14 DAY TRIAL // This weekend Apple issued an updated developer preview of OS X 10.8 to developers containing several changes. One in particular restricts third-party applications from accessing the user’s address book.
Formerly known as Address Book, the Contacts application in OS X Mountain Lion will be off limits to other apps, when the operating system debuts this summer.
OS X 10.8 now pops up a dialog that asks for the user’s express consent to allow a third-party program to access Contacts information. An example can be seen above.
Apple has been involved in a PR fiasco recently for approving an iOS application that accessed and downloaded people’s contacts information without their approval.
The company quickly issued an official response promising to address this problem in a software update. While the company’s mobile operating system is yet to receive this patch, OS X Mountain Lion Developer Preview 2 already includes it.