Apple's own apps in relation with resource access and control

[Sergiu.]

As this is my first time opening a new thread of discussions on the forum, I come to you with a question that hunts me for some time now.

Why does Apple makes an exception for their apps when it comes down to requesting acccess for resources?

Case in point: Calendar, Notes, Reminders, Phone, Messages, Mail, Fitness, Health and I'm sure, a couple of others that I won't enumareate here, all of them, request on a daily basis, access to Contacts.

If I go to Privacy > Contacts, I only see 3rd party apps there. Nothing from Apple's own software. Same for the Camera app, it requested access to use the Microphone (even if I only took photos, not Live ones). If I go to Privacy > Microphone, only 3rd party, no Apple apps.

I do understand that apps need to share resources between them in order for this ecosystem to work properly, but I cannot stop noticing this conflict of interests here, small hypocrisy if I may call it that way. Why not include your own apps as part of the same privacy system, and only include others? Especially if you brag about privacy each time you get on stage.

My hypotesis is that Apple is afraid that the perception about them (regarding privacy) will change for the worst if people will start seeing popups with "Fitness needs access to your Contacts" or "Safari needs access to your Contacts". I also wonder if those apps will still function with basic functionality. For example, I don't need Microphone access to take a simple photo - not a Live one). I don't need to grant Safari access to my Contacts if I don't use some sharing feature, and only browsing the web by myself.

What do you think? I guess I can include here access to control some other resources, like the gyroscope. But that could be another discussion entirely.

 

[0128672]

I don't think what you're suggesting is universally true for macOS and iOS. For example, on my Mac, Apple apps with access to Location Services are displayed in the Privacy list. On my phone, a couple examples are Microphone has an Apple app listed, and Health has three Apple apps listed.

On iOS you can use the App Privacy Report to view Apple apps accessing other Apple apps. It's not a big secret.

About App Privacy Report - Apple Support

Learn how App Privacy Report helps give you visibility into the ways apps use the privacy permissions you've granted them, as well as their network activity.

support.apple.com

 

[Sergiu.]

Truly, yes, on macOS there is another story entirely. I was talking more on the iOS side, where things are really blurry.

But when you say that under Microphone you see a couple of Apple apps listed, out of curiosity, which apps? I'm asking because, as an example I don't see Facetime there. For audio and video calling I'm using both Signal and Facetime. Signal had to request permission to access both Camera and Microphone and the request does appear unde Privacy option on the Settings app. But Facetime is nowhere to be found there and it didn't request any permission on first accessing this resources.

I can see that almost all Apple stock apps request access to Contacts. I see none of them under the Privacy / Contacts.

On iOS you can use the App Privacy Report to view Apple apps accessing other Apple apps. It's not a big secret.

Yes, I know that. I'm not saying it is a secret. I'm saying that I don't seem to have the same control over what resources Apple apps access, compared to 3rd party apps. Case in point, if I don't want Safari accessing my Contacts, I won't allow access. But I cannot do that today. Not even on a Mac I suppose.

A couple of years ago, there was a big fuss about Google combining informations across different services and apps, and some regulations did passed making them explicitly disable this functionality today upon user request. Apple is doing the same things for years and as far as I see, no one cares. This I find truly interesting.