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Comment by fn1 | Hacker News Reader

That is because of Androids stupid permissions-system where you have to give all requested permissions to an app before being able to install it.

On iOS the app installs and works and THEN it might ask you for GPS permission and you can deny that and the app keeps working, just without the feature that needs GPS.

I just installed Mi Home, a chinese app which requested every permission there is. I just denied all of them, could still use the app and am 0 afraid that the app somehow accessed my data.

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> you can deny that and the app keeps working, just without the feature that needs GPS

A phone that would truly value the user would allow the user to provide a fake GPS location. Then you could use features that need GPS and not give up your privacy. But Apple doesn't allow that since it would make the phone less useful for companies who want to use phones for tracking.

A phone that truly valued the user would allow users to install multiple copies of an app, and allow the user to log in with different accounts. But Apple doesn't allow that, because they don't want people to share devices.

Yeah, your GPS example doesn’t hold up. How is denying an app location info consistent with your position that Apple wanting to enable companies to track users?

So you, I suspect, don’t want to “avoid tracking” so much as you want to avoid geo-gating of apps and content.

Content distributors rely on such features to satisfy legal obligations about what content they can show where. If the OS started adding features like “pretend I’m in location X” or “download movie regardless of app restrictions” (as an example of another feature that could be argued is pro-user) then at some point you’ll have a platform that isn’t commercially supported or viable.

Honestly, Apple is by far the most pro-user company in this field and there are countless examples of this.

But a very small minority chafe against the restrictions that are actually in most users interests (eg not allowing side loading of apps, which for most people would simply be an attack vector).

> Yeah, your GPS example doesn’t hold up. How is denying an app location info consistent with your position that Apple wanting to enable companies to track users?

Many apps require location data for access to features. If you can't provide a fake location, your only choice is to either accept tracking, or not use the service.

Lots of companies use phone apps for tracking (eg. for tracking location of agents). The company will immediately realise when you turn off GPS access. If you had a way to spoof a location (eg. tell the phone to pretend you stayed in the current location), you could go to the toilet without your employers knowledge and without leaving your phone behind.

Abusers often use phone apps to track their victims. If you are in an abusive relationship, you may be too scared to turn off Find My Friends. If the phone was actually on your side, you would be able to enter a fake location, and your abuser wouldn't have to know that you visited your parents on your way home from work.

Apple wants location data from iOS users to be hard to fake, because it is more valuable this way. Apple's most important asset is the value of their ecosystem. It's why they can charge companies 30% to access it. The user's needs are secondary.

Yeah, I don't buy it, frankly these all seems like minority use cases. I imagine if you were to poll all i-phone owners this would all be bottom of the list in terms of wants. I think a lot of people here conflate "What I as a tech and privacy enthusiast want" and "What everyone wants" very often. The feature you suggest would be used by a very small percentage.

That's not to say I wouldn't want it either but I'm pretty privacy conscious, and a tech enthusiast. I just don't think you can say Apple is putting user's needs second, I don't imagine most users need this.

Yeah I’m going to need examples of what features get locked by not providing location. I’m just not buying this is anything other than wanting to avoid geo restrictions on content. I mean I understand the desire for this but I also understand the desire not to pay for content, so this is a thin one when it comes to “freedom”.

Oh and as for tracking, at least for the company they can already track you by what towers you’re connected to. So there’s no technical limitation on this being provided to apps regardless of what you might spoof.

> Yeah I’m going to need examples of what features get locked by not providing location.

Strava refuses to let you track your ride if you don't allow always-on background tracking. (They changed this about a year ago. Previously "while using the app" was sufficient)

A lunch menu app that I used before Covid allowed you to show nearby restaurants based on location. But there was no way to manually enter a location (without GPS it was just a huge unsorted list).

These are two examples that come to my mind (I'm not a person who uses a lot of different apps, I'm sure there's more out there. Try rejecting location access for a few apps and see what happens)

Edit: I'm also not sure why you are so hung up on geo restrictions. I don't really care about geo restrictions, and even if, you could avoid them trivially with VPNs that are widely available. That just has nothing to do with keeping my GPS coordinates private.

> Abusers often use phone apps to track their victims. If you are in an abusive relationship, you may be too scared to turn off Find My Friends. If the phone was actually on your side, you would be able to enter a fake location, and your abuser wouldn't have to know that you visited your parents on your way home from work.

This exact same feature you are asking for would be useful for people abducting children, who could make it look like the child was still at school while they took them away.

This is far more likely to be why Apple hasn’t implemented it.

> since it would make the phone less useful for companies who want to use phones for tracking.

Are you an Apple employer with access to confidential memos or meetings?

I can’t see how you would know this otherwise.

Just to clarify, Android has had the ability to request permissions ad hoc in the user journey since Android 6.0.

But it is true that Android won't reject apps that refuse to work without a permission while iOS mandates that basic functionalities of an app work even when permission is denied.

Android does that too. The elephant in the room is denying internet permission. Nobody implements it because it'll hurt their bottom line.

This is why apps like netguard are a must. Is there an equivalent for iOS?

I like how Miui (Xiaomi skin on Android) allows you to do this.

2015 called, said Marshmallow was released.

And meanwhile, 6 years later an app can be submitted to the play store that ignores that and just blanket asks for permissions and refuses to run without them.

"But given its importance and that i0S 14 already has a similar feature, it's more likely to ship than not. What could make Google's implementation better than Apple's is how easy it is to access more information requires you to head to the settings to see exactly what's going"

https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/03/22/android-12-isnt-sim...

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