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Comment by throwaway494932 | Hacker News Reader

That works if meanwhile Google hasn't decided to increase the target api level requirements [1]. In that case you may not be able to just republish the app, and extensive refactoring may be necessary.

Forcing apps using old sdks out of the app store is probably the main reason they do this.

[1] https://developer.android.com/google/play/requirements/targe...

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That is only really necessary if your app is using old privacy or security problematic APIs.

Which is usually the root cause of this complaining - "why do I have to refactor my app so it won't demand access to all private photos and documents anymore?!"

Who actually asked for this? It's been nothing but a pointless nuisance to me as a user. Samsung complains at me if I choose to give an app persistent GPS access, in the rare occasion it even lets me. I want my programs to do as much as possible, not be hamstrung.

There’s a few apps where I want to grant broad permissions from the outset, but generally that’s not what I want, especially when it comes to photos, contacts, etc. In most cases there’s no benefit whatsoever to granting e.g. access to my entire photo library and it seriously irritates me to see apps insist on said access.

In fact if I had my way, I’d never see a prompt and permissions would default to “only selected” (collections) and “no access” (location, wifi, etc), with the handful of exceptions having access granted manually.

I gave Telegram access to only a few photos, and it pops up the "give me more access" dialog EVERY SINGLE TIME I open it. Not when I want to send a photo, every time I open the app!

As I user, I would have asked. I don't want to have a random closed-source app to access all my data (and you shouldn't too)

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