I wish they'd (Apple/Micrsoft/Google/...) would do similar things for USB and Bluetooth.
Lately, every app I install, wants bluetooth access to scan all my bluetooth devices. I don't want that. At most, I want the app to have to declare in their manifest some specific device IDs (short list) that their app is allowed to connect to and have the OS limit their connections to only those devices. For for example the Bose App should only be able to see Bose devices, nothing else. The CVS (pharmacy app) should only be able to connect to CVS devices, whatever those are. All I know is the app asked for permission. I denied it.
I might even prefer if it had to register the device ids and then the user would be prompted, the same way camera access/gps access is prompted. Via the OS, it might see a device that the CVS.app registered for in its manifest. The OS would popup "CVS app would like to connect to device ABC? Just this once, only when the app is running, always" (similar to the way iOS handles location)
By id, I mean some prefix that a company registers for its devices. bose.xxx, app's manifest says it wants to connect to "bose.*" and OS filters.
Similarly for USB and maybe local network devices. Come up with an id scheme, have the OS prevent apps form connecting to anything not that id. Effectively, don't let apps browser the network, usb, bluetooth.
I am still holding out hope that eventually at least Apple will offer fake permission grants to applications. Oh, app XYZ "needs" to see my contact list to proceed? Well it gets a randomized fake list, indistinguishable from the real one. Similar with GPS.
I have been told that WhatsApp does not let you name contacts without sharing your address book back to Facebook.
Yeah. I'd like it too. I can't use my bank's app, because it wants some weird permissions like an access to contacts, I refuse to give them, because I see no use in it for me, and it refuses to work.
In iOS you can share a subset of your contacts. This is functionally equivalent and works as you described for WhatsApp.
>In iOS you can share a subset of your contacts.
the problem is, the app must respect that.
WhatsApp, for all the hate it gets, does.
"Privacy" focused Telegram doesnt-- it wouldnt work unless I shared ALL my contacts-- when I shared a few, it kept complaining I had to share ALL
Is it something specific to iOS Telegram client?
On Android Telegram works with denied access to the contacts and maintains its own, completely separate, contact list (shared with desktop Telegram and other copies logged in to same account). I'm using Telegram longer than I'm using smartphone and it has completely separate contact list (as it should be).
And WhatsApp cannot be used without access to contacts: it doesn't allow to create WatsApp-only contact and complains that it has no place to store it till you grant access to Phone contact list.
To be honest, I prefer to have separate contact lists on all my communication channel, and even sharing contacts between phone app and e-mail app (GMail) bothers me.
Telegram is good in this aspect, it can use its own contact list, not synchronized or shared with anything else, and WhatsApp is not.
I’ve never allowed Telegram on iOS to access my contacts, camera, or microphone and it’s worked just fine.
Looks to me like it was a bug. Not giving access to any contacts broke the app completely but limited access works fine except for an annoying persistent in app notification.
iOS generally solves this through App Store submission reviews so I’m surprised this isn’t a rule and that telegram got away with it. “Apps must not gate functionality behind receiving access to all contacts vs a subset” or something. They definitely do so for location access, for example.
WhatsApp specifically needs phone numbers, and you can filter out which contacts you share, but not which fields. So if you family uses WhatsApp, you’d share those contacts, but you can’t share ONLY their phone number, WhatsApp also gets their birthdays, addresses, personal notes, and any other personal information which you might have.
I think this feature is pretty meaningless in the way that it’s implemented.
It’s also pretty annoying that applications know they have partial permission, so kept prompting for full permission all the time anyway.
Also for the camera, just feed them random noise or a user-selectable image/video
Apps are not allowed to force you to share your contacts on iOS, report any apps that are asking you to do so as it’s a violation of the App Store TOS.
Safari doesn't support Web MIDI apparently for this reason (fingerprinting), but it makes using any kind of MIDI web app impossible.
Are you talking about web apps, mobile apps, desktop apps, or browser extensions?
> Lately, every app I install, wants bluetooth access to scan all my bluetooth devices.
Blame Apple and Google and their horrid BLE APIs.
An app generally has to request "ALL THE PERMISSIONS!" to get RSSI which most apps are using as a (really stupid, bug prone, broken) proxy for distance.
What everybody wants is "time of flight"--but for some reason that continues to be mostly unsupported.