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by sfshaw 1705 days ago
I just went through the Simple -> BBVA -> PNC transition. Yesterday when I installed the PNC app on my Pixel, I got the warning that I would need to allow storage access. But then the storage access prompt never came up. I just checked, the app doesn't have storage access but it works fine. Either they ended up not using the storage (maybe using a legitimate attestation API), or the latest (for one week) version of Android has a different, isolated storage API that doesn't need permission.
2 comments

Versions of Android starting with Android 11 no longer allow anyone to spy on contents of user storage:

https://developer.android.com/about/versions/11/privacy/stor...

Asking for access to root directory is not allowed. Asking for access to "Downloads" or app-specific external directories is not allowed either.

There is an escape hatch:

https://www.xda-developers.com/google-file-manager-devs-subm...

but it is intended for dedicated file manager apps and requires an application to be manually reviewed by Google. Which hopefully means, that banks and other shady organizations won't qualify.

I went through the first 2 steps of that and pulled the ripcord once BBVA screwed up my accounts and closed one of them with no notice. I'm now using One Finance [0] and I'm very happy with them so far. Very Simple-like. Personally I don't use the "Pockets" much (but it is nice to be able to get a new Acc/Routing number and/or debit card on the fly) since I use YNAB to manage all my finances but it's a cool feature.

[0] https://www.onefinance.com/