I picked up a T-Mobile G1 (danger: Flash-heavy site) at the local T-Mobile store. For those that don't know, the G1 is the first device to run Google's Android platform. So far I like it a lot, and I'll probably post a lot more about it in the near future.
Like the iPhone, Android has its own app store. Unlike the iPhone, nobody moderates apps submitted to the Android app store. If an app tries to do anything of consequence (i.e. anything that a user might want to know about), it must explicitly request that permission. When you start to download an app from the marketplace, it tells you what permissions that app will require. Most apps are well behaved, but some ask for way too much.
For example, I wanted a weather app. I saw that there is a Weather Channel app. When I went to download it, however, I was very surprised. Here is a list of the permissions that it requested.
| Network communication | full Internet access |
| Your location | coarse (network-based) location, fine (GPS) location |
| System tools | change network communication, change your UI settings, modify global system settings |
| Your messages | edit SMS or MMS |
| Services that cost you money | send SMS messages |
| Your personal information | read contact data |
What? Why does this app need access to my contacts, or to send text messages? I hope that this was just a lazy developer who requested more permissions that he actually needed, but I'm suspicious. It's entirely possible that The Weather Channel intends to compile a list of all my contacts. Not cool. Especially since it makes no mention of that.
I think it's great that Android provides some ability for the end user to judge the software that they might install on their phone. I'll wait until The Weather Channel updates their app.
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