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Comment by rsync | Hacker News Reader

"This is all well and good, but why does everyone need to have their own damn app?"

Also, why do all these damned apps have ridiculous access requirements ? In recent weeks I have been dismayed to find that HBO Go and Sonos apps both require access to all of my media files (android app) in order to be installed.

I'll bet that's not uncommon. Presumably it's just lazy development by people that don't know the finer points of the SDKs, etc., but it's pretty ridiculous what a lot of these apps (that, as the parent points out, aren't really necessary anyway[1]) require.

[1] HBO Go does not need to be an app, as demonstrated by the fact that I use it in my browser (OSX) every day.

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This seems to be due to Google's new grouping of permissions for Android apps. The permission group you're referring to is described as "Uses one or more of: files on the device such as images, videos, or audio, the device's external storage". That means that if the app wants to use some of its own data which is located on external storage (which is pretty common), you're also giving it permission to access your media files on the device, because Google thinks (for some incomprehensible reason) that these are similar permissions and grouping them makes it easier for users to understand what's going on.

>Google thinks (for some incomprehensible reason) that these are similar permissions and grouping them makes it easier for users to understand

Yeah, I suppose they don't want to be too granular and overwhelm users with a ton of permissions but, to your point, it actually makes things worse. Overly broad categories lead to suspicion.

It's funny though, because for years, we all downloaded/installed desktop apps which had free reign on our machines. I suppose the facts that apps can come from untrusted sources, are thought to have more specific functions, are installed on very personal devices, and were born in an age where privacy concerns/fraud/malware/connectedness were common, all have something to do with it.

I wonder, though, if our concern is mostly stimulated by the fact that we're now being presented with permission choices in the first place. As, now, even "trusted" brands like HBO can earn our suspicion if we think their apps are being greedy with permission requests.

I mean, given Sonos streams your media, that one should probably be pretty obvious why it wants to access your media...

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