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Tim Cook makes blistering attack on the “data industrial complex”

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Re: Tim Cook makes blistering attack on the “data industrial complex”

#281

Post by Tehnix »

tananaev wrote: post #232
macintux wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would wager they think it's confusing and possibly dangerous. How many people would leave it on as they drive away from home, and then struggle with their phones as they're driving? Apple doesn't generally expose more options than it thinks a substantial number of people need. That's a UX decision, not a "Apple wants to track you forever" evil business decision. I'll admit I wouldn't mind an option like this, but I…

There are ways to make it user friendly. iOS can provide some kind of API that apps can use to explicitly request user to switch location services on. Just like permissions. They can also have an option is settings to ONLY allow foreground app to use location service. I bet most people don't want random apps to know their location in the background. They only want location when they know what it's used for (e.g. Goog…

For the second point: Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services and then set the app to “While using the app”.

Re: Tim Cook makes blistering attack on the “data industrial complex”

#282

Post by wpdev_63 »

burtonator wrote: post #258

I'd like to think I'm one of the good guys here. I was one of the inventors of RSS and Atom and worked to push open content and social media. I started a social data search platform named Datastreamer ( http://www.datastreamer.io/ ) which is basically a petabyte-scale content indexing engine. We provide API feeds to search engines and social media analytics companies needing bulk data but don't want to have to build…

What other companies?

Re: Tim Cook makes blistering attack on the “data industrial complex”

#283

Post by at-fates-hands »

jjulius wrote: post #225
kkarakk wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why not just buy an older device? bought a brand new iPhone se as soon as the new iphones x maxx was announced. mobile phone development as plateaued imo, there is nothing out there you really need unless you're fooling yourself. photos - I bought a nice mirrorless with the money I saved. apps - se runs everything tolerably fast except for snapchat and Instagram, which I've decided to cut down on anyways.comparison i…

>why not just buy an older device? As devices age, they stop being supported by security updates.

Microsoft is still supporting several of their smartphones running Windows Mobile. The latest update (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4316692/june122018k...) was in June of this year. I still have a Lumia 950 and it works fine.

Compared to OnePlus who stopped updated their OnePlus2 past Marshmallow after telling subscribers they would get the Nougat update. This effectively dead ends this model for users. Got rid of my 2 when I found out:

https://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/oneplus-2-android-noug...

Re: Tim Cook makes blistering attack on the “data industrial complex”

#284

Post by WhompingWindows »

Spooky23 wrote: post #259
Ensorceled wrote: post #194

The only problem is that Apple is the Mercedes of mobile devices. We really need a Honda and Kia version, a more affordable device that doesn’t track you. Apple is never going to give up their premium position.

Not really. They own like 50% of the market. They position like 1960 GM. The $1,500 iPhone is the aspirational thing that everyone talks about. If you have money, you buy the iPhone Xs (ie the Cadillac), if you want to look "better", buy the Xr (Buick), if you don't care, you buy the iPhone 7 (the Chevy). There is almost nothing that the $1,500 phone does that the $1 phone does not. The cheapo androids are more like…

Where is your evidence supporting the claim that Apple owns 50% of the market? That is way above the figures I have seen. Seems to me you are just pulling metrics out of thin air in this post.

Re: Tim Cook makes blistering attack on the “data industrial complex”

#285

Post by at-fates-hands »

why-el wrote: post #237
kkarakk wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why not just buy an older device? bought a brand new iPhone se as soon as the new iphones x maxx was announced. mobile phone development as plateaued imo, there is nothing out there you really need unless you're fooling yourself. photos - I bought a nice mirrorless with the money I saved. apps - se runs everything tolerably fast except for snapchat and Instagram, which I've decided to cut down on anyways.comparison i…

This has been my strategy all along. I am always at least two versions below, sometimes more. I still own my iPhone 6, and get all updates. I bought it for 200 bucks, 2 years ago!!

I just got a 7 for $250 from a co-worker. I finally untangled myself completely from any Google services, which is a nice feeling.

Re: Tim Cook makes blistering attack on the “data industrial complex”

#286

Post by hollerith »

geezerjay wrote: post #72
walterbell wrote: post #38

Hi Apple. Please: • add VPN on/off to control center • allow per-app VPN via Apple Configurator, without enterprise MDM • once the above two are available, we can use Tor, IDS, DPI or pihole on a per-application basis, to reduce data harvesting • bonus1: allow the open-source iOS MDM community OR the iOS Shortcuts community to make it easy for novice users to have one-click install of "privacy-plus configurations" •…

You're addressing the technical problem but Tim Cook is addressing the political problem, which is more effective at tackling the root causes.

Political problems tend to be much harder to fix than technical problems especially if you're Tim Cook.

(Also, political solutions are more likely to incur severe unwanted side-effects, such as, for example, making it almost impossible for any new operating system to enter the smartphone market ever again).

Also, the options Tim Cook has at his disposal go beyond technical solutions: in particular, it would be straightforward for Apple to switch to a pricing strategy that gets iOS devices into the hands of 100s of millions or billions of people who will stick with or choose Android if Apple keeps its current pricing model.

Here is a writer who estimates that Apple could sell the iPhone X at at 40% discount from its current (at the time the web page was written) price without losing money on the sale:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2017/11/08/apple-iph...

Rather than switching pricing strategies, Mr Cook apparently prefers to lobby the government to help him maintain the iPhone's status as a premium or luxury brand, which in turn preserves the iPhone's very high profit margins.

Re: Tim Cook makes blistering attack on the “data industrial complex”

#287

Post by MichaelMoser123 »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #32

I like Tim Cook, I think his heart is in the right place and as much as a corporation can, Apple generally does the right thing. I was having lunch with several lawyers at my company a few weeks ago. One of them was talking strongly about quality devices and Apple’s strong privacy stance. He literally said that we as a society should be grateful for having Apple.

They are trying to place themselve as the company that produces hardware versus those software guys who are after your data to complement their income. The argument here is that the hardware guy always has a proper profit margin. Always look at the profit motive, Luke! (Also they have some stake in the data business by following on those apple IDs - i would not bet on the declared principles of their chairman; also Apple is on the stock exchange, therefore under constant pressure to come out with positive growth figures)

Re: Tim Cook makes blistering attack on the “data industrial complex”

#288

Post by hellofunk »

parthdesai wrote: post #262
cal5k wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that’s an over-simplistic view. Failing to adhere to Chinese law would mean exiting the Chinese market. If the US passed a similar law, Apple would be forced to comply with it (although they would at least have recourse through the courts to eventually show that such a law was, perhaps, unconstitutional).

Sure, but when you make blistering attack on "data industrial complex" and advocate privacy, you are held to the golden standard in the entire world. I personally believe that Apple complied to Chinese government's demands is because their bread and butter is in that country (the entire manufacturing of hardware devices).

Sounds like you are suggesting Apple should have simply stopped doing any business in China. Simple, right?

Re: Tim Cook makes blistering attack on the “data industrial complex”

#289

Post by IshKebab »

andy_ppp wrote: post #42

Seeing as Google pays Apple $12bn to be the default search engine on iOS devices I’m tempted to call hypocrisy here... http://fortune.com/2018/09/29/google-apple-safari-search-eng...

Google and Facebook aren't selling your data though.

Re: Tim Cook makes blistering attack on the “data industrial complex”

#290

Post by 3pt14159 »

burtonator wrote: post #258

I'd like to think I'm one of the good guys here. I was one of the inventors of RSS and Atom and worked to push open content and social media. I started a social data search platform named Datastreamer ( http://www.datastreamer.io/ ) which is basically a petabyte-scale content indexing engine. We provide API feeds to search engines and social media analytics companies needing bulk data but don't want to have to build…

First, thank you so much for the work you've done with RSS / Atom. I implemented it (and my own static site compiler) myself from scratch on my own personal site and it took me very little time. The only little trick was figuring out absolute vs relative paths.

Second, I've been fighting for regulations for over three years and I'm getting somewhere, but I'm also starting to think that we need technical solutions to many of these problems. One of the things I see as a problem is that people always want more, but privacy and security often require less.

For example, old charsets only supported Latin characters. With the introduction of Cyrillic characters many assumptions started breaking.

Each time I try to think through how to make the web / internet simpler I realize that it either requires pushing the complexity onto people unprepared to deal with it—an English speaking daughter may want to copy and paste her Russian mother's Cyrillic name, say—or it fails to handle the use cases we need it to handle.

I know this seems kinda abstract, but do you ever think about that interplay? Are there any insights or anecdotes you find useful?

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