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by BjornW 5094 days ago
Mhh why do a lot of Android apps need 'READ PHONE STATUS AND IDENTITY' permission? Seems unnecessary and makes me not want to use your app.
1 comments

> READ PHONE STATE AND IDENTITY

> Allows the app to access the phone features of the device. An app with this permission can determine the phone number and serial number of this phone, whether a call is active, the number that call is connected to and the like.

?!! It also requires READ SENSITIVE LOG DATA.

On second thought: maybe Android's permissions are broken and too generic. An app has a legit reason to want to know whether a call is active (to shut off playback), but the permission gives the app other abilities that they can abuse, like device serial number and phone number.
I have not developed for Android yet, but I would imagine they need said permissions in order to stop playing the audio/video when a phonecall is in progress.

I would imagine that it's a useful feature, and that many more people would complain if it was absent.