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Comment by beedogs | Hacker News Reader

Sure would be nice if someone would jailbreak the iPhone, so we could have these sorts of options in our little walled-gardens too.

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Funny you say that, because iOS already has all these little options. What's better, apps still get installed and users don't have to make this decision upfront. When permission is required for the first time, dialog box pops up, and then you can refuse each permission individually - i.e. you can give Facebook access to location so you can check in, but block access to contacts.

Can't you already disable access to Contact, Calendar, Reminders, location, etc per app on the iPhone?

It's not without its own faults (and it used to have some huge gaps, such as address book access), but the iOS privacy model is simply a more user-centered paradigm than on Android.

Android apps ask you if you want to update to the new version or stick with the old one indefinitely; privacy settings are non-negotiable. iOS apps ask you as they go: If iOS had an SMS API, Facebook wouldn't need to ask you until you enabled two-factor authentication (assuming that's all they use it for). And you could turn it back off later if you weren't comfortable leaving it on.

Yes. And of course no app can read your text messages in the first place there.

Well, they could read all that other stuff by default with no warning previously until all sorts of apps abused it. Then Apple had to add in the prompts for things like reading Contacts. I'd imagine the Android devs are working on similar since the list of permissions model is breaking down.

Yes you can.

Welcome to two major iOS versions ago. iOS already has privacy controls. Check out Settings->Privacy.

The iphone has had fine-grained privacy before App Ops was released and then removed, and I also think before CyanogenMod had Privacy Guard. One of the few good things about the platform.

You don't need to. Apps can't read SMS and for the rest: You get asked for everything and can deny it.

On Android it's all or nothing.

Are you sure that you have an iPhone?

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