* you can respond to messages but are very limited in what you can initiate (as such they got you as part of someone else's contact list)
Is this true? How does Apple enforce this? I ask because WhatsApp initially worked fine on an iPhone, without any access to the contact list, but after a few upgrades, it demanded access to the Contacts list to send messages to new numbers, and did not allow you to do so by typing a phone number directly.
I've never given it access to my contacts. (iOS.) It's worked fine. I recently started giving it access to a limited set of my contacts, but that was for convenience.
It seems to no longer even scan the contacts by itself, only when you hit "New Chat", press the triple dots and then "Refresh".
Still a pretty garbage app but at least in terms of this it seems to have actually improved.
I've never tested it without contacts permissions though.