Post date: Jul 5, 2011 5:10:25 PM
In our Independence Day update to 3qual for Android, we added some Internet-related permissions (INTERNET, NETWORK_STATE, and READ_PHONE_STATE). The sometimes-ad-supported version always used these permissions in order to serve ads, of course. In the Free and Donate versions, we took it as a point of pride to respect the user and not be greedy about permissions. We don't like having all of our games chattering online or phoning home all the time, and we know some of you don't either. Also, we like having an "Anyone" content rating, which we lost when we added the Internet permissions. So it's not great, for a bunch of reasons.
3qual Free and Donate editions do not connect to the Internet.
I repeat, 3qual Free and Donate do not use the Internet. So, what are the permissions for?
3qual is a cross-platform game, that you can play on your Android phone or right here online. In order to make the same game run on different platforms, we use a fantastic framework called PhoneGap, that lets us run a web-style game inside an Android or iPhone native app. To make the magic happen, the newest version of PhoneGap sets up a "virtual" server inside your device, and the "web-style" part of the game connects to this local server inside your device in order to access features like local storage, email-drafting, and the vibration buzzer (you've felt that buzzer if case you've after mis-tapped a matched set in the game).
Unfortunately, Android can't tell the different between (a) a local server in your device, and (b) a real server out on the Internet, so we need the Internet permissions. 3qual does not access the Internet, though. You can turn off your network and radio connections, or put your device into airpline mode, and 3qual will behave exactly the same way as it did before.
We might one day add some in-app anonymous analytics to learn which gameplay styles are the most popular, and keep track of app misbehaviors that indicate bugs in the game software. If we ever add these analytics features, we will prominently announce that change in the blog and in the game, and the game will explicitly ask you for your permission to opt-in to this analytics system.
3qual will never connect to the Internet without your explicitly expressed permission. Never.
If you have any questions, please post a comment here, or send us an email.