Daring Fireball on address book notifications;
Justin Williams:
When we are overwhelmed or confused, we either leave the situation or just blindly access whatever it is. Do you ever read the end user license agreement for iTunes before you click the “Agree” button? Probably not, because it’s an overwhelming amount of tiny text. The same can be said for complex permissions and access dialogs. If you put too much in the face of the user, they will likely disregard it and say yes to get into the product itself.
Maybe the answer to the iOS address book situation is to require the user to grant explicit permission through a dialog box, but it’s not a slam-dunk decision. Every dialog box has a cost.
I tend agree with Marco’s position on this, which is that unfettered (or even visible) access to a users’ address book is a big problem, much worse than the irritation at excessive pop-ups. It’s not only my data that the app is accessing, it’s data belonging to friends/family/colleagues/etc that the app is accessing, and I should be asked before it ever happens. Pop up one more dialog box, I don’t care.
Just don’t permanently copy my entire address book and store it on your server somewhere. It’s not too much to ask.
