Best Practices for App Permissions: How to Not Scare Away Users

3 min read
Jun 10, 2021

When it comes to app permissions, your mobile strategy can only succeed if it offers genuine value to users. That means users need to be able to access and leverage all of its key features.

This is a basic principle of app development. However, you can run into problems when your app needs to access certain private information in order to work to its full capacity.

For instance, take a retail app has a feature that alerts users with information about relevant sales or items. These alerts can show when they are near one of the brand’s brick-and-mortar shops. The app can only send these alerts if the user sets the app permissions to grant access to their location.

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Some users get scared off when they get permission control alerts. You don’t want someone to quit using your product because they didn’t feel comfortable giving the necessary permissions for it to work.

That’s why it’s important to keep the following iOS and Android permissions best practices in mind. By learning how to implement effective permissions (and knowing what types of permissions to avoid), you’ll be much more likely to get users on board.

Check Your Product with an App Permission Manager

Apps such as the Android app permissions manager give users breakdowns of which permissions they’ve granted for their various installed apps, along with rankings explaining how safe or unsafe they are. Before releasing your app, check it with various permission manager tools to ensure yours doesn’t get flagged. This is one of the most basic iOS and Android permissions best practices.

Ask Permission in the App When Necessary

The average user doesn’t enthusiastically embrace an app simply because they’ve installed it. In fact, apps typically lose 80% of users within three days of being downloaded.

This is more likely to happen if they are bombarded with app permission requests. Therefore, it’s best to only request permission for additional information when a user tries to access a feature that requires it. Additionally, if there are ways to make the feature work without requesting additional permissions on iPhone or Android, try to make the necessary changes before releasing the product.

It’s worth noting that requesting permissions for Android in this manner is now easier than ever. Updates to the Android app permission control features now allow apps to request necessary permissions when they are running, instead of before they are fully installed.

The same goes for iOS app permissions. Apple’s permission settings let you send requests on iPhones and related devices when users are trying to access features that need special permissions.

Both iOS and Android privacy controls allow your app to only request data to access private information when it needs it. Remember this when choosing how, when, and why your product should request access to this information.

 
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Explain Why You Need Permission on iOS and Android Devices

Users are more inclined to grant apps with these types of permissions when they understand the purpose of doing so. They want to know why your product needs to access their camera, location, or similar data to be useful. They also want to be confident in knowing that your app won’t share this information with other parties.

A little transparency can go a long way. Include a short explanation as to why your app needs certain access granted when it requests it, and users will feel more comfortable changing their app permission settings.

It’s also important to explain how a user’s experience of the app will suffer if they deny a critical Android or iOS app permission. Make sure they clearly understand how they’re limiting an app’s potential value by not granting a request.

It’s always necessary to frequently research the changing permission controls for various operating systems. They determine when and how you can ask for permissions along with helping you to understand which app permission to avoid based on the latest updates. By staying on top of these developments and keeping these iOS and Android permissions best practices in mind, you’ll have much more success getting users to take full advantage of your product.

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