Apple Inc (AAPL)

[malt66]

They sure are:
Let's take the typical "smartphone" today. It has many "apps" on it that the user has loaded to do various things -- look up movie times, play games, communicate via various forms (e.g. Skype) and more. All of these apps request "permissions" from the operating system to do various things -- read the phone's state (so it doesn't interrupt you when you're talking), get location data and so on.

Now here's the problem -- there's little or no granularity offered to the user, and never any based on the device's state. This means that when you load the "Words with Friends" app and it wants your location data in its permission list you either take it or leave it, and unknown to you unless you look it leaves a piece running all the time and sends that data whether you're playing or not.

Some versions of Android and IOS will allow you to shut off permissions; this may break some functions but that's a choice you get to make. Others (most-notably Android) do not.

But none of them are state-sensitive.

It's inherent in both IOS an Android.

If you want to use your Iphone or Iwatch to check the weather, locate your nearest Starbucks, fine. Using it to access bank accounts, personal info, point of sale is assenine...besides paying twice as much for a gimmick.