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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

#251

Post by neya »

nafizh wrote: post #22

Lots of negativity/skepticism here which is reasonable I would say given tech companies' abuse of our trust. I for one, am happy that Apple can afford to offer privacy as one of its strong suites. Whether they can do it because of their business model or not is moot IMO. Everyone is here to make money, I would rather have someone who doesn't have to sell every aspect of my life to do it.

> Lots of negativity/skepticism here which is reasonable I would say given tech companies' abuse of our trust.

And rightfully so. They've been accused of selling customer data in this lawsuit:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-24/apple-sue...

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

#252

Post by Wowfunhappy »

propertymagnate wrote: post #177
scarface74 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they profitable? Because they exist don’t mean they are “thriving”.

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…

You need to wait a bit for the reply button to appear. The site has a delay to prevent discussions from getting too heated. (The delay increases the deeper a comment thread gets.)

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

#253

Post by arien »

ubersync wrote: post #42
threeseed wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can release a free app and sell subscriptions through real world means e.g. advertising, PR. You control the customers and you pay Apple nothing. So this idea that Apple is forcing developers to do anything is nonsense.

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.

Hm... The Amazon Prime app doesn't allow purchases in the app, you've got to purchase through Amazon and then you can watch them just fine.

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

#254

Post by elliekelly »

mirimir wrote: post #111
donkeyd wrote: post #102

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…

> And maybe they deserve some slack.

They deserve a lot of slack. Apple's privacy approach may not be perfect but they are head and shoulders above just about every other major tech company.

I've written many privacy policies - for privacy-focused companies and for companies seeking to get away with the absolute bare-minimum. One of the best "quick and dirty" ways to assess a company's privacy policy without actually reading the whole thing is to count how many footnotes the document has. All of the important information that a company has to disclose but would rather not is hidden in the footnotes.

Apple's privacy policy[1] has zero footnotes. Google's privacy policy[2] has 51.

[1] https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/en-ww/

[2] https://policies.google.com/privacy#intro

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

#255

Post by MichaelApproved »

EduardoBautista wrote: post #237
MichaelApproved wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I doubt that's it. First, it's the same size and shape and position as the selectors below. Second, the usual "clear text" X only shows up when the input box is in focus. That doesn't look to be the case in the picture.

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

#256

Post by bwbw223 »

omnifischer wrote: post #172
gbear605 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get a decent used iPhone for under $200. I don’t fault Apple for not making an iPhone cheaper than that.

Try to use it as daily driver. Very difficult.

An iPhone 7 is still perfectly usable, in my experience. They also should still be supported for a while. Used, they can easily be found around the $200 price point.

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

#258

Post by irq-1 »

adarsh_thampy wrote: post #20

Apple's strategy is simple. They want to retain control over their customers; at the same time, force the developers into relying entirely on Apple as a middle man so that they can't cut Apple out of any transactions. This way, Apple gets their cut and user's get some level of privacy. That they can get away with this arm-twisting as "privacy" is to give credit to their brand positioning.

> They want to retain control over their customers;

Comcast also wants to retain control over their customers -- they want to sell customers internet access, while also selling ISPs and websites access to the customers. This strategy doesn't make the customer better off. If Apple treats their captive customers better than Comcast it's not due to any strategy of being a "middle man".

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

#259

Post by Snd_ »

asutekku wrote: post #246
galangalalgol wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except now you don't have control over your own device. I don't think they are orthogonal goals. Give me root on my iPhone and I'll switch for the privacy. Leaving gapps off an Android install is becoming crippling.

Why do people actually want to root their phones? What kind of advantage does it give to the general user, who flaunts the fact you can do that on android? What can you do now, increasing the usability of a phone, that you couldn’t without a root? Honest question, because I have absolutely no idea.

Well, for starters: xposed gave me a LOT of options to customize every aspect of my phone. Statusbar tweaks, screen brightness tweaks, deeper tasker integration, to name a few... for a tech savvy person with too much time on their hands it is heaven to be able to customize your phone so much more than what is initially "allowed".

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

#260

Post by zepto »

1-6 wrote: post #216
adarsh_thampy wrote: post #20

Apple's strategy is simple. They want to retain control over their customers; at the same time, force the developers into relying entirely on Apple as a middle man so that they can't cut Apple out of any transactions. This way, Apple gets their cut and user's get some level of privacy. That they can get away with this arm-twisting as "privacy" is to give credit to their brand positioning.

Apple's strategy is simple because they had no strategy. They're pretty far behind with software and had no real cloud offering besides iCloud. They're doubling down on what they can do which is to convince people to avoid moving their life online. In reality, I don't think people will go back to Cloud 1.0 but at least Apple will keep companies in check while they rot away to oblivion.

Exactly what software do you think they are behind on?
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