I'm torn on this issue. A part of me fears for developers. The practice of uploading address books is not a new phenomenon but suddenly over the past week everyone has jumped on it as if it's some brand new conspiracy to invade our privacy. It didn't hurt anyone before this became a hot news story and I'm confident that more than a handful of people knew about it before then too. But there's a very valid concern about it nonetheless so putting aside the issue of whether it's alright to upload the user's address book at all in any way this issue still makes me fear for developers.
I'm afraid because it seems like these days everyone wants their apps for free with absolutely no strings attached. There's an entitlement on the web that you don't see anywhere else. On the web we expect to get the best, coolest, most entertaining, problem-solving, pain-point-eliminating products and services free and we expect the providers of those products and services to bend to our will in the way they operate too. So let's give the critics this one and say that yeah, it's absolutely necessary to ask permission first before accessing the iOS address book. Okay but what's next? We're used to going nuts about slippery slopes when it comes to the user but what about some companies? They're not all evil like some would make them out to be. Are we going to demand that Google stop showing ads because they're confusing or annoying when mixed with organic results? Will we demand the ability to post to Facebook and Twitter.. anonymously? Will we band together and force companies to add features that muddy already good products because a noisy few were, well, really noisy?
That's what I fear. I fear that the balance of power between users and developers will swing too far I'm the user direction. Make no mistake, I'm not saying a service provider should be able to do whatever it pleases with no say from users. I do believe, however, that there needs to be a balance of power (or influence, whatever you want to call it) and that balance should never swing too far in either direction. Its not often that I hear "I don't like that company/developer/service provider X is doing Y so I quit using them". Instead I often hear "they're doing X and I hate it do come complain with me and let's make them change that". That's fine a lot of times but I'm afraid that at some point people's sense of entitlement will grow too large and there will be outrage where none is needed and where the best course of action for a small minority would be to quit using X while the majority who are alright with it continue. In some cases like Google and Facebook the service has become so ingrained in our lives that it's hard to just quit using it and in those cases I'm willing to forgive a lot of seemingly frivolous outrage but in other cases it wouldnt be that awful to find an alternative.
I just wonder if one day the frivolous outrage of a noisy minority will ruin a product or service for the very content majority.
No one has a problem sharing their address book as long as they know that it's being done and they approve. The rest of your comment doesn't really seem to fit, if people don't like what a company/app is doing they complain and eventually stop using it. You, as a developer, can choose to try and keep them by meeting their needs or not. The problem is that apps have been doing things that the customer didn't know or approve of - the fault is clearly on the developer in that case. In general, be honest and let your customer know why you need what you need, e.g. to provide a better service, to serve better ads, to resell to 3rd parties etc.
2. The "very content majority" are just people who, reasonably enough, never even thought about the possibility that apps were doing underhanded things like this.
A salesman is visiting a customer's home or office. The customer goes to the bathroom. When the customer comes back, he finds the salesman has picked up the customer's phone, called another salesman back at headquarters, and is going through the contact list and reading all the info out to the other salesman.
Will the customer be happy? No, he will not.
Will he be satisfied if the salesman then issues a non-apology apology ("we're sorry if you were offended"), claims that he was only doing it to "help the customer connect better", or tries to blame it on the customer and/or the phone manufacturer because the information wasn't locked? No, he will not.
In general, right and wrong don't change just because the action is carried out by software rather than direct human intervention.
>I'm afraid because it seems like these days everyone wants their apps for free with absolutely no strings attached. There's an entitlement on the web that you don't see anywhere else.
I want a car for free, too, with no taxes and no insurance. Who cares what people want? Give them what you give them and they will decide the price they're willing to pay. No one is surprised when Facebook has all your contact information because you decided to give it to them. And if you want to give them access to your personal address book, you make that choice. They don't do it automatically behind your back.
The problem isn't that they're doing it, that's perfectly fine. The problem is they don't tell you. The very content majority will be just as content knowing it's going on. Asking for forgiveness instead of permission is much harder when the risk is your customer's trust in you.
That makes sense in theory but from what I've seen it doesn't always work that way. Most people don't stop using something and complain really loudly. Luckily, so far the people behind the sites or apps or whatever hold their ground and in this case I can certainly get on board with the popular opinion that apps should ask for permission first. I wasn't condoning that kind of thing but simply wondering what if it really was something frivolous like G+ not allowing naked profile pictures or something and they ended up giving into the pressure? We talk a lot about slippery slopes around here and I just applied that kind of thinking to this sort of thing.
I also wonder how much of this outrage is genuine and how much is just people thinking they should be outraged. Personally, I'd have no problem with apps getting the contents of my address book. Of course thats conditional but what I'm getting at is that this sort of thing isn't okay or not okay by itself, it's how it's framed that often makes it looked at this way. In this case it was framed as a terrible invasion of privacy with lots of room for security issues. What if it was framed as being awesome because it totally enhances the experience of the app? Maybe around here we're qualified to say "this is okay, that isn't" because of our knowledge and backgrounds but think of regular folks playing Angry Birds on their phones having no clue what a iOS is. I'm not sure they really have an opinion until you give them one and thats exactly what we're doing. So when you say they'd be just as content knowing its going on you're correct but I'm not so sure they'd come to the conclusion that it was bad while they didn't know totally on their own. I can totally picture a lot of regular folks finding out and saying "oh, they upload the address book? I didn't notice. Whatever." and continue on with their day. Of course that won't happen now because of how this is reported.
Anyway, I'm sorry to see so many people having such strong negative reactions to my original comment. Maybe I didn't make the point clear enough or maybe my thinking really is just way off on this one. Either way, I still maintain that these what-if questions will really get you thinking differently about this stuff.
You do make a good point, we as a collective hold different standards for different companies sometimes. Facebook catches a lot more shit for their mistakes than some other companies. Google catches a lot of shit even when they specifically outline and allow you to opt-in to their policies. When Microsoft does something it's monopolistic, when Apple does the same thing it's "value-added".
The big thing is, I don't know Path as a company. They haven't been around a long time, they don't have a huge, trusting userbase. You assume that they have the information you've given them. You assume they use it for ads or other pseudo-anonymous stuff. What you don't expect is that they will be grabbing things off your phone that you didn't explicitly allow them access to. Programs on your desktop don't hijack the information from other installed programs.
Maybe the line of thinking is faulty for mobile OSes. Maybe it's a chance to start fresh and allow full access across all apps. But the main cry in this controversy is that the users want to at least feel they are in control, even if it's just "install and accept the terms, or don't install period".
Heath Ledger said it best, I think, in The Dark Knight. "Nobody panics when things go 'according to plan.' Even if the plan is horrifying!" Request from the users all the information on their phone and permissions to everything, then present them with an intriguing product. I'll bet a great majority of those who would have installed it would still install it because, like you said, it really does enhance the awesomeness of the app. A little truth goes a long way.
At any rate, this will likely be forgotten in short notice when the next outrage begins.
I'm afraid because it seems like these days everyone wants their apps for free with absolutely no strings attached. There's an entitlement on the web that you don't see anywhere else. On the web we expect to get the best, coolest, most entertaining, problem-solving, pain-point-eliminating products and services free and we expect the providers of those products and services to bend to our will in the way they operate too. So let's give the critics this one and say that yeah, it's absolutely necessary to ask permission first before accessing the iOS address book. Okay but what's next? We're used to going nuts about slippery slopes when it comes to the user but what about some companies? They're not all evil like some would make them out to be. Are we going to demand that Google stop showing ads because they're confusing or annoying when mixed with organic results? Will we demand the ability to post to Facebook and Twitter.. anonymously? Will we band together and force companies to add features that muddy already good products because a noisy few were, well, really noisy?
That's what I fear. I fear that the balance of power between users and developers will swing too far I'm the user direction. Make no mistake, I'm not saying a service provider should be able to do whatever it pleases with no say from users. I do believe, however, that there needs to be a balance of power (or influence, whatever you want to call it) and that balance should never swing too far in either direction. Its not often that I hear "I don't like that company/developer/service provider X is doing Y so I quit using them". Instead I often hear "they're doing X and I hate it do come complain with me and let's make them change that". That's fine a lot of times but I'm afraid that at some point people's sense of entitlement will grow too large and there will be outrage where none is needed and where the best course of action for a small minority would be to quit using X while the majority who are alright with it continue. In some cases like Google and Facebook the service has become so ingrained in our lives that it's hard to just quit using it and in those cases I'm willing to forgive a lot of seemingly frivolous outrage but in other cases it wouldnt be that awful to find an alternative.
I just wonder if one day the frivolous outrage of a noisy minority will ruin a product or service for the very content majority.