Snippet: iA Writer/Writer Pro Phoning Home ☇

I’ve been a huge fan of iA Writer on both OS X and iOS for years, but Ben Brooks recently retweeted a tweet by @spare, drawing my attention to a change that happened a little while back, as per iA Writer for iOS’s Privacy Policy:

We collect the following statistical data: timestamp, IP address, device model, system version, device language, plus app version, build number, storage type, and anonymous identifier. […]

By using iA Writer, you are consenting to our processing of this collected data…

The problem with this is that this change wasn’t advertised (in fact, I had a hard time finding anything in old release notes), so it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. My best guess is that this happened in September, as that is what the privacy policy is dated. If it were opt-in (as most apps that collect data approach this), I’d consider sharing, but having this buried under an item in the Settings app is hardly the most transparent, and has me wondering what else might be shared, even though they promise it will only be the specific items. I don’t like apps that do sneaky things in the background, even if it’s for the most innocent of purposes.