Comment by thaumasiotes | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thaumasiotes | Hacker News Reader

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> That seems OK since it still asks you as it needs them when running an app, and "prunes" permissions away from apps that you do not use often.

No no no no no, this is a total catastrophe. I can't understand how it got implemented at all.

I just missed a birthday notification from my calendar app because Android "helpfully" removed the app's ability to create notifications! After all, I hadn't opened the calendar app in more than six months!

Infuriatingly, I caught the original message telling me "hey, we just noticed that your calendar shouldn't be allowed to send you reminders" and I tried to restore the permission, but that doesn't seem to have worked.

Whoever designed and implemented this "feature" shouldn't be trusted to put on pants.

> and "prunes" permissions away from apps that you do not use often

Certainly agreed: a system should never "take the initiative" and replace you in decisions.

I am seeing cars that act along the lines of "Ah, you turned off the air conditioning, so I'll proactively open the windows": this clearly indicates that some manufacturers have embraced decadence and nihilism, they "have given up" and "want to watch the world burn" (unless they are simply underage savages).

Yeah that feature is complete garbage. The intent is laudable (reducing permissions for unused apps) but the implementation of getting a notification every once in a while with a ton of permissions removed is awful.

Combined with the fact that Google seems to be sending more notifications for all kinds of junk nowadays makes it even easier to fail to notice that.

Fully agreed. What's worse, even if you painstakingly go through all your apps and disable this anti-feature—since there no global setting—it just gets turned back on the next time the app is updated. Putting aside the abysmal UX, automated systems should respect clearly-expressed user preferences.

Android documentation says that if the permission is auto removed, you'll get a permission prompt next time a notification is sent.

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