendy tech-toy appropriate for the pre-school crowd.
Examples of infamous acts of techno disobedience include Jelle Prins’ initially rejected Lyrics app, which included songs with profanity; something entirely verboten from the iPhone network but common for the iPod crowd. An apparently cleaned up and therefore authorized version allows those with the secret code (visit the About page, click downwards thrice) allows users to toggle the word filter out of protected mode.
“It’s almost impossible for Apple to see if there’s an Easter egg, because they can’t really see the source code,” Prins confessed to Wired.com. “In theory, a developer could make a simple Easter egg in their app and provide a user with whatever content they want.”
This sort of potential security vulnerability is precisely what worries some developers. Nullriver CEO Adam Dann is quoted on Wired.com as fretting that “If people start putting in naked pictures of their ex-girlfriend as an Easter egg to get revenge or something like that, that isn’t quite right. It has the potential to really mess things up for everybody.”
Other legitimate concerns include the potential of intentionally malicious code being installed, making user information available to the initiating programmer or their circle of personal or professional intimates.
Of course, Prins’ Easter egg has nothing to do with inappropriate or revengeful behavior, so worst case scenario fears do not necessarily represent the reality of current app Easter eggs. That doesn’t mean that once found, apps with eggs won’t go the way of the dinosaur.
In the meantime, CultOfMac.com is encouraging anyone who locates an adult app Easter egg or other undocumented feature to let them in on the secret. An unspecified prize will go to whoever reports “the best one.”
