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Comment by zaptheimpaler | Hacker News Reader

Also Apple's own apps request permissions the same way third party apps do

Apple chooses to ask the user for permission about certain things, but they're not beholden to that "like any other app". No app can e.g use your microphone in the background to listen for trigger words, no other app can analyse your photos for search without a permission dialog, no other app can transmit nearby BSSIDs + GPS location in the background for the purposes of building a location services system. Apple does all these things. Apple is absolutely not doing things "like third party apps do".

I just got a new iPhone two weeks ago (corporate mandated:(.

I don't recall messages, photos, apple maps, notes, camera, calendar etc asking me detailed permissions. I think health did ask for some.

Installing equivalent Facebook messenger, Google photos, Google calendar, etc also of course did.

(Greediest award goes to whatsapp which basically doesn't work unless you grant it full access to contacts boo)

I had to contact someone in Europe so I started using WhatsApp. It does work without granting access to contacts, but it seems I can't even assign a name to a number without the contacts permission, so thousands of messages later the contact is still a bare number. Really scummy behavior. I probably would have caved if I had a number of contacts. And no iPad app, wtf.

WhatsApp on Android has the same behaviour. Most of my conversations show as a bare phone number because I decided not to give it all my contacts.

However, WhatsApp groups show a name, so that's a workaround if you are using WhatsApp with someone you know well: Make a group for the two of you.

When a friend went to install WhatsApp for their iPad, they succeeded!

Then they said it wasn't working properly. Unfortunately that's because app store search brought up misleading third-party WhatsApp apps for the iPad. If you weren't paying attention, it was too easy to think you were installing the official app from WhatsApp. I didn't notice the app was third-party at first either, and I was very surprised to find no app at all from WhatsApp itself on closer inspection, amidst a page of search resulrs all claiming to be it.

I would have settled for something like the Instagram “iPad app”: a phone-sized rectangle in the middle of a black background. Alas, they don’t even allow that, hence all the fake crap you can easily download by mistake. And the web app is pretty bad on iPads, thanks in no small part to Apple.

>WhatsApp on Android has the same behaviour. Most of my conversations show as a bare phone number because I decided not to give it all my contacts.

It was actually worse (at least as of a few years ago) because they didn't allow you to manually input phone numbers. You either need the other party to message you first, or use a wa.me deeplink (eg. wa.me/12125551234).

Can you initiate a conversation? My experience with WhatsApp is that if I don't give it access to contacts, other people have to initiate conversation. I cannot just tell it to start a chat with phone 123 456 7890 (this is on Android).

I guess it's debatable whether that's categorized as "it works" :>

I can “enter a phone number to start a new chat” on iOS, with a big warning about contacts on top.

No they don't. It is literally impossible to create competitors for Apple's native apps and companion devices/accessories no matter how many permission prompts the user approves. That is what this entire complaint is about.

They certainly don’t. We’re talking about apps like Phone, Messages, Photos, Files and system stuff like app tracking (Screen Time etc.).

When you first set up an iPhone (and other hardware like AirPods, for example) you are asked whether to share anonymized usage data with Apple. Saying "No" at that screen turns off a whole swath of data collection.

I wonder what specific examples you are aware of that are not disabled in this manner?

No one's talking about "anonymous usage data". The topic at question is primary data available to first party apps (even if they remain on device), often synced to iCloud and available to say, Siri. I'm sure I accepted a bunch of EULAs when turning on iCloud and Siri, but Facebook will argue they've shown you their EULA too. That's not "request permissions the same way third party apps do", and some of the data can't even be requested through normal permission prompts, which is why Meta is forcing Apple's hand with the EU stuff.

This argument is silly and goes well beyond the spirit of the EU law.

As if Meta has to suddenly show Apple all of its goods now too. Giving Apple access to all Facebook or Instagram data and letting them decide where to draw the line.

Stop letting the distaste for Apple effect reason and sanity.

> Giving Apple access to all Facebook or Instagram data and letting them decide where to draw the line.

Meta is running an app store on Instagram that Apple is using?

Apple turned on a “feature” without announcing it that would send data about every single on your private photos to their servers recently.

https://bsky.app/profile/matthewdgreen.bsky.social/post/3lef...

And…?

Yeah, I suspect this AI thing is going to be a fork in the road for Apple. The buzz is that AI is amazing and with everyone tripping over themselves to add it to their products, marketing is going to be asking for things quickly and dismissing any pushback on perceived privacy.

If enough blogs expose these things (if they are actual privacy concerns — I mean I am already storing the photos themselves on Apple's iCloud, so) then I expect Apple to back off and make the feature opt-in in an upcoming release.

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