Did Apple Just Kill Social Apps? (nytimes.com) 38
Apple's iOS 18 update has introduced changes to contact sharing that could significantly impact social app developers. The new feature allows users to selectively share contacts with apps, rather than granting access to their entire address book. While Apple touts this as a privacy enhancement, developers warn it may hinder the growth of new social platforms. Nikita Bier, a start-up founder, called it "the end of the world" for friend-based social apps. Critics argue the change doesn't apply to Apple's own services, potentially giving the tech giant an unfair advantage.
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Assholes need to stop monetizing my friendships.
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Good (Score:4, Informative)
Grapheneos started doing this several years back in response to whatsapp. It's really obnoxious about the way it demands access to all of your contacts. Though they've done this to other "all or nothing" accesses as well, e.g. you can grant apps access only to specific files. You define scopes for e.g. contacts and storage that effectively mask everything but what you allow, then assign those scopes to whatever apps. The app will think it has full access even though it doesn't.
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Access to my contacts is why I haven't used WhatsApp EVER. I have people ask for my WhatsApp and I tell them I don't have it and aren't interested in adding it, and they look at me like I'm some sort of weird boomer. Okay, so I am a weird boomer, but that is irrelevant to this subject ;-)
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I tell them to query me on Libera chat. That shuts them up.
Don't get my hopes up (Score:5, Insightful)
First, this wouldn't kill social apps, this would kill apps harvesting your address book and put you in the loop. So the headline is bullshit.
Second, I really wish they would kill social apps.
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facebook et all are still coasting on millienals' contacts being freely accessible until ~2012
It's going to be increasingly difficult to start a new social network without the ability to wholesale import their hundreds of contacts and build an advertisin-I mean social empir- I mean network with that information.
Apple is doing nothing new here, boomers were supremely successful at pulling the ladder up after them, why wouldn't they have learned from that?
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Boomers didn't pull up the ladder after them. The world changed.
Don't worry GenXers, the GenZers will blame you for whatever ladder you pulled up after you (when the world changed), as the Boomers are now all over 60 and not relevant to anything "modern". Probably AI.
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Boomers didn't pull up the ladder after them. The world changed.
Bullshit. The world changed, and who do you think changed it? Who controlled the economy in the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s? Who do you think still has the most seats in Congress? Boomers are like 20% of the population now but have over 48% of the seats in Congress.
Re:Don't get my hopes up (Score:4, Funny)
Betteridge's law of headlines fits perfectly here.
"Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."
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First, this wouldn't kill social apps, this would kill apps harvesting your address book and put you in the loop. So the headline is bullshit.
Also, I'm pretty sure those apps always have to ask for permission to the address book, usually in the context of, "to help you find your friends on our network". I always opt out of that, so they've gotten zero contacts from me from the get go.
Being able to select a subset of my contacts to share with the app would be excellent! And it would actually INCREASE the number of contacts I've shared with various apps.
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It really needs to be an OS controlled interface. Hopefully Apple and Google can create something so an app can request access to a contact and it pops up a system app that lets you share which ones you want.
For example, I wanted to transfer a ticket to a show I bought with a friend, but to do that, the TicketMaster App needs an email/contact info. The option currently is to allow access to your entire contacts list for the one email. I ended up just typing in the email.
Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)
Any social network that relies on knowing my contacts without my permission deserves to fail. I see no downside at all.
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No social network needs this, unless you count WhatsApp as a social network in which case it absolutely requires it.
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It also doesn't. WhatsApp works without phone book access, you only need to use a special URL to add new numbers and won't see the names of your contacts. But you can chat.
Planning their own social app then? (Score:2)
Re:Planning their own social app then? (Score:4, Interesting)
Planning their own social app then?
Apple has tried and failed before [wikipedia.org].
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#eWorldRefugee
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Apple already tried their hand at a social network. That it was totally forgotten about is the sum total of their success in the realm.
Now, that was almost 15 years ago, and involved iTunes, which they've largely abandoned...but I don't think they would really need to go down that road. iMessage has a good amount of elements of a social network; add in public group chats, and you've basically got a hardware-specific Whatsapp.
Apple makes their money off software and media sales in the App Store; unless they'
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If Apple did try to create a new social app after putting this restriction in place, and it didn't abide by the same restrictions, they would deserve a visit from anti-trust.
As long as they don't do both of the above, I like the idea of selective contact sharing - "grant access to all of contacts" has caused me to refuse to install a lot of things.
Sounds Like a Good Thing (Score:4, Insightful)
I often want to share selective contacts and not the whole book. I'm glad one company, at least, is making this easier. I hope others will follow.
Don't like the sensationalized title on this story. One person's "Killing Social Apps" is another person's "Restoring Privacy and Control".
Wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Why would anybody grant a social app permission to harvest contacts in the first place?
Instant gratification. Once someone joins they want to see activity.
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For a while you could give Facebook your IMAP credentials to harvest your contacts and several of my acquaintances jumped in with both feet.
"Trust me, bro".
Stop monetizing my private business (Score:2, Informative)
This is long overdue. We all know that these "social apps" have been exploiting our information in many ways. We're tired of it. If the developers are upset over this change, they are free to find another job--write something that doesn't exploit the public. Do honest work.
Makes slightly me more likely to try them (Score:2)
I don't do social apps. Never made a FB account, stopped using Xitter after some asshole ruined it, am not even sure what other ones there are now.
If I could actually control what data they could harvest, I would be more likely to try them. As is, I never even look because I know exactly what kind of shenanigans to expect.
I still probably don't care about your wizzy new social whatever. But control over personal data would take it out of the automatic No category for me.
whatever (Score:1)
Sharing your contacts with social apps is wild.
Can I get ... (Score:2)
Show me his contact list.
Sharing the hate (Score:3)
The worst offender was, a few years ago, LinkedIn asking for access to your email account so it could scrape all your emails. The only thing more crazy than that request was some people probably gave them access. The repeated requests when I did not give access really pissed me off at the time.
Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies. (Score:2)
While Apple touts this as a privacy enhancement, developers warn it may hinder the growth of new social platforms.
So, we've got us one of them win-win situations here. Cool.
Except, social media apps will absolutely still exist. The difference is that they'll have to find ways to actively seek out information other than just, "You happen to know some dumbass who has no problem sharing any information you've ever given them." Thinking these companies will just disappear in a puff of wish fulfillment just because you cut off one tiny little bit of their data-suck? No. You're removing about 1/3rd or less of their data-suck
Advantage Apple's own Services? (Score:2)
Which ones? The phone dialer? Mail? Messages? The whole reason I put those people in my contacts was so I could use it with those.
LOL (Score:2)
LOL, cry about it, parasites.
\o/ (Score:1)
That's great - time to switch to iOS so I can install the LinkedIn app!
Less data for the dataminers (Score:2)
No, it will not hinder anything legitimate.
Having to add people by handle but by sending your address book to a commercial company was totally normal, then came WhatsApp and went the evil route. Some other apps adapted, thinking they could catch up to WhatsApp if they abandoned user handles in favor for mobile numbers. They didn't.
Apple didn't kill social apps. They saved user's privacy.
Betteridge (Score:1)