iOS 18 brought with it many notable new features, such as new customization tools, improvements to Photos, Notes and Messages, as well as the highly anticipated Apple Intelligence feature in the United States. However, there is a more subtle update that is stirring concerns in the world of social apps, and it is a change designed to protect user privacy.
One of the main innovations concerns the way apps can access users’ contacts. Before the update, apps like Instagram or WhatsApp simply asked for permission to access your address book, and the user could choose to grant or deny access in bulk, with no other options in between.
With iOS 18, however, Apple has introduced greater control for the user. Now, when an app requests access to contacts, you can choose exactly which contacts to share and which not. This additional granularity is definitely a step forward for privacy protection.
Although this change seems positive for users, not all social apps see it favorably. According to an article from New York Timesthis increased restriction could create significant problems, especially for new social apps trying to make inroads into a market already dominated by giants like Facebook and TikTok.
Kevin Roose del New York Times discussed the issue with Nikita Bier, a tech entrepreneur who has created and sold several viral apps aimed at young people. Bier revealed that, from data he observed across startups he followed, contact sharing dropped dramatically with the introduction of iOS 18. In some apps, the percentage of users who shared ten or fewer contacts increased by 25%. This may seem small, but for social apps, the ability to quickly connect new users with their friends is crucial to ensuring growth and success.
The decline in contact sharing could pose a significant obstacle for new social apps. As Facebook discovered during its early years, if a user doesn’t add at least seven friends in the first ten days of signing up, they’re less likely to stay active. For emerging apps, being able to immediately connect new users with their friends is critical to building a stable and loyal user base.
The risk is that, by making this operation more difficult with a more selective sharing system, Apple can actually favor the big players already established on the marketmaking it harder for startups to compete.
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Source: www.iphoneitalia.com
