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It seems really dumb of Google not to just go with the flow here and let the AppOps feature exist. Whack a giant disclaimer on it that it will break stuff, disa

by zmmmmm 13y ago

It seems really dumb of Google not to just go with the flow here and let the AppOps feature exist. Whack a giant disclaimer on it that it will break stuff, disable Play Store comments and ratings, let the users use it, and collect the giant PR dividend for looking like you care about privacy. They can do all that and lose virtually nothing because such a tiny percentage of people will ever use this feature that it will make no difference to them at all. On the other hand they can go the other way and take a giant PR hit for virtually no benefit. Out of some sense of stubbornness or beligerance Google often seems to desire to shoot itself in the foot like this.

cpleppert 13y ago
I don't if it will break a lot of applications; probably some. The real problem is the permissions system that doesn't allow users to selectively choose which permissions they want to give to applications thus application developers don't code their applications to not work if they fail to get permission. Users are just shown a screen with the permissions the application requested. For most users, this is worthless. Do any users decide not to install an application based on asking for too much? Users still don't have any control on stock systems over running services and applications in the background. It is all 100% anti-users and pro-monetization; which is probably google's intention all along.
GrinningFool 13y ago
I'd love it if enabling a feature like just caused the selected data points to be returned, but completely bogus (invalid phone number, empty address list, north pole location, etc). It would work for almost everything except network access, and would ensure that it didn't break apps in a bad way. The all-or-nothing data privacy model of android makes me a bit crazy now that I'm using it on a regular basis for my tablet. That's one thing BlackBerry got right - you can grant or deny individual permissions to applications, and generally could safely assume that application developers knew this and handled security access exceptions when trying to access protected data.

by zmmmmm 13y ago

cpleppert 13y ago

I don't if it will break a lot of applications; probably some. The real problem is the permissions system that doesn't allow users to selectively choose which permissions they want to give to applications thus application developers don't code their applications to not work if they fail to get permission. Users are just shown a screen with the permissions the application requested. For most users, this is worthless. Do any users decide not to install an application based on asking for too much? Users still don't have any control on stock systems over running services and applications in the background. It is all 100% anti-users and pro-monetization; which is probably google's intention all along.

GrinningFool 13y ago

I'd love it if enabling a feature like just caused the selected data points to be returned, but completely bogus (invalid phone number, empty address list, north pole location, etc). It would work for almost everything except network access, and would ensure that it didn't break apps in a bad way. The all-or-nothing data privacy model of android makes me a bit crazy now that I'm using it on a regular basis for my tablet. That's one thing BlackBerry got right - you can grant or deny individual permissions to applications, and generally could safely assume that application developers knew this and handled security access exceptions when trying to access protected data.