I have recently started university and am required to use an app that has three Facebook trackers, one of them being a Facebook location tracker according to Exodus App Privacy, for the dining plan, when it would literally work perfectly fine using your student ID and ordering to a real cashier, LIKE HOW IT HAS BEEN DONE FOR DECADES.
I have also read many stories of people that live in apartments that require them to use a mobile app for god damn LAUNDRY. All you need, is a card reader, and it will work perfectly fine like it has been for the longest time.
Privacy concerns aside, it is just annoying that you need this app and that app and this app and that app and it just clutters space on your phone. Security concerns too as now they have all of this additional info on you online, such as your phone number your email your real name, instead of just your credit card info like a card reader would have. And I am willing to guarantee that their security model is absolute horseshit because they have such a small team of engineers working on the app and the servers.
Literal enshitification
I also hate apps which request for unnecessary permissions. I have a dashcam which has an app to view the recorded videos. The app requires bluetooth as well as gps location info. Bluetooth is understandable but I don’t see the need for GPS. Unfortunately for me I can’t seem to get mock locations working properly on my phone. It also refuses to work if i do not give it location permission. :(
For locating the camera with BLE. Needs to see relative location, only possible with location permission. Turn it off after pairing.
These are the kind of things that apps should be more clear about.
The new Fujifilm app requires location access to even open the app, which you use to download images wirelessly. I know they want it always on to add GPS data to photos, but there’s no reason the app requires it to even launch! I should have the right to opt out of tracking because I don’t want to use Fuji’s weird social network feature.
But Google Photos on iOS requires access to all your photos and their metadata to even open. But I don’t want to use Google Photos to store ALL my pictures, I just want to download my photos. Google and Facebook both stored the exif data to determine your location, and so I can’t use Google Photos at all on iOS.
“Nearby devices” permission has been created for this very thing.
If I turn it off after pairing, it’ll refuse to connect the next time.
This is actually how Android used to handle pairing with BT devices. As I understand this has been adressed in Android 12 and now giving permission to pair with an exterior device does not mean giving location to the app.