JavaScript can manipulate the contents of your clipboard without any interaction from the user. It's not just apps that can do this.
Manipulating the clipboard is not the problem, reading it is. AFAIK there is no way to read the clipboard from JavaScript without user interaction. If there is please post a repo. It used to be true but all that was fixed like 10 years ago.
How is manipulating clipboard not a problem? What if something replaces your fingerprint or bitcoin address?
At least in Android (not familiar with iOS) you can deny apps access to any and all permissions, the features just won't work. I.e. if you deny Snapchat access to the camera you can still browse the app, read messages etc - you just won't be able to take any photos.
That’s not my point: I’m arguing that apps like TikTok and Facebook are big enough that they could convince non-technical users (who are either ignorant-of, or just don’t care about, app permissions and privacy) to switch to an unofficial app-store where they could list their app without it being denied approval by Apple or Google for unreasonable app permission prompts. ...but the fact that unofficial app-stores for…
Zenly already does something similar with location permissions, and their app isn't even side-loaded.
They'll simply annoy you to hell and not let you use the app until you've granted permanent location permissions.
How is that Apple didn't catch TikTok doing this way way earlier to give them some sort of penalty.
Maybe the Chinese government forced Apple the same way that they’re forcing them to secretly share [Chinese] users [in China] most sensitive data with the government (photos, videos, notes and everything automatically backed up by iCloud).
You do know that iCloud isn’t owned or operated by Apple in China? Much like Microsoft/Office 365, it’s owned and operated by a state owned business. This is true of a lot of large cloud services that run in China.
I’m not saying it’s any better, or indeed worse, rather it’s an important distinction.
The choice of only allowing access to specific actual photos seems an unusual one. I would have thought there was a big debate in Product Mgmt over this vs the more obvious allow an app access to a given album. One presumes the sticking point came when someone took a photo out of an album. Does that mean they are explicitly removing access? I don't see it as a huge issue... maybe there is some kind of technical hurdl…
Do normal people really use albums? Other than the autogenerated ones I have a single one, from 2013.
Nailed it. Using albums is the engineer’s answer to what is technically best. In the real world it doesn’t work because nobody knows how to, much less actually uses albums. And even if you do, what are the chances you have an album with exactly the photos you want to share? So you’ve got to select the pics you want anyway, but now you’ve also got to create an album first to put them in. It just adds to the work and confused and irritates people.
> I'm probably going to get downvoted to hell It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Don't bring it up next time. Reverse psychology (in an attempt to not get downvotes) doesn't work here, it just pisses people off (and is against the rules to complain about), so you WILL receive downvotes for mentioning it.
It happens whether or not I say that actually. Every time I disagree with Apple I get downvoted to oblivion. There are just too many Apple fanboys here who believe Apple is the be-all end-all of everything privacy.
Or what you’re saying doesn’t add to the conversation. Simply blaming ‘fanboys’ isn’t useful. I don’t think any of the responses to you post believe that Apple are the “be-all end-all” of privacy, but they are arguing that for the typical consumer (something that is too often overlooked) they currently provide the best solution available. The critical bit there is typical consumer. If you’re a “power user” (what a horrid expression) and want to go another route, have at it! You have a choice.
You say “anybody” But I’m not a programmer, I would have no idea what I’m looking at. And trust me, neither would the vast majority of humans. Beyond that, have you considered the actual average user? You either never worked tech support or forgot. It’s bad out there, it’s like people are moving backwards with computer skills because of phones.
The difference is realistically possible vs not possible. I think the point stands.
What I want to see with Contacts is 1) a way for apps to display a view that shows the contact name for a phone number, with specified styling / sizing / etc, but without being able to determine what that contact name is. 2) an App Store rule that forbids apps from requiring contact access unless they can't function without it. WhatsApp forces you to provide contact access, giving Facebook your place in the social gr…
WhatsApp works so well because it is tied into the same contacts that you already have on your phone. Without access to your phone’s contacts you would need to set up and manage an entirely separate set of contacts. Right now, Grandma could download WhatsApp and instantly start chatting with her granddaughter without having to remember what her phone number is because it’s already there. That’s a major selling point…
I revoked Contacts access in WhatsApp a year ago. It works just fine. Problem is: WhatsApp only shows the phone numbers in the list and NOT the usernames of people. This is rather annoying, because I don't know any phone numbers by heart. Profile pics help a bit, but people change them and often don't have pictures of themselves.