Apple has been giving Zoom special treatment - the only app with iPad camera multitasking
Last year, iPadOS finally added support for the Zoom app to be used while multitasking in Split View mode, in iPads across the board.
For a while, there was a small problem: while the Zoom app itself ran perfectly fine while multitasking, the iPad camera would stop working as soon as you entered Split View. Yet shortly after, this issue was fixed as well, and the Zoom camera began working alongside any other multitasking apps.
This has been a huge benefit for students or those in the workplace who are required to have the camera on in video conferences, but who also use their iPad for taking notes or looking up references.
Yet many of you may have noticed that most other video conferencing apps—or simply apps who use your iPad's camera—instantly lose connection to the camera as soon as Split View mode is activated.
Even globally popular apps such as Skype and Facebook Messenger don't seem to have the multitasking camera functionality privilege that only Zoom (and FaceTime, naturally) enjoys. People have noticed and been banging their heads over it for a while now, but it seems we finally have an answer.
It's entirely a question of "entitlements" offered on Apple's side, and they've been playing favorites with developers all this time.
Just a week ago, Jeremy Provost—an iOS app developer—published a blog post casting some light on why only Zoom (and probably an unknown select group of apps) seem to have privileged access to the camera while in Split View.
Provost had released his own app, "Participant for Zoom," which runs as a Zoom client and provides a simplified version of Zoom with extra convenience features. Yet Provost was surprised to find that unlike Zoom—which his app runs as a modded version—the camera failed to work while in Split View.
Provost made some inquiries, and eventually found out that the Split View camera functionality was apparently one of Apple's private "entitlements" which Apple only grants to apps it deems worthy. So far, we only know of Zoom and FaceTime as boasting that feature.
The odd thing is, while most so-called entitlements are publicly documented and open for developers to apply for (such as CarPlay integration, for example), acquiring this particular camera functionality is quite a secretive process, lacking any public documentation. It seems Apple doesn't even want to let developers in on the fact that it exists, unless the company so chooses.
...It doesn’t make sense for this to be private, undocumented, and only accessible to Apple’s preferred partners. You can’t say “we treat every developer the same” while privately giving special capabilities to certain developers.
So, why is Zoom getting this ultra-special treatment? Why does it get to use the camera in Split View mode while all other developers—even at Facebook—are left in the dark?
We still don't know, and Provost has contacted Apple's developers with a request to use this elusive "iPad camera multitasking" API (the information for which he received from Zoom representatives). As far as we know, he is still awaiting an answer from them.
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