It’s also an flaw in how apps are designed. It’s so dumb that I have to give an app access to my entire camera roll generally to be able to add photos in an app.
Idk when they added it but my android updated firmware and it lets me just select what photos i want instead of giving full access to the app and having to use the app to select photos.
Yeah, the current versions of Android and iOS already mitigate this by allowing you to select just a few photos to give permission.
But if you think about it, most users don’t really understand this permission thing. They think it is an app thing, not an OS thing. Many times I’ve seen people online ask “what prevents the app from saying X and doing Y?”.
I think apps should never get permission to the whole user library, and any permissions given should be temporary.
You know when a website has an “Upload” function? There it opens up a file picker that is native to your operating system, and let’s you pick which file to upload. This does not allow the website access to your entire file system, it only allows access to the exact file you picked.
Android and iOS could easily have implemented access in the same way in the operating system.
It’s also comical how you have to grant an android app full access to make phone calls for the app to be able to see whether you are currently in a call. This is useful for many games to pause if you get a call suddenly, but now your game has the ability to dial people as well…
It’s also an flaw in how apps are designed. It’s so dumb that I have to give an app access to my entire camera roll generally to be able to add photos in an app.
Idk when they added it but my android updated firmware and it lets me just select what photos i want instead of giving full access to the app and having to use the app to select photos.
Yeah, the current versions of Android and iOS already mitigate this by allowing you to select just a few photos to give permission.
But if you think about it, most users don’t really understand this permission thing. They think it is an app thing, not an OS thing. Many times I’ve seen people online ask “what prevents the app from saying X and doing Y?”.
I think apps should never get permission to the whole user library, and any permissions given should be temporary.
This is a known problem. Some work has gone into scoping of your photos before handing them over to the application, but it’s still early.
I mean… How else would the app see them if it doesn’t have permission to access the folder they are stored in?
The alternative is that permission is just assumed, like most desktop OSes.
IOS allows you to choose individual photos an app is allowed to access.
You know when a website has an “Upload” function? There it opens up a file picker that is native to your operating system, and let’s you pick which file to upload. This does not allow the website access to your entire file system, it only allows access to the exact file you picked.
Android and iOS could easily have implemented access in the same way in the operating system.
It’s also comical how you have to grant an android app full access to make phone calls for the app to be able to see whether you are currently in a call. This is useful for many games to pause if you get a call suddenly, but now your game has the ability to dial people as well…
It’s possible in grapheneOS