Why do so many apps want access to my phone calls?

[BigMonkey2013]

Apps, that seemingly have NOTHING to do with needing access. Like, I just went to DL an app that streams photos to my TV via chromecast...... WTH would it need access to my phone calls? Just about 75% of the games I wanted to DL asked for it too.

About the only apps I would grant that access to are actually phone related.

Are these developers just overstepping their boundaries? Is there some reason that they need access to my actual phone calls ( including identity )?

All I know is if I can't figure out a reason why they need it, their app is not going on my phone.

 

[SpookDroid]

Here you go, from this post in AC

Phone calls -- read phone state and identity

The most abused, and least understood permission of them all. Some apps need to know if your phone is about to ring. Maybe they need to save state (ie freeze what they're doing) for when the incoming call screen pops up, or they need to turn over audio control back to the OS. But this is also the one that can read, and send your IMEI and other identifying information back to some random server in Russia or God knows where. Often, these unique numbers are needed as piracy control, or to keep track of you without using any more sensitive personal information. The issue is when developers use these numbers for things like remembering your preferences for online services or app history. Remember the big wallpaper app scare? After some investigation, we learned the developer was using your device ID to keep track of your favorite wallpapers on his servers. Seemingly harmless, but not the right way to handle it. My only advice here is to be sure you trust the developers of the app when you see this one. Or take a moment to email them and ask why they need this permission.

 

[Munrojr]

Here you go, from this post in AC

Phone calls -- read phone state and identity

The most abused, and least understood permission of them all. Some apps need to know if your phone is about to ring. Maybe they need to save state (ie freeze what they're doing) for when the incoming call screen pops up, or they need to turn over audio control back to the OS. But this is also the one that can read, and send your IMEI and other identifying information back to some random server in Russia or God knows where. Often, these unique numbers are needed as piracy control, or to keep track of you without using any more sensitive personal information. The issue is when developers use these numbers for things like remembering your preferences for online services or app history. Remember the big wallpaper app scare? After some investigation, we learned the developer was using your device ID to keep track of your favorite wallpapers on his servers. Seemingly harmless, but not the right way to handle it. My only advice here is to be sure you trust the developers of the app when you see this one. Or take a moment to email them and ask why they need this permission.

Thank you for making this clear to me as I was extremely worried about apps requesting permission to make calls and other things, and thank you for your advice on contacting the dev by email, I am not a stupid person but for some reason I never even considered emailing then. Once again thank you very much for clearing a lot of things up for me .