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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”

#331

Post by Aunche »

emsy wrote: post #200
izacus wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting view, considering all the outrage on this site related to Google potentially entering the Chinese market under their law. It was deemed utterly immoral... and Apple gets a free pass although their own CEO it talking about human rights?

You are either utterly uniformed or intentionally misleading. Apple located the data center in China, as Chinese law requires while maintaining the same encryption standards they have for all of their customers. Google was collaborating with China in creating a censorial search engine behind the great firewall. Completely different things.

How is that any different? Google isn't doing anything different from any other search engine in China. Of course, they're collaborating with China, just like Apple in order to build a data center there.

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

#332

Post by danaris »

joejerryronnie wrote: post #271
nneonneo wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iTunes wasn't fantastic while Jobs was around, either. The first versions of OS X downright sucked. The build quality and aesthetic of the iPhone X rival anything from the Jobs era in my view, and the recent improvements on mobile performance have been nothing short of amazing. I feel like people get these rose-tinted glasses when they look back on past Apple products, like they were all 100% perfect or something. Tr…

My concern with a post-Jobs Apple is not their ability to iterate on existing product lines. I'm not confidant Apple can shift paradigms and disrupt whole industries the way the did under Jobs' leadership.

You know that happened twice, maybe three times, right? The iPod and the iPhone were it (and maybe the iPad).

It's not something Apple did twice a week like clockwork while Jobs was alive, then just suddenly stopped when he died.

This is exactly the kind of rose-colored glasses nneonneo was talking about.

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

#333

Post by kodablah »

hellofunk wrote: post #288
parthdesai wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

As simple as asking a company built on data collection to stop collecting it. Maybe simpler.

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

#334

Post by callalex »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #37
nemo846 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they could I believe they would. They rather not be reliant on whoever is providing their speak recognition.

A limited subset of functionality should already be possible, especially if they can have the speech recognition trained specifically to the user.

I get the impression that this is already happening to a certain extent and they are testing the water. On newer/faster devices, you’ll notice Siri transcribing on the screen nearly instantaneously, faster than any server round trip, but with poor accuracy. Then a few seconds later once the server connection is established you’ll see some of the transcription change to be more accurate.

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

#335

Post by 0xffff2 »

School-Cotton wrote: post #240
Matt3o12_ wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I can’t help but wonder why there isn’t an alternative. Maybe a phone that is a bit more expensive then an equivalent android. It doesn’t need to have the hardware quality of iPhones or high end android phones but also has good, secure and privacy focused software developed by some company that doesn’t make most of their revenue from advertising. But I suppose there isn’t a market for that. A majority of users wo…

You’re right that 99% of people will just pick the cheaper phone over the privacy-focused one if all else is equal. Look how many people willingly give their phone number to grocery stores in return for a slight discount.

>Look how many people willingly give their phone number to grocery stores in return for a slight discount.

If you're paying with a credit card, giving them your phone number in addition to your CC# doesn't make any difference at all. It doesn't even have to be your phone number, pretty much any 10 digit number will do.

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

#336

Post by pluma »

simonh wrote: post #160
pluma wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does sourcing in China require you to sell to the Chinese market? I don't see how Apple could be compelled to open their iCloud to the Chinese government if they're not operating iCloud in China and don't directly have Chinese customers.

China requires that the services be operated from within China and requires government access to the data centres. I suspect this is one of the driving forces behind Apples efforts to do as much AI Balts is on the device, and employ encryption and advanced anonymising methods on data that is transmitted to the back end.

Yes, as I said, sourcing from China doesn't mean you have to sell your products in the Chinese market. If the only way to be an iCloud user in China is to trick Apple into thinking you're not in China, Apple can't recognise Chinese users and thus can't help the government spy on them.

Apple presumably doesn't provide iCloud in markets that the US has a trade embargo against, so why wouldn't they voluntarily abstain from providing it in China where it's not possible to provide the service without co-operating with the Chinese government to subvert their users' privacy.

I'm not saying that Apple should do this. I'm saying that it's dishonest to claim Apple's hands are tied. Unless the Chinese government is using the supply chain as leverage to force Apple to provide it access regardless of whether or not Apple intends to provide services in China, whether Apple is using China as supplier or not is irrelevant.

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

#337

Post by drb91 »

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.

I would phrase it differently. I am grateful for Apple, but we should not be—asking companies to have morals is like asking rain to fall upwards. Regulation is the appropriate method for dictating companies to behave in a certain way.

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

#338

Post by bootlooped »

yanonymous2 wrote: post #293
stult wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would kill for a Linux phone, but until that happens I would settle for a phone that comes with root access (or at least allows technically capable users to get it) and let's me control my own data and device from the bare metal up. Because even if Apple has less incentive to exfiltrate data, I don't want to have to trust any company to do the right thing or to keep doing it.

The main problem is that custom privacy-focused Android versions have to be made compatible for every device and devices come and go all the time. At some point, hardware progress will be so minimal and devices so easy to manufacture that small companies can offer their own high-end phones and can build for them some years without really being much behind the competition. When that happens, custom ROMs can really lif…

I don't think hardware manufacturers will accept that scenario. They must constantly pump out new devices, no matter how incremental the improvement.

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

#339

Post by pluma »

rubyfan wrote: post #89
brainwad wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cook is only making this statement because it's in Apple's business interest to cripple ad-based competitors by convincing policy makers to hobble them with regulation. He's not a neutral observer.

Does Apple really compete with Facebook and ad platforms? Does Apple even really compete with Google? Isn’t the Android competition mostly not Google, e.g. Samsung?

But non-stock Android still typically uses Google services and these integrations are built into the OS. So whether the Android devices are sold by Google or Samsung doesn't really make much of a difference, Google still gets the data it wants.

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

#340

Post by maxxxxx »

robocat wrote: post #187
leereeves wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple sells a walled garden that controls what software you can use, forces upgrades by forbidding repairs and slowing down old phones with software updates, and sells more dongles by eliminating features and changing ports in every generation of their products. I admit they are better than Google on the privacy issue, but should we be grateful for having an alternative that abuses us in different ways?

Each of your complaints is because of a well-designed compromise (app quality/safety; preventing abrupt phone shutdown; removing a common failure point). You may disagree with the compromises, sure. PS: I own zero Apple devices (partly because of the reasons you have, not for the way you are misrepresenting those reasons).

" Each of your complaints is because of a well-designed compromise (app quality/safety; preventing abrupt phone shutdown; removing a common failure point). You may disagree with the compromises, sure."

You should add "making more money" to the factors that went into this "well designed" approach. For example I don't see how not adding a MicroSD slot is nothing other than a method of forcing people into buying phones with larger internal storage (and making more money for Apple).

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