My old ones broke two days ago and I needed new ones. I chose earbuds from NOTHIHG because according to reviews they are really good for the money. Now, their app is asking me to accept this privacy policy. Maybe this policy is just some general place holder for other products because they sell phones too. And they would have browser history there. Or I could use the earbuds without the app. But the default tuning on them is very bass heavy and I need to change that.
I use DNS resolver on my phone with a lot of filters, so this shit will get blocked. I think I will bite the bullet for now but this is probably the last thing I bought from this company.
An app can be very useful, I use my Bose app to update my headphones' firmware and to manage a few Bluetooth settings.
The app itself isn't the issue, the requested permissions are.
I am an IT guy and let's run through the permissions and see what makes sense...
What I truly hate about these is that they are basically an all/nothing deal, you have to press the button or mark the checkbox to set $EULA_AGREE = $true for the app to work, you can't just agree to parts of the EULA, you have to give them everything they ask for, preferably while looking lovingly into the camera of the phone so they can send the photo to their CEO.
The last part was obviously hyperbol, but thatbis how it feels from time to time...
Bose headphone owner + IT guy here,
their app is filled to the brim with spyware last time I checked!
Uninstalled it immediately after de-compiling and scanning for known trackers with ClassyShark3xodus.
No regrets, the headphones work perfectly well without that stupid app!
"tech enthusiast" vs "IT guy" in a nutshell.
Tech enthusiast: a little privacy breach is okay, as a treat for the headphones I already paid them money for. It's not their fault their app wants to know these things. It's mostly all good.
IT guy: shoot it 417 times after you uninstall it to make sure it's truly no longer on your phone.
Side story: I forgot my good earbuds at home one day and decided I didn't want to hear tools all day, so I bought a new pair at the store I was working at that day. 2 minutes later I'm at the counter again to return them because they wanted me to download an app and wouldn't pair without it. Bought a $1 pack of earplugs instead.
All the big apps are the same shit. The Sony app for wf and wh 1000xm3 have the same distopia conditions on the terms.
Install on old phone
Setup equalizer
Never touch app ever again
Oh yeah I know!
Lately I aim to only install FOSS apps from F-Droid for that reason.
If no F-Droid app available / only Play Store, then I always scan them with ClassyShark3xodus against trackers.
If they're filled with trackers (very likely) and not absolutely nessecary for my daily workflow, I uninstall them immediately.
Currently about 75% of my apps come from F-Droid, and hope to only increase that percentage! :)
I know that there was a big hubub about the app reporting what songs you listened to, to be fair that isn't that terrible as it gives them data about how to tune new headphones.
As for anything else, I don't have the knowledge or experience to determine if an app is spying on me outside of the permission requests.
I am on an iPhone and checked, bose didn't need my location, that is at least something....
No, it absolutely does not.
Why in the world would you need to update your headphones' firmware in the first place?
Getting rid of bugs?
I have noticed that from time to time, my Bose QC35 II may suddenly loose the clarity of the sound, a restart solves it but It is annoying, this could probably be a thing to be patched in a new firmware release.
That is absolutely wild to me that there are people out there with software bugs in their headphones. The few BT headphones I've used just connect and stream audio without much to mess up. But 95% of the time I'm rocking out with some wired cans.
Thanks for the response!