Now that sounds like an immensely sensible (and workable) idea. Al. ---
* Written an Android App? - List it at http://andappstore.com/ * ====== Funky Android Limited is registered in England & Wales with the company number 6741909. The registered head office is Kemp House, 152-160 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX, UK. The views expressed in this email are those of the author and not necessarily those of Funky Android Limited, it's associates, or it's subsidiaries. _____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Tom Gibara Sent: 28 April 2009 12:18 To: [email protected] Subject: [android-discuss] Re: Technique to Avoid, #2: Directly Manipulating Settings I'm going to repeat a suggestion I mooted a while ago. In the manifest apps could mark some requested permissions as optional. For backward compatibility permissions not marked out in this way would be required. This way developers can either choose for simplicity (or because its appropriate for their application) to leave all requested permissions required, or they can weaken their application's requirements. This could be extended by marking some permissions as recommended, so there would be three states: required, recommended, optional. Any permissions which not required could be toggled by the user. By default recommended permissions would be granted and optional permissions ungranted. It does increases the number of choices that the installer demands of a user which is a bad thing, but it provides the best balance of control/intelligibility/simplicity that I can think of for all parties -- developers and users-- neither of whom need to concern themselves with the extra options if they want a simpler life. Tom. 2009/4/28 Mike Hearn <[email protected]> > So if you grant someone the permission and they screw you, google will > say:it's your fault. Our Android is secure, it's your problem if you > accepted permission without reading. The difference between a typical EULA and the permissions screen is enormous. I don't think they are comparable. The problem with letting people selectively enable/disable permissions is that now apps have to handle every possible combination of permissions. Some of those they will actually need to do something useful, so you don't win by letting people toggle them on/off, you just force devs to add their own dialog box showing how to go toggle the permission on. I agree that Android needs a better way to handle optional permissions, and I think prompting at runtime the first time they are requested would provide a good user experience. But this has come up many times and the Android core team don't like it, so, for now let's drop it. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Discuss" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
