I agree this is also a good way to ask for permission. Does Apple do this in iOS? I don't recall ever seeing it outside of OS X. I imagine it's difficult to clearly express why the app wants to send this data within the constraints of a UIAlertView.

iOS asks for permission before exposing location information, or access to contacts/photos and I can see why, the information is highly private. I don't agree that "this user pressed this button at this time" quite fits into the same category of privacy though.