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Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

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Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#111

Post by mirimir »

donkeyd wrote: post #102
mirimir wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until a month or two ago, I was believing that Apple was committed to protecting its customers' privacy. Sure, it had been caving to the Chinese government. But I accepted that it had to, or stop doing business in China. And then I learned that Apple does not guarantee that apps from its online store respect users' privacy. That rather gives the lie to its commitment to privacy. I mean, it did (along with Google) tak…

Have you looked at the keynote? They'll now be blocking a bunch of the tracking techniques that these apps use. Yes, you're right about the past, but they're making changes to be better in the future.

Sure. But would they have done this without the recent publicity about third-party app tracking? I suppose that they must have been working on this for some time. And maybe they deserve some slack.

But there should at least be an apology for not acknowledging tracking by third-party apps. For years. While they were touting their privacy stance.

And it's not just about behavioral ads. Some repressive governments have used iOS apps against dissidents.

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#112

Post by TheRealDunkirk »

tanilama wrote: post #97

Paraphrase it: you are paying Apple a premium to not sell your data.

And I, for one, am OK with that. I'm glad there's a vendor who is baking a device's lifetime of backchannel personal data "monetization" into the upfront price, and I keep my privacy.

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#113

Post by threeseed »

dmitriid wrote: post #63
ubersync wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is totally incorrect. If you have an app on Apple store and sell subscripttions through your website, or other means, Apple forces you to sell the same subscriptions through their store.

It doesn’t force you, but if you don’t, you can’t even tell people how to subscribe. See Spotify, Kindle.

You can tell people how to subscribe outside the app.

But you just can't use Apple's own platform against them.

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#114

Post by dijit »

josteink wrote: post #96
dijit wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way you describe it; I would agree. You can "do anything" on Android, but this leads to poor implementations for common things. What I'm referencing is that the OS and Apples own applications are built to support what I would be consider very sane defaults (as in, it supports me doing my own thing, without the need for plugins/modules). My experience is that on Android I had to have many third-party integrators t…

> My experience is that on Android I had to have many third-party integrators to get things up and working That you have to buy/install CalDAV AND CardDAV connectors is indeed a weird shortcoming of Android. On the flip-side you had the option to do so. Also, in the age of everything-SaaS, a one time payment of $10 for basic infrastructure isn’t all that bad. > IMAP/SMTP Were less of a problem but it always /felt/ ve…

> That said iOS feels a lot more coherent if you stick to Apple apps all the way. But not being able to set another default browser or email client is just weird.

in this, we agree.

> What Email app did you use? Gmail (which obviously treats Gmail better) or something else?

Samsung mail, I couldn't find any decent alternatives, maybe this is my shortcoming for not knowing what is available?

>Also, in the age of everything-SaaS, a one time payment of $10 for basic infrastructure isn’t all that bad.

Except I'm paying to use a connector to use /my/ infrastructure. But, I don't mind paying for software, so long as it's good and well integrated. DavDroid was half decent, worth the money if you consider the effort involved, but not "good".

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#115

Post by jannes »

WA wrote: post #109
Ntrails wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As long as users will balk at paying even 4.99 for an app Out of interest, what is the refund policy in the app store? I know, for example, I'm way more chilled about paying for "unknown" steam games when I can refund them after an hour of play if I don't like them.

You can refund purchases for up to 14 days. I consider this a somewhat well-kept secret, because nobody seems to make use of this.

How do you make use of this? It does not seem to be an obvious part of the app store.

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#116

Post by Terretta »

banachtarski wrote: post #91
baxtr wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand the hate. Is there an example where Apple has not delivered on their promise?

It's all over the place I can't even begin, or do you not see the plethora of ads plaguing apps available in the app store and mobile web. If you think tracking isn't involved, you're sorely mistaken. Apple set the 30% tax for premium goods, and effectively killed the premium market as a result. Google followed suit largely because it aligns with Google's core business. Apple's angle is? Honestly, I have no clue. I'm…

> 30% ... Apple’s angle? ... inclined to think it’s incompetency

This 30% number is accurate but hardly all tax.

First, companies attempting to compete with Steam have found it costs 12% to 18% to just run a digital store, without all the app review, customer discovery & acquisition, hosting and delivery, and ecosystem integration Apple and Steam are doing, much less human support.

Second, just a credit card transaction can cost 2.5% - 5% depending on the customer behavior. On a percentage take versus value provided, that seems much worse than the store cost, and it’s a huge chunk of the store cost.

Third, Apple lowers the recurring publishing, hosting, transaction, and support fee in year 2+ to 15%, still including the credit card processing.

It’d be incredibly difficult to operate a trusted digital app sales ecosystem (with human app review and support, refunds, etc.) at scale with less overhead.

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#117

Post by gergles »

jannes wrote: post #115
WA wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can refund purchases for up to 14 days. I consider this a somewhat well-kept secret, because nobody seems to make use of this.

How do you make use of this? It does not seem to be an obvious part of the app store.

Click "report a problem" in the invoice link they email you after a purchase. It isn't very obvious.

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#118

Post by neuronic »

yholio wrote: post #25

It's a devil's bargain: now we have to choose between walled gardens that offer some privacy and extract their revenue from lock-in, and more open systems that live off spying our data. Truth be told, the software development cost of these systems (Android and iOS) is not that huge, a reasonably good open source alternative could probably be created for less than a billion dollars, knowing how financially efficient a…

Whoever would develop such an OS would sure need to get the app ecosystem going pretty fast.

Because that's what has killed Windows Mobile phones.

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#119

Post by ianai »

secfirstmd wrote: post #90
grumdan wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether it's because of their business model is an important question though, because it may tell us if we this has a good chance of being genuine and whether we can expect this to last. If it's in their financial interest to protect users' privacy, then I'm much more inclined to believe that they are actually trying to do that. If they right now appear to care about privacy, but it's for some other reason, I'd expec…

Am I the only person we thinks Apple might be setting itself up to take a shot at a private, secure, ad-free, paid for social media play? I mean there are a growing number of people leaving Facebook (ok mostly for Instagram and WhatsApp) who would be willing to pay a few dollars a month to have an advert free experience in a private social media network.

I don’t see it being foretold by their actions, but you have a point. I hope they keep out of social media though. It would bring them within distance of becoming yet another bad privacy actor. I also prefer the separation of my apple account and such things.

Re: Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

#120

Post by oarsinsync »

omnifischer wrote: post #101
banachtarski wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know when I'll believe it? When the un-screw up their app store which vastly incentivizes the development of free-to-use ad-driven apps that prey on user tracking data over premium alternatives. Ad-based revenue has a higher value proposition to developers because it dodges the inane anachronistic 30% tax. "Privacy" first is an utter illusion when the majority of apps approved in this closed ecosystem that ostens…

In addition, please note that Apple's motto is 'Privacy for the rich'. Please do a Privacy for all - iPhone. Sorry HN-users, there are another 5 billion people that cant afford your > $ 200 products. Mind you even in ebay/second hand in the poor markets iPhones are expensive. Edit: Why down votes? Please remember there are other too in the world that deserve technology + privacy.

Unfortunately, that's one of the things that tends to be true of all new product offerings.

Mostly-screen multi-touch smartphones? They were only for the rich when they first launched too. As demand grows, scale enables other businesses to build cheaper options.

Given how quickly competitors copy anything vaguely new or novel coming out of Apple, it seems reasonable that someone will come up with a similar competing service before long.

If they don't, maybe it's also worth focusing some attention on those who directly try to exploit the poor and/or less knowledgeable?

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