The iOS system works pretty well, but does have a few downsides.
There are apps that spam permissions requests. Let's take some kind of Foursquare thing that needs see your photo library, GPS location, and contacts because of how it works. Poorly written apps will often just spam all three requests when you first open the app instead of asking for your contacts now, your photos when you try to select one, and GPS when you try to tag somewhere.
Notifications are also a problem. At this point nearly every single app I download has the first run experience of asking to send me push notification (answer is basically always "No") which is a poor experience and just trains people to smash "yes" or "no".
By the way, if you hit the wrong one how do you fix that? I bet 90% of users don't know, and would just delete and reinstall the app.
However on iOS apps are NOT allowed to explain WHY they need a permission. The dialog boxes are generated by the system to prevent gaming. Well designed apps will set the user up, showing you a little screen saying "We're about to ask for access to your camera roll so you can select a picture", poorly designed ones just pop-up the dialog.
It works fine for me. The only thing I'd like from Apple is an additional permission for non-push notifications. I don't want every app I install to automatically get access to send non-push notifications. I have to go turn that permission off far too much.
The common model I'm seeing is the app will ask the user beforehand, giving the proper explanation. If the user agrees, then they are prompted with the OS level permissions dialog.
There are apps that spam permissions requests. Let's take some kind of Foursquare thing that needs see your photo library, GPS location, and contacts because of how it works. Poorly written apps will often just spam all three requests when you first open the app instead of asking for your contacts now, your photos when you try to select one, and GPS when you try to tag somewhere.
Notifications are also a problem. At this point nearly every single app I download has the first run experience of asking to send me push notification (answer is basically always "No") which is a poor experience and just trains people to smash "yes" or "no".
By the way, if you hit the wrong one how do you fix that? I bet 90% of users don't know, and would just delete and reinstall the app.
However on iOS apps are NOT allowed to explain WHY they need a permission. The dialog boxes are generated by the system to prevent gaming. Well designed apps will set the user up, showing you a little screen saying "We're about to ask for access to your camera roll so you can select a picture", poorly designed ones just pop-up the dialog.
It works fine for me. The only thing I'd like from Apple is an additional permission for non-push notifications. I don't want every app I install to automatically get access to send non-push notifications. I have to go turn that permission off far too much.