Comment by xbmcuser
1 day ago
Is it not the same for computers most of the apps data is accessible by all the apps. Mobile OS came from the paradigm of the past and as the way we use our phones change so do the way how mobile os work. For a long time Android devs have wanted to obfuscate the disk from the user like iOS does but have faced push back from users and developers so in the end they created a permission where an app needs to ask permission to access the disk. Keeping the file system a black box or allowing user/apps to mess with it is a development question of the times dumb it down or not. Then people here complain children don't know anything about computers these days well yeah because we have dumbed it down so much in the name of security and usablity.
Definitely the same for computers. LOTS of software rely on saving data on "secret" locations for shareware-style trials.
macOS for one has been asking to allow access to specific folders. Other OSs are possibly starting to do the same, but it used to be a free-for-all.
Linux has containers for this - firejail, flatpack and others have support for this.
Older software tended to be less obnoxious about it. I have never had a desktop app refuse to run for this sort of reason.
Desktop software installers do not claim to offer this security. Mobile OSes claim to be sandboxed so your expectations are different.
The sorts of applications you install are different too. Many mobile apps are things you would do using a web browser on a desktop. They should therefore be locked down the way webapps are.