Question

I have a joke app that has a view/menu hidden from “the victim”. My thoughts were to make this hidden view accessible to the joke-player via an “invisible” button and/or by multiple taps or a secret gesture. The app will potentially be first opened by the joke victim and I want to guard against the victim accidentally discovering the secret view.

I prefer not to use a fake home screen.

I can appreciate how getting something like this through the app review process might be a challenge. With that in mind, 1) what would be a good “app approval process friendly” mechanism for accessing the hidden menu and 2) how do you communicate the “secret” of a magic/joke app (in this case, how to access the secret menu) without revealing it on the app’s splash screen or on the iTunes app store description?

Answer 1

1) what would be a good “app approval process friendly” mechanism for accessing the hidden menu

The menu is meant to be secret, so something like a button with no text or background color might suffice. If you want to get fancier, you could experiment with UIGestureRecognizers and make the user swipe at a certain area, or draw a custom pattern on the screen to activate the menu. Here’s an example of the invisible button approach:

// place this in viewDidLoad, or something similar
UIButton *button = [[UIButton alloc] init];
[button setFrame:CGRectMake(10,10,50,50)];
[button addTarget:self action:@selector(showMenu:) forControlEvents:UIControlEventTouchUpInside];
[[self view] addSubview:button];

-(void)showMenu:(id)sender {

    // here I just present an alert, saying that the user tapped the "hidden" button

    UIAlertView *alert = [[UIAlertView alloc] initWithTitle:@"You Found It!" message:@"You found thie hidden button.  Congratulations." delegate:nil cancelButtonTitle:@"Cool!" otherButtonTitles:nil];
    [alert show];

}

2) how do you communicate the “secret” of a magic/joke app (in this case, how to access the secret menu) without revealing it on the app’s splash screen or on the iTunes app store description?

You could say what you’d like in the application to hint at it. I’d make it known that the menu exists in the review notes when you submit your application, though, just so the Apple Reviewer will not glaze over it.