It would be bad either way. Now you have strong permission, otherwise you'd have hundreds of them.
What could help are groups in which you could select only certain items, but it would be presented to users as a group. But they would be able to open the group and see each individual item.
And of course, the biggest issue is that users can't manage (restrict) the permissions themselves (without a superuser app at least).
I don't think it would be bad to have more granularity. Being able to detect when a call is coming in, in order to mute, is entirely different from being able to read phone identity (IMEI etc), incoming phone numbers etc etc.
It may not need hundreds more permissions, it may even only need one more as this one seems to be a very common problem.
The same people that would prefer if you give all permissions. I still see no reason why Google doesn't implement more granular permissions models.
Has the latest Android given you the ability to restrict an apps permissions after install without resorting to trusting 3rd party tools like xPrivacy or uninstalling the app?
The existing permissions are already so fine grained it's insane. Almost every API has its own permission, regardless of whether that would be understandable to normal users or not.
The Android security model does a great job of security. It was not designed to be a general purpose privacy guard that lets you engage in some complicated multi-way negotiation with every app you install over every aspect of your personal data. Such a system might be a feature of future operating systems, but currently I'm unaware of any such OS.
They clearly aren't so fine-grained as all that, not in this area, because they still have a single permission that covers not only knowing when a call is in progress, but also phone identifiers like IMEI, the incoming phone number and a load of other stuff.
The future is here, it's called iOS. Blackberry does a decent job too.
In fact, companies that don't do ads & tracking seem to have this in common. Not sure what the sit with MS is, they used to have something like the Android model.
> The same people that would prefer if you give all permissions. I still see no reason why Google doesn't implement more granular permissions models.
In fact they have gone the other way with "permission groups"
> Has the latest Android given you the ability to restrict an apps permissions after install without resorting to trusting 3rd party tools like xPrivacy or uninstalling the app?
The hidden "AppOps" (post-install management of permissions) appeared in 4.3 but was removed in 4.4.2, so no.
> In fact they have gone the other way with "permission groups"
It's interesting that they went forward and then back on this. Ages ago the permission "read contacts and call log" was split up into two separate permissions. These days the Play Store displays either permission the same way - something like "read contacts or call log".
Google will never do that themselves, because it interferes with their own datamining business. XPrivacy will always be required to control your own data.
What could help are groups in which you could select only certain items, but it would be presented to users as a group. But they would be able to open the group and see each individual item.
And of course, the biggest issue is that users can't manage (restrict) the permissions themselves (without a superuser app at least).