How do I implement a volume shutter in iOS 11?

I want to implement a volume shutter in my camera app. When the user presses the volume button, I should get an event to take a photo.

I'm looking for an implementation that meets the following requirements:

It should work even if the volume is currently at the maximum, and the user presses the volume up button.
There should be no on-screen UI showing that the volume changed.
There should be no known cases of Apple rejecting an app that used this technique.

Other questions and answers exist on this topic, but for older versions of iOS, so I wanted to find one that works on iOS 11.

Camera apps like ProCamera, ProCam and Camera+ have the volume shutter that satisfies all these conditions, so it's clearly possible.

Solution

So here is the code that will meet all your requirements – I'm not sure whether or not Apple will approve this though.
I've pulled all this code from questions/answers here on StackOverflow.

Tested with iOS 10.2 in Xcode 8.3.1

You need to use the AVFoundation and MediaPlayer frameworks for this to work.

import UIKit
import AVFoundation
import MediaPlayer

class ViewController: UIViewController {

    //keeps track of the initial volume the user had set when entering the app
    //used to reset the volume when he exits the app
    var volume: Float = 0

    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()

        let audioSession = AVAudioSession.sharedInstance()
        volume = audioSession.outputVolume-0.1 //if the user is at 1 (full volume)
        try! audioSession.setActive(true)
        audioSession.addObserver(self, forKeyPath: "outputVolume", options: NSKeyValueObservingOptions.new, context: nil)
        //prevents the volume hud from showing up
        let volView = MPVolumeView(frame: .zero)
        view.addSubview(volView)
    }

    override func observeValue(forKeyPath keyPath: String?, of object: Any?, change: [NSKeyValueChangeKey : Any]?, context: UnsafeMutableRawPointer?) {
        //when the user changes the volume,
        //prevent the output volume from changing by setting it to the default volume we specified,
        //so that we can continue pressing the buttons for ever
        (MPVolumeView().subviews.filter{NSStringFromClass($0.classForCoder) == "MPVolumeSlider"}.first as? UISlider)?.setValue(volume, animated: false)

        //implement your photo-capturing function here
        print("volume changed")
    }
}

Update

If you want to make sure your code is still working after the user exits the app, use the AppDelegate to install the observer when the app becomes active, like this:

AppDelegate

import UIKit
import AVFoundation
import MediaPlayer

var volume: Float = 0.5

@UIApplicationMain
class AppDelegate: UIResponder, UIApplicationDelegate {

    var window: UIWindow?
    let audioSession = AVAudioSession.sharedInstance()

    func application(_ application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [UIApplicationLaunchOptionsKey: Any]?) -> Bool {
        return true
    }

    override func observeValue(forKeyPath keyPath: String?, of object: Any?, change: [NSKeyValueChangeKey : Any]?, context: UnsafeMutableRawPointer?) {
        (MPVolumeView().subviews.filter{NSStringFromClass($0.classForCoder) == "MPVolumeSlider"}.first as? UISlider)?.setValue(volume, animated: false)

        NotificationCenter.default.removeObserver(self)
        NotificationCenter.default.post(Notification(name: Notification.Name(rawValue: "volumeChanged")))
    }

    func applicationDidBecomeActive(_ application: UIApplication) {
        volume = audioSession.outputVolume
        if volume == 0 { volume += 0.1 } else if volume == 1 { volume -= 0.1 }
        try! audioSession.setActive(true)
        audioSession.addObserver(self, forKeyPath: "outputVolume", options: NSKeyValueObservingOptions.new, context: nil)
    }

    func applicationWillResignActive(_ application: UIApplication) {
        audioSession.removeObserver(self, forKeyPath: "outputVolume")
    }
}

ViewController

import UIKit
import AVFoundation
import MediaPlayer

class ViewController: UIViewController {

    override func viewDidLoad() {
        super.viewDidLoad()

        NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(self, selector: #selector(self.volumeChanged), name: Notification.Name(rawValue: "volumeChanged"), object: nil)
        //prevents the volume hud from showing up
        let volView = MPVolumeView(frame: .zero)
        view.addSubview(volView)
    }

    func volumeChanged() {
        print("volume changed")
    }
}