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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

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 transact…

Is it really that hard to deliver a 15Mb .ipa file to someone's iDevice, that Apple needs a 30% cut of every transaction to do so? It's not incredibly difficult to operate a trusted digital app sales ecosystem at all. It's just that there is no competition. If Apple wasn't a monopoly, I have no doubt someone like Amazon could deliver a service that undercut Apple by 90% and deliver the same exact "trusted" ecosystem.

Presumably they vet the different apps that come through, which is a difficult process to automate.

> It's not incredibly difficult to operate a trusted digital app sales ecosystem

How do you ensure the trust of the millions of apps that are constantly updating?

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

#232
post #229

As a non-iOS user, can someone explain what is happening in this image?: https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2019060317... Does the 'X' mean "selected" or "don't share"?

I'm am iOS user and I have no idea. Could it mean that it's mandatory to share? As in, it's selected and you can't unselect it?

These types of ambiguous toggles drive me nuts.

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

#233
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 every…

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

Oddly enough, one of the best options I found was Outlook. No really!

Simple to setup, easy to use. No need to fiddle with 2000 settings.

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

#234
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure that you’re interpreting the guidelines correctly? Lots of apps serve content related to subscriptions/digital purchases that are signed up for on the web (Netflix, Prime Video, etc.). Or are you trying to use the app as an acquisition channel?

It does not matter how we interpret the guidelines. The fact is that our app has been developed and tested, but was rejected by the app store reviewer citing this reason. We believe we fall under the exception of "business databases" which are exempted from this restriction, but the reviewer does not believe so. Guess who won. We are not trying to use the app as an acquisition channel, we don't believe our customers…

Can you release the app using enterprise distribution? While not ideal, this will at least allow your customers to use your app instead of getting nothing.

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

#235
post #229

As a non-iOS user, can someone explain what is happening in this image?: https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2019060317... Does the 'X' mean "selected" or "don't share"?

From my iOS experience I would expect the 'X' to delete all of the text in the field, but it's very confusing considering the toggles below it.

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

#236
post #229

As a non-iOS user, can someone explain what is happening in this image?: https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2019060317... Does the 'X' mean "selected" or "don't share"?

The fact that the circle is filled in means selected, and therefore share. I have no question about that. Name is selected here.

Whether the X has additional meaning, like "this is a thing you can't uncheck," I don't know.

I agree it should be redesigned.

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

#237
post #229

As a non-iOS user, can someone explain what is happening in this image?: https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2019060317... Does the 'X' mean "selected" or "don't share"?

I'm am iOS user and I have no idea. Could it mean that it's mandatory to share? As in, it's selected and you can't unselect it? These types of ambiguous toggles drive me nuts.

It's just to clear the text.

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

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are they profitable? Yes. I hate this attitude that its not enough to be profitable you have to make literally all the money or your business is a failure.

How did you get from Are they profitable To you have to make literally all the money or your business is a failure

My assumption is that the OP meant - every company is compared to Apple and Google and Facebook in terms of profit. That the business in question has to make extreme amounts of money to be considered a success, when in reality, if the business is sustainable and marginally profitable, it should be good enough for some cases.

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

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I assume you're enough of an engineer to know that building an SSO service like this takes a lot of time and energy. Third party apps are exploiting loopholes in the system and Apple is closing those loopholes one-by-one. I don't think this is unnatural. No one has foresight.

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

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thriving may be a bit strong - These are small potatoes compared to apple, sure, but these are tech obsessed people buying privacy orientated products. Librem 5 raised over $2.1 million https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/10/purism-librem-5-crowdfun... The VPN market is measured in the billions. https://www.statista.com/statistics/542817/worldwide-virtual... People spend money in this area. The privacy orientated crowd…

Needing to raise money kind of means they aren’t profitable. As far as the “VPN market” according to the link, they are mostly referring to businesses using VPNs in the enterprise not individual users.

Needing to raise money means they don't have the luxury of volume to produce any product and that it is a risky business. Having raised the money, though, is proof that they are indeed profitable.
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