Hacker News Reader

That's how Apple handles the iOS permission model, as I understand

iOS really has 3 levels of access for things like this.

For the most sensitive things like location, contacts and photos, it prompts for user permission.

There's a lower category for things like background processing, you declare to Apple that you want to use them, and they are enabled by default. Some of them can be disabled by the user after the fact.

Then, there's things like internet usage which there is no permission system for.

Because of iOS's sandboxing, it's really hard for apps to get info outside of their own "container" of sorts, so it doesn't matter much if they can access the Internet. Keyboards from third parties are an obvious exception to this, so these require explicit permission to access the Internet.

> so it doesn't matter much if they can access the Internet

Unless you have a limited cellular data allowance, or pay for data by actual usage. iOS allows you to disable cellular data for certain apps. It would be great if it could somehow figure out when I'm using a mi-fi when abroad, and treat that wifi access point as 'cellular'.

Android can be told to treat certain APs as limited usage, which means they're not used by apps that are set to WiFi only, or for which you've disabled mobile data.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com