I’m annoyed by how many apps declare that they must have full access to my phone
s address book in order to work. I don’t see the need to let every app designer have access to my friends’ information.
So… are there any Android phone book apps, that will still let me dial the phone, send a text, and send an address to a GPS program, but that isn’t going to give away all my contacts info to all the other apps out there? I guess ideally, the phone book app would only allow access from other apps that I put on a white list.
It’s not a function of the contacts app, but how you configure the other apps with Android. When you install the other apps, Android will ask if you want to allow them access. That said, there could be apps that get into your contact list without telling you. Either way, getting a new “phone book” (contacts app) won’t change anything.
I think the OP is saying you can keep two separate contact lists, one either empty or full of fake contacts for the unscrupulous apps to steal from, and another contact list with the real info but protected behind a sandbox.
Probably the easiest to do that is to just create another user account on your phone and put all the shitty apps on there instead of your regular account.
That’s exactly what I’m hoping to do. Have a minimal list of names on the default phone book, and then a “real” list with a different phone book app, that doesn’t get collected. I try to avoid apps that require access to my address book, but it’s rather hard. It seems some app developers just check all the boxes, giving themselves full access to everything. And I figure by the time I download and go back in to restrict that access, there is a reasonable chance that a new app has already collected everything.