When is a flashlight app not a flashlight app? When it's just a clever disguise for another kind of app all together.
In a move making him both a credible developer and a geek outlaw simultaneously, fifteen-year-old app developer Nick Lee submitted a humble Flashlight application for inclusion in the iTunes App Store that was actually a deviously hidden tethering application. According to Gizmodo, Lee's Handy Light functioned very much like the other gazillion iPhone flashlight apps currently lurking in the App Store, but with one tiny difference: the application's flashlight functionality was only a veneer to hide the awesome power of a tethering app that enabled AT&T users to connect their computer to the internet via iPhone without having to shell out an additional $20 per month.
Not surprisingly, once the true nature of the app was discovered, Handy Light was unceremoniously yanked out of the App Store.
While it's great to see someone taking AT&T to task over the insanity of forcing their customers to pay more to use data that they've already purchased, breaking the rules of an already convoluted marketplace where developers routinely have their above-board applications inexplicably rejected is not cool.
The event does raise an interesting question, however: how many other apps are out there that boast hidden functionality that Apple hasn't discovered yet?
