11–20 of 165 posts
I think the OS should provide the ability to select items and then give opaque handles to applications. The app could send a message to the OS to display photo selector. The OS could send a message back with a handle to selected photo. One could then asks the OS to send a handle, which would forward selected item somewhere else.
I think the OS should provide the ability to select items and then give opaque handles to applications. The app could send a message to the OS to display photo selector. The OS could send a message back with a handle to selected photo. One could then asks the OS to send a handle, which would forward selected item somewhere else.
iOS already has this feature precisely. I can either grant access to all photos or only a selected subset, or even just one.
I think the OS should provide the ability to select items and then give opaque handles to applications. The app could send a message to the OS to display photo selector. The OS could send a message back with a handle to selected photo. One could then asks the OS to send a handle, which would forward selected item somewhere else.
iOS already has this feature precisely. I can either grant access to all photos or only a selected subset, or even just one.
But like many things with iOS Apple did this and apps had no choice but to work with it since (seemingly) as far as the app is concerned it is the same situation as before.
I do wish though it was easier to grant more images without needing to go to settings. I have had one app that somehow gave me the ability to add more images, but I am not entirely sure how it did it.
This feels like treating one particularly visible symptom of the problem instead of fixing the actual problem. What Google should do instead is prevent apps from refusing to work or disabling unrelated functionality just because some permissions are denied (e.g., if you deny your banking app permission to access your camera, everything but mobile check deposit should still have to work). They should use a two-pronged…
This feels like treating one particularly visible symptom of the problem instead of fixing the actual problem. What Google should do instead is prevent apps from refusing to work or disabling unrelated functionality just because some permissions are denied (e.g., if you deny your banking app permission to access your camera, everything but mobile check deposit should still have to work). They should use a two-pronged…
What about apps that aren't malicious? How can they tell the difference between a user who denied the permission to reasonably offer alternatives?
It's "good" in the same way that "google stops punching man in the face" might be good. In a sea of predatory applications, why is lending the only one that gets blocked here? A whitelist would be better (say approved photo and contact apps could access photos and contacts), and better still would be the app can only access what you transfer to it and doesn't get blanket permissions. I also agree with the other comme…
There is such a thing as going too far though. An app I'm familiar with had Apple rejecting the app for accessing contacts, even though the contacts stay on device at all times and the only way they are exported is if you send a debug log which has a warning modal about their contacts being logged and gives the user the chance to edit those out. There was nothing to be done that would satiate Apple besides disabling…
Was it being rejected for asking or for being broken if it didnt get the permissions?
Or was it simply not able to give a justifiable reason to Apple for needing the permission?
You say it was staying on device but once you have access to those contacts it would be trivial to add the ability to send them to a server or have them leak via third party tools like the facebook sdk. That would be completely invisible to the user after giving past permissions.
The fact that you say that the user experience is now worsened makes me believe that contact access was not an absolute requirement for the app to exist (like say... a contacts organizer or something) and is extra functionality.
Personally with very very few exceptions I will not grant an app access to my contacts since anyone in my contacts don't have the luxury to also consent to some company having their data.
It's "good" in the same way that "google stops punching man in the face" might be good. In a sea of predatory applications, why is lending the only one that gets blocked here? A whitelist would be better (say approved photo and contact apps could access photos and contacts), and better still would be the app can only access what you transfer to it and doesn't get blanket permissions. I also agree with the other comme…
Because lending apps are the only one to engage in egregious behavior, see [1] as an example. The relevant sections are quoted below:
> If a user was late to repay, the app had previously indiscriminately texted or called contacts in the user’s phone as part of loan collection efforts. This process began immediately after a loan repayment was delayed, according to user reviews.
> Numerous users reported that friends, family, employers, and other contacts were harassed and threatened through Opera’s apps when a borrower was late.
(...)
> In another example, the apps threatened to place friends or family of a borrower on a national credit blacklist if they didn’t convince the actual borrower to pay:
[1] https://hindenburgresearch.com/opera-phantom-of-the-turnarou...
This feels like treating one particularly visible symptom of the problem instead of fixing the actual problem. What Google should do instead is prevent apps from refusing to work or disabling unrelated functionality just because some permissions are denied (e.g., if you deny your banking app permission to access your camera, everything but mobile check deposit should still have to work). They should use a two-pronged…
> 2. Make Android present convincing fake data to apps when permissions are denied What about apps that aren't malicious? How can they tell the difference between a user who denied the permission to reasonably offer alternatives?
Maybe Android has this, but on iOS I can go into privacy and easily see what apps have access to what data (and easily revoke that permission).
But I don't see any kinds of metrics that would indicate that an app is possibly abusing that permission.
For example, it would be awesome if I could go look at photos or contacts and see a percent for how much that app has accessed that data and maybe even a graph overtime so I can see if it was a one time thing or its mining for data.
There is the app privacy report on iOS that gives me some of this data, but it doesn't give me how much data it is accessing. Which I think is the critical part.
If I give an app access to my photos I expect its going to access it, but without knowing what its doing its not quite as useful. Still useful, but not as useful.
I think the OS should provide the ability to select items and then give opaque handles to applications. The app could send a message to the OS to display photo selector. The OS could send a message back with a handle to selected photo. One could then asks the OS to send a handle, which would forward selected item somewhere else.
This feature is actually quite foundational to the Android architecture, where the vision was a bunch of small apps working together in this manner.
Unfortunately it's a slightly more clunky user experience than what users these days have gotten used to: big monolithic apps that handle everything themselves.