It isn't a fanboy war. The Android permission system is terrible, and users cannot get a sense of what apps are able to do. I've used Android since Galaxy I. I've never used an iPhone.

Given that the number of users for whom it's "fixed" rounds to 0 (and the proportion of apps targeting the v6 SDK probably also rounds to 0, so even if you are running Marshmallow it won't work for the vast majority of apps) I think that specifying that it's "fixed" is a tad overstated.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/10/android-6-0-marshmall...

As the parent comment says, this is now fixed. Android has moved to an iOS style permissions system in 6.0

It isn't fixed on my phone, and we've already suffered through years of it.

root your phone and install a permission manager. or use cyanogenmod and enable the built-in.

I would like to do that, but I don't want to risk turning my phone into a brick just to get basic root permissions.

Well, fortune favours the bold. You can take that risk or you can be cattle for all the apps that want you to actually watch the ads they support themselves with. Make your choice.

The quickest solution to your years of suffering would be getting an iPhone.

I'd prefer a Free software OS that gives me root access.

On the AppStore, apps are required to gracefully degrade where permissions are not granted, and you can be rejected for not doing that. That seems unlikely to be enforced on the Play Store.

Can anyone confirm if that is the case with uber? On Android, if location isn't enabled, you can't use uber.

And before anyone claims location services are necessary to find the user and stop ddos attacks - I've ordered uber before for people in other parts of town, and I'm a signed in user with a track record of making payments.

Yes, you can set an arbitrary point as the pickup address on Uber for iOS without Location Services.

As much as I respect not wanting to share location, the average user tends to be quite un-tech-savvy. Say that on average users without location services enabled makes 5x more wrong requests - that can result in hundreds of thousands of lost driver hours.

Yes, and if that were a problem, we would not have Uber for iOS. There are whole classes of apps that cannot be made for iOS (it used to be the case of custom keyboards & ad blockers, for example). Because security in general, and privacy in particular, are non-negotiable on iOS.

This is not the case with iOS snapchat. Disabling the camera prevents app use.

I haven't used Android, but culturally it seems like iOS developers try to deliver as much as they can with the permissions you give them. A voice recording app would probably just refuse to function without microphone access, but a video app will typically simply record a silent video if you give camera access but deny microphone access.

I don't know if this is enforced by Apple's review process or whether it's an emergent custom.

Snapchat records silent videos if you disable microphone access, but disallows access to the entire app if you disable camera function.

You cannot even read other people's snaps without enabling camera. I deleted the app because of this function.

Actually, part of the problem is that they don't have to ask for 37 permissions... they are grouped together in such large groups that you don't know what permissions they are really after. Cyanogenmod has Privacy Guard that I think can help with this privacy nightmare.

The bigger issue is that they provide no context.

"Facebook wants to send Sms" seems really odd until there's some feature like inviting someone that would obviously require sending Sms. Contextually asking for this permission then is much more reasonable, especially since the app can be used otherwise. Clearly certain permissions like camera may be the entire reason for the app, but the more sinister stuff like location tracking is often not the primary purpose.

Fandoy war? This basic privacy/security feature has been in iOS since forever. It is as common sense as you can get. Not having it is actually outright hostile towards users. I've used both Android and iOS for some time and I can tell you without a shadow of doubt that iOS is far superior.

In the meantime... talk to me when Android gets this basic feature in 6.0.

>has been in iOS since forever

Granular permissions have only been in iOS since version 6.0, which came out 3 years ago. The first version of iOS was 8 years ago. For a feature that's "as common sense as it gets" we sure got along fine without it for half a decade.

I wouldn't say we were getting along fine without it. There were some pretty big privacy breaches[1], which helped move Apple forward. I think Google and Android are great, but on this topic they have held out for as long as possible, it seems[2].

[1] http://www.cnet.com/news/path-shares-photos-oh-and-uploads-y...

[2] http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/20/android-ap...

"I've used both Android and iOS for some time and I can tell you without a shadow of doubt that iOS is far superior."

Nope, no fanboying here, move along folks.

> This basic privacy/security feature has been in iOS since forever.

IOs originally had no permission system at all.

> talk to me when Android gets this basic feature in 6.0.

Half a year ago.

Or October for non-developers. Was that half a year ago? Oh and it only works for apps targeting the latest APIs, which is how many apps?