A few months ago I obtained some free audio books from a special offer from audible.com. I realised too late that there was a catch, that the books are in a proprietary wrapper and there is no convenient way of playing them without booting Windows and installing their crappy reader. That was a shame because the books I chose are good and I'd love to hear them.
I sighed and got on with my life.
Today on Android Market I thought of those books and sought out Audible for Android. Great, I thought, I can listen to those books now. So I'm about to install. Before installing I'm asked to okay this:
Now arguably the application needs to be able to prevent the phone from sleeping. I could do that myself of course but I suppose it would be convenient to have a button to click inside the reader to disable sleeping.
What it certainly does not need is all that other stuff. Being a book reader it only needs to read files and operate the audio interface.
And so, with another sigh, I've decided not to download it. Possibly one day I'll take the time to convert the books to a form that can be played without this rigmarole, but for now they're just sitting on a Linux partition unplayed.
Why is this company going out of its way to give me reasons to regard it with suspicion and to avoid going back to its website to actually spend money on audio books?
I sighed and got on with my life.
Today on Android Market I thought of those books and sought out Audible for Android. Great, I thought, I can listen to those books now. So I'm about to install. Before installing I'm asked to okay this:
Quote:
“Allow this application to access:
Phone calls - read phone state and identity
Network communication - full internet access, create Bluetooth connections
System tools - prevent phone from sleeping
Your personal information - write calendar data
Storage - modify/delete SD card contents”
“Allow this application to access:
Phone calls - read phone state and identity
Network communication - full internet access, create Bluetooth connections
System tools - prevent phone from sleeping
Your personal information - write calendar data
Storage - modify/delete SD card contents”
Now arguably the application needs to be able to prevent the phone from sleeping. I could do that myself of course but I suppose it would be convenient to have a button to click inside the reader to disable sleeping.
What it certainly does not need is all that other stuff. Being a book reader it only needs to read files and operate the audio interface.
And so, with another sigh, I've decided not to download it. Possibly one day I'll take the time to convert the books to a form that can be played without this rigmarole, but for now they're just sitting on a Linux partition unplayed.
Why is this company going out of its way to give me reasons to regard it with suspicion and to avoid going back to its website to actually spend money on audio books?



