Apps don't need it, and it probably shouldn't be offered. But as things stand, many of the OS's fundamental time APIs return time since boot, and for some reason, most of those aren't even listed as required-reason APIs. The APIs listed are mach_absolute_time() and ProcessInfo.systemUptime, but there is also clock_gettime() with CLOCK_MONOTONIC/CLOCK_MONOTONIC_RAW/CLOCK_UPTIME_RAW, as well more obscure ones like mach_continuous_time().
Therefore:
- I find it easy to believe that some of the apps may not realize they're using the restricted APIs in an unapproved way.
- Alternately, some of the apps may not be using restricted APIs at all, and instead getting the same information with non-restricted APIs. Not clear if that's even against the rules. It certainly would be extremely sketchy if done as an intentional workaround, but it would be even easier to do accidentally. If you grepped the codebase for uses of the restricted APIs, you wouldn't necessarily find uses of these other APIs.
