> I'd like to see a two tiered approach where developers could mark which permissions are optional and users could decide which to grant the on the first or each time these permissions are used in addition to the current method.
This would be SO useful!
I have an app that I want to be able to collect crash reports for. This means I need the "READ_LOG" permission. Thing is, the log CAN have other potentially private information in it, so there's a scary warning for that permission.
If I could ask for READ_LOG permission at run-time, and Android would pop up a box saying "This app is requesting access to the log to: 'create a complete crash report and send it to the developer'" or some such, then only the very few people who are actually sending me a crash report would ever have to "reveal" their log data to my app.
While I agree this would often be useful, I think READ_LOG permission for a crash report is a bad example. That's the sort of thing that could be dealt with using an OS-level crash handler (with a prompt about whether or not you want to send logs to the developer of the app).
Funny that's one of the cases where I'd envisioned using such a feature. I wrote a private logging mechanism into my apps to capture the data I write to log seperatly so my support request option can include some just-for-this-app logs without a scary permission req but I'd much rather do it the way you suggest.
Another situation I've got is I'd like to use the the permission to act as your Google account to optionally grab some user detail from <some Google service>, but I don't want to scare off users with this permission.
The other feature on my permission wish list is some permission specific options like internet access to [urlmask1,urlmask2,...] or log read access to logs from my app only, errors and warnings.
> I'd like to use the the permission to act as your Google account
Oddly; even when you (the dev) ask for this; Google prompts you (the user) at access-time to approve/deny account access permissions (similar to Google's OAuth prompts on the web). Seems that would remove the need to ask for the permission at install time as well.
I am not familiar with Android, but can you launch a 'send log app' stored inside you app that has its own security declarations? Or would that trigger a dialog asking for permission at install time?
This would be SO useful!
I have an app that I want to be able to collect crash reports for. This means I need the "READ_LOG" permission. Thing is, the log CAN have other potentially private information in it, so there's a scary warning for that permission.
If I could ask for READ_LOG permission at run-time, and Android would pop up a box saying "This app is requesting access to the log to: 'create a complete crash report and send it to the developer'" or some such, then only the very few people who are actually sending me a crash report would ever have to "reveal" their log data to my app.