Why does Business Calendar 2 need all the different permissions?
During the installation process of apps (including Business Calendar 2) you are asked to agree to the listed permissions. In the older versions (lower than Android 6) you will be asked to agree to all of them. In the newer ones (Android 6 and newer), only the calendar storage permission is mandatory. This permission grants the proper functioning of any calendar app, which uses the Android calendar database. The allowance of the other permissions will be asked when using a feature, which requires the corresponding permission, for the first time.
Unfortunately it is not easy to understand why an application needs the permissions. In the following we will describe the purpose behind all of them.
The Google permissions always sound very harsh and are not very precise. They just describe the worst case scenarios what could be possible with these permissions. In Business Calendar 2 we sometimes only use one or multiple sub-permissions of the top level permissions listed below. However, as a calendar app we are required to have these permissions to offer some very important features. Furthermore we are forced to use these permissions and we can't offer our own permissions within our app. This impinges against the multiple Google terms.
Calendar
Our application is using the calendar storage of the Android OS where all your calendars including their events are stored. This has the advantage that we don't have to build/develop our own database (which is a critical element within a calendar management system). To use the one of the Android OS the mentioned permission is needed to read, write or delete events or entire calendars. Furthermore this permission is helpful to implement the guest-feature in our application, which is needed to send and receive invitations from other people.
Contacts
The Contacts permission is used for the ability to show birthdays in BC. The birthday data is read out from your contacts and will be shown in the Birthday View. Furthermore, the permission is needed to link a contact to an event within the input mask for new events. When you add the contact from the list, the data such as contact's name, phone, address, email are written into the event's description and then are also accordingly synchronized to a cloud service (if the event is saved to a synced calendar). Apart from that, having saved the event, you are allowed to interact with a priorly linked contact, i.e. make calls, write messages/mails etc in the event details view. That kind of interaction requires this permission, too.
Location
We need your current location to retrieve proper weather information. Please remember that we only ask to access your approximate (network-based) location and not your GPS-based location.
Phone
The Phone permission is used to gather information about prior calls from a contact. For example if one of your contacts calls we will look if there were prior calls. Afterwards the total number of missed calls from this person is shown and you are allowed to create a new task with this information.
Storage (Photos/Media/Files)
In Business Calendar 2 there is a feature to import and/or export iCal-files. Therefore we have to access your USB-storage and your SD card to search for available iCal-files (for the import) and to write iCal-files onto the storage (for the export).
In-app purchases
To unlock some or all of the pro features within our application we use the Google in-app purchase features. Without this service it isn't that easy to sell anything within the BC2. Since only Google-services are used here no credit card information or similar things are redirected to our company or others.
Identity
The Identity permission is used to access the (Google-)accounts on your device. These accounts are needed to establish the synchronization of calendar information. Furthermore Business Calendar is allowed to add or remove accounts for the task management.
The Phone permission is used to gather information about prior calls from a contact. For example if one of your contacts calls we will look if there were prior calls. Afterwards the total number of missed calls from this person is shown and you are allowed to create a new task with this information.
Storage (Photos/Media/Files)
In Business Calendar 2 there is a feature to import and/or export iCal-files. Therefore we have to access your USB-storage and your SD card to search for available iCal-files (for the import) and to write iCal-files onto the storage (for the export).
In-app purchases
To unlock some or all of the pro features within our application we use the Google in-app purchase features. Without this service it isn't that easy to sell anything within the BC2. Since only Google-services are used here no credit card information or similar things are redirected to our company or others.
Identity
The Identity permission is used to access the (Google-)accounts on your device. These accounts are needed to establish the synchronization of calendar information. Furthermore Business Calendar is allowed to add or remove accounts for the task management.