Dummy/empty data is already a thing in Android if I'm not mistaken. It just needs ADB/App Ops to activate it.
There's three states of permissions in android land from a permission request perspective:
* Granted. Just full access to all things behind the permission, no questions asked.
* Ignore. Returns no rejection, but all permission-restricted functions will return no/default data. This can technically be checked for by the app but usually isn't.
* Deny. No data, return an explicit error to the app to tell them the permission isn't granted.
For some reason that second one isn't available for the default UX; you need to manually set it with ADB or use App Ops to do it.
Don't apps just refuse to work now a days if ADB is activated? It has been a few years since I tried it. But I remember my bank app refusing to working with the developer options(forgot what this is exactly) turned on. Also if I remember right, some apps do not work on rooted phones. Or are we talking about different things?
ADB requires USB debugging to be enabled, yes, although modifying the appops settings (App Ops = app that can modify appops on the device itself using ADB, appops = android service that handles application permissions and application operations) doesn't need it to be continuously enabled.
You can just activate it, change the settings and disable it afterwards. Pretty annoying but it is what it is.
This doesn't require root either, although enabling USB debugging is an important step towards rooting, which is probably why you think it's related.
I have never had an app refuse to work because of developer mode, but several if rooted. Anecdotal, but it would seem the two are treated differently by developers.
There's three states of permissions in android land from a permission request perspective:
* Granted. Just full access to all things behind the permission, no questions asked.
* Ignore. Returns no rejection, but all permission-restricted functions will return no/default data. This can technically be checked for by the app but usually isn't.
* Deny. No data, return an explicit error to the app to tell them the permission isn't granted.
For some reason that second one isn't available for the default UX; you need to manually set it with ADB or use App Ops to do it.