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One question I have is why do apps have access to the clipboard AT ALL?

Shouldn't the clipboard only be used when you PASTE something?

This would only work (on a technical level) if Apple restricts how users can paste within an app. If, for instance, Apple allows pasting only via the system-provided context menu (like double tapping on a text field on iOS or right-clicking on macOS), the developers could not provide pasting functionality in any other way, such as with dedicated UI buttons in a text editor or a gesture.
 
AFAIK almost every Chinese app does that, Weibo, WeChat, TikTok, Taobao... It's really great iOS has all those features.

On the other hand, Android users in China have to bear all the privacy issues all the time. Some apps even ask for permission to monitor user's phone call and texts. What if someone chooses not to give those apps the permissions? THEY STOP WORKING AND QUIT! That's insane!

WeChat doesn’t but Lazada does. Owned by Alibaba group.
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Chinese companies gonna spy and lie. Why does this not surprise us? Who knows, good tidbits in those clipboard reveals perhaps get sent off to the Chinese Communist Party for further review.
I'm not disagreeing, but there are a lot of non-Chinese companies on the list in the article, as well. This bad behavior is not owned solely by CN.
 
Theres a dating app Grindr that does the same thing. I stopped using it, the only way I knew it was pasting my data was it would say pasting data from clipboard for 27" iMac Pro... or pasting from iPad Pro 11"... I guess I outed myself.. with this one.. but this security feature will expose that app for the evil that it is and people will stop using those apps.. doubt it as people still sell their soul for free email COUGH COUGH GMAIL...
 
Theres a dating app Grindr that does the same thing. I stopped using it, the only way I knew it was pasting my data was it would say pasting data from clipboard for 27" iMac Pro... or pasting from iPad Pro 11"... I guess I outed myself.. with this one.. but this security feature will expose that app for the evil that it is and people will stop using those apps.. doubt it as people still sell their soul for free email COUGH COUGH GMAIL...

So basically Grindr is gonna know how 99% accounts where I live are just for buying and selling drugs.
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God, now that I think of it, Android apps shouldn't need a permission to phonecalls when they don't interact with telephony services and stuff.

If I ever make a mobile OS (lmao) it would be mandatory for devs that when asking for a service, the app had to have some activity relating to it.

Also, what is TikTok gonna do? Send my ****** copy pastas to the CCP?
 
So basically Grindr is gonna know how 99% accounts where I live are just for buying and selling drugs.
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God, now that I think of it, Android apps shouldn't need a permission to phonecalls when they don't interact with telephony services and stuff.

If I ever make a mobile OS (lmao) it would be mandatory for devs that when asking for a service, the app had to have some activity relating to it.

Also, what is TikTok gonna do? Send my ****** copy pastas to the CCP?

I think that Android has this permission to read your phone number, not so much to make calls.

But anyway, Apple can (and should) even take this one step further by denying individual apps access to the internet. Some Android distributions already allow this (such as OnePlus's Oxygen OS). As for privacy, if you have a rooted Android phone, you can take things even one step further by using permission managers such as App Ops. This allow very fine and granular control which which apps can access which permissions (e.g. read phone status, contacts, GPS, WiFi scanning, clipboard access, etc).

As for Apple's clipboard notification mechanism, is this just a notification, or does it allow granular control if access to the clipboard? If the former, I really think that this is just a half-implementation as really, the damage has already been done, so to say.
 
Exactly why I stay with Apple. Privacy is something they truly care about; to their core.

and yet they allow a “sandboxed” app to completely monitor activity in some other app. They also default to allowing all apps run in the background. And even if you turn off “Run in background” completely, apps continue to run in the background until some other app needs that memory. This alert appears even if you’ve disallowed TikTok from running in the background!

That’s some good privacy.
 
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less apps I have, safer I feel nowadays.

Precisely. I try to use a web browser whenever possible, instead of installing an app for a specific website or service. Many of the apps out here just mimic what a web browser does, anyway, and the only reason for this, in my opinion, is to track you by skirting around privacy settings on a web browser.
 
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I can’t believe they’re using the information I was about to submit as a comment to the World Wide Web!!! My privacy!!

That said, Go Apple. Love how dedicated they seem regarding privacy. We have almost none nowadays.
 
Just stop using this garbage. Delete TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, et al. Just text/iMessage/FaceTime each other! I have done this and never looked back. Also enjoying better battery life too. Win. Win. Win.

I still utilize YouTube for entertainment. With an old style Non-Google account, aka, no gmail attached.
 
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