I don’t have internet access in the room I’m renting, and this was complicating the apartment search something fierce. So, I upgraded to a Droid Razor because I’m tired of only being able to get to my email when I can make it to the library.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that my 2.5 year old antique flip-phone got all clean and sparkly in the laundry on Wednesday. Total coincidence.
Anyway, I’ve been looking through various apps (ok, games) and the all want to be able to peer into the deepest, inner secrets of everything I’m doing with my phone. Should I be paranoid about that? Does Angry Birds really need to know who’s calling me, or who I’m calling? I can see how apps that actively use such info need access to it in order to work, but what’s really going here, and what’s the risk?
I don’t know, but I just got a smartphone a month ago and have wondered the same thing. Almost every app seems to want tons of access to my phone. I have no idea.
I pretty much give every app every permission it asks for. Been doing it for three years now. Nothing untoward has happened yet.
Besides, if you use Gmail, Google already knows just about everything there is to know about you. Just make sure you make all your illegal transactions from a burner phone.
Same here, and I’ve had a smart phone since they started calling them smart phones. Never had a problem.
ETA: Now that I have the best smart phone ever, the Galaxy Note II, I’m an app maniac. I’m not into games though, so that may be a factor in my not having problems.
As long as you only get reputable apps from the official Google Play Store, you’ll be fine. Read reviews on apps before you download them. If there are no reviews, or just low star ones, avoid it.
The “big name” apps like Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, the Facebook and Twitter apps, are all safe. If it seems like it uses a permission that doesn’t make sense, it’s typically for analytic purposes.
However, if you’re super paranoid, you can root the phone, and then install an app that blocks other apps from accessing whatever permissions you want. Bear in mind, however, this could make the app not work at all. But that’s going a bit over the top.
I’m looking at the Angry Birds permission list, and in terms of phone calls it only uses “Read Phone Status and Identify”. That’s not identifying who’s calling you, it’s identifying whether or not your phone is ringing and/or whether or not you’ve answered it.
Most every app I own uses this permission, probably so that it can pause (and stop updating its play counters) when your phone starts ringing.