Passive text data- iOS

September 2, 2020 9:55 AM

I’m proposing a research study that would involve getting people’s permission to share passive data from their cell phones (in particular, number of texts, but not the content of texts). In the past I believe you could have people install an app that made this possible, but my collaborator who does this kind of work is saying that iOS has totally pulled this functionality, and Androids might be going the same direction. Is this true? Is there any way that I’m not considering to gather text data from iPhones, other than asking people to self-report?
posted by quiet coyote to Technology (2 answers total)

I imagine that this would still be possible with notification listener permissions, at least on Android; my scrobbling app still works on that basis. That relies on your users trusting you not to abuse the permission, though.

You might be able to get the same data by having people submit some sort of backup/export from their messaging app; maybe provide them a way to strip the message content locally before submitting it to you?
posted by sagc at 10:11 AM on September 2, 2020

About sahc's backup/export option: There's a script among Jamie Zawinski's hacks for exporting SMS from iTunes/iPhone backups. It can ignore the content and just give you timestamps. sms-backup-iphone.pl.
posted by k3ninho at 3:26 PM on September 2, 2020