Apple Cracks Down on Address Thieves
The new iOS version will push social apps seeking a user’s address book into distant history
Ever faced a scenario when one of your social media apps ask for access to your address book? Of course, whether you open it up or refuse access is personal choice. But, Apple is now cracking down on such social apps in a move that could cut off the oxygen to those who use these address books to make friend recommendations.
The company is adding a two-step permission pop-up screen that would not only ask users to allow or deny access to their respective address books, but would also allow users to choose which of their contacts they wish to share. That is, if they decide to allow the social network apps to access the contact book.
New changes announced during WWDC 2024
The company made these announcements during the ongoing Apple Worldwide Developers’ Conference (WWDC 2024). Currently, when a user shares her contact list with a third-party app, it will continue to receive new contacts over time in perpetuity. So, Apple has decided to give more control to users in terms of which of their contacts can be accessed by the app.
And this is where the two-screen permission comes into play. The first screen would be used by users to confirm that they indeed want to share their contacts with the app. There’s no change in the way things work on this front today. However, app makers have used this to actually block users who decline to share their contact.
A growth-hack for app makers becomes history
There were instances of some apps moving up the App Store last year by deploying a system that forced users to share to invite their contacts to join up. There were others that sought full access to a user’s address book in order to quickly expand their networks. There were also a few that forced users to invite friends as a means to have access to the app.
All these techniques were used by app makers to show substantial growth in the early stages of their existence – a prerequisite probably for future funding. However, it was observed that many of these social network apps could not sustain initial user growth over a longer term. And users merely ended up sharing their address books without any tangible benefits.
That may now become more difficult, as users who opt to share their address book by tapping “Continue” on the first screen will be taken to a second screen in iOS 18 where they can choose whether or not they want to share all their contacts with an app. Here, users will be able to tap on “Allow Full Access” or a new option to “Select Contacts” if they’d rather limit access.
No effort required from app makers to implement
From Apple’s point of view, it wants to make this entire exercise non-viable for app makers, which is why it has brought in this two-step process on iOS18. Just so that app makers can breathe easy, these changes do not require any work from the developers – either to make the functionality work or implement any new APIs. So, in case the app asks for the contacts, two new screens will automatically appear.
Early reactions to this development haven’t been all that friendly with some developers, especially those who sold growth-hacked social apps in the past, feeling the pinch. In fact, one of them even took to social media to claim that it was the “end of the world” as they knew it. However, others were quick to welcome it.
They noted that while the change would be unwelcome for data harvesting apps, for the users it was good news as it would prevent apps from repeatedly asking for address book access even after they’ve been denied. With this addition, users could grant access to a limited number of contact details and then forget about it totally.
