I really think Apple needs to do something here with their next update. For every company that does the right thing by asking permission first, who knows how many are being sneaky.
No point blaming app programmers. The functionality for apps to acquire the address book without asking shouldn't exist.
Dear Apple, thank you for protecting me from adult material in the app store. But, can you... er, this is awkward... can you NOT GIVE MY ADDRESS BOOK AWAY WITHOUT MY PERMISSION? Thanks. And sorry for yelling, it's just, y'know, my address book and all.
I do not know why developers for mobile apps suddenly think that has changed. But they do. That’s certainly a problem and Apple should react to it quickly. The culprit, though, are still the developers who overstepped a pretty clear line.
Well, yes, but unlike on your iPhone you could actively do something against it. E.g. let outlook encrypt your address book, change the addressbook access permissions etc. it was trivial to bar anyone/thing from accessing your address book without having to remove the software you want to use.
On the iphone, you can only chose to install an app or not, if you chose to install, you have to accept anything that comes with it.
If you stick your addressbook into a truecrypt container 100% of programs (i know there is no 100% security, but there is not enough space to spell out all 99.999999s) will not be able to access it anymore without you unlocking/mounting it first. Thus, requiring your permission.
* Usually, 'utility' is not the primary driver of these apps, it is more in building a large userbase quickly so VC attention can be garnered.