Something is wrong when the ‘telephone app’ on your phone becomes 3rd party

I've never had a problem with 3rd party dialers on Android. But I can smell a scam and I'm technically literate.

To the best of my knowledge there's never been a major dialler related security mishap. In fact much of the panic about Android's "malware ridden ecosystem" seems overblown. Nobody I know has ever had an issue to the best of my knowledge.

But it's definitely a possibility and it's highly probable that eventually something bad will happen on a large scale without some better controls - albeit hopefully not the type that Apple imposes. Cost vs benefit and all that.

if there was a pure messaging device right now with no voice - I'd bite their hand off

I don't need a mobile browser or even apps - all they do is stop me from disconnecting from work for a few minutes or hours - I don't think always-on is good for anyone over time

So the dieler just being a app is a direct consequence from smartphones not being any kind of "special/magical" embedded device.

Through silently overriding the Dialer with a program I would normally suspect to be malware which sneaked on my phone is a horrible think to do...