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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

#321

Post by damnyou »

yalogin wrote: post #309
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.

Arm-twisting? You are conflating two issues here. Every company wants to retain users and their business. That is how every company operates. You should judge a company on what they offer as an incentive to keep them. Privacy as a service on their platform is a great thing. Compare that to what other companies offer as incentives.

One person's incentives are another's abusive vendor lock-in.

Each time you use the sign in with Apple button, it becomes ever so harder to switch away from Apple products.

Each time your friends add you to an iMessage group chat (instead of, say, a WhatsApp one) it becomes ever so harder to switch away from Apple products.

Each time you buy an Apple home speaker or Apple TV or whatever else it becomes harder to switch away from Apple products.

Google's stuff works better if you're all in but works fine piecemeal. Apple's stuff works fine all in but doesn't work at all piecemeal.

Tech folks should be up in arms about all this, but all you see on this wretched forum are rationalizations involving "business models" and "paying customers".

You want to see a software maker actually care about people's privacy? See Mozilla. Oh but you can't set Firefox as your default browser on your $1200 iPhone, sorry.

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

#322

Post by asutekku »

Snd_ wrote: post #259
asutekku wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

But is any of it essential? Those all seem like “nice to have” features instead of something major.

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

#323

Post by TomVDB »

fyoving wrote: post #217

It's worth remembering that Apple's privacy spin began with people noticing that Siri is a joke and other ML powered functions in Apple's software are not nearly as good as the competition's, so the company line basically became "our software sucks because we don't spy on you" and because tech journalists are predisposed to hate everyone else and really love framing their stories as rivals dueling they gladly adopted…

Why is that worth remembering when the end result, being privacy conscious is much more important than the reliability of Siri?

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

#324

Post by paxys »

redbergy wrote: post #211
pedrocx486 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Apple decided you're a bot and deletes your account, everything tied to it will also go.

This is true for Google, Facebook, and Twitter logins as well. It's a valid criticism for using any third party authentication provider (which I personally avoid and will be avoiding Apple's).

The login provider doesn't store the service account itself, so it's possible to "eject" your account and use some other sign in mechanism as long as you have control over the email address.

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

#325

Post by lern_too_spel »

robkop wrote: post #99
rapsey wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to sell something to privacy obsessed tech segment is a futile effort. They are never happy and don’t want to pay for anything anyway. But that is not their target market anyway. It is the general public and these comments are just noise.

Just anecdotal data but I for one am very happy to be switching to apple this year after almost a decade of android. I'm only too happy to pay a premium if that gives me some control over my own privacy.

> I'm only too happy to pay a premium if that gives me some control over my own privacy.

Apple gives you less control over your privacy. Do you want to open map links in an offline maps app? Impossible on the iPhone. Do you want to develop apps for your own device without handing over card details? Also impossible. Do you want to install apps at all without telling Apple you installed them? Too bad. Would you rather not tell Apple your location every time you use GPS? There's no way to opt out (this is opt-in on even Google-flavored Android devices). The list goes on.

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

#326

Post by TomVDB »

freehunter wrote: post #277
olivermarks wrote: post #88

My cynical side read this as cheap/free = google/android who own your data in return for their services vs expensive = Apple who are selling you some degree of perceived privacy baked into the operating systems of their primarily hardware offerings, which you pay more for.

Are Apple phones really more expensive though? Yes you can get cheaper Android devices, but the hardware that competes against iPhones still costs roughly the same as an iPhone. A Galaxy S10 costs $900, an iPhone XS costs $999. Cloud storage from Google costs $10/TB, iCloud storage costs $10/TB. Apple Music costs $10/mo for one person, $15 for families. Google Play Music costs $10/mo for one person, $15 for families.…

It’d be interesting to review today’s lowest iPhone (a $450 iPhone 7) against similarly priced Android phones.

My hunch is that you’ll still get much more !/$ for Android.

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

#327

Post by jimbokun »

paulcole wrote: post #198
goodmachine wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I checked, 25% of the internet used a VPN at least once a month. We can argue (somebody here will) as to the actual level of privacy conferred, but the segment is far from miniscule: https://thebestvpn.com/vpn-usage-statistics/

I’m not sure if asking TheBestVPN.com how many people use VPNs is going to get you a reliable answer.

All sources are linked at the bottom of the article.

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

#328

Post by briandear »

anoncake wrote: post #173
Terretta wrote: post #116

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…

But the cost of selling an app does not primarily depend on its cost. Size, frequency of updates etc. are a much bigger factor. Them taking a flat 30% is a clear sign Apple is a price-maker and the market doesn't work. And taking 30% for in-app purchases — while forbidding developers from even advertising ways of purchasing that bypass Apple — is just plain anticompetitive.

> while forbidding developers from even advertising ways of purchasing that bypass Apple — is just plain anticompetitive.

Let’s say you are at a grocery store, offering free samples of a food, the store allows you to set up in the store however, you don’t want to let the store sell your product because of the distribution fees. While giving out the samples in their store, you tell customers to buy your product from your website directly.

Is this actually a thought process that makes sense to anyone? You want to be visible to customers in Apple’s store but you want to send those customers outside of that store to buy your product? It would seem that was freeloading. Nothing prevents you from selling outside the App Store. Look at Salesforce, they have plenty of apps on the store and they pay Apple exactly nothing when someone becomes a customer of Salesforce. Last time I checked, Basecamp isn’t doing in-app purchases either.

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

#330

Post by fyoving »

TomVDB wrote: post #323
fyoving wrote: post #217

It's worth remembering that Apple's privacy spin began with people noticing that Siri is a joke and other ML powered functions in Apple's software are not nearly as good as the competition's, so the company line basically became "our software sucks because we don't spy on you" and because tech journalists are predisposed to hate everyone else and really love framing their stories as rivals dueling they gladly adopted…

Why is that worth remembering when the end result, being privacy conscious is much more important than the reliability of Siri?

Says who? Personally I prefer sophisticated software that works to this ill conceived fear mongering notion of privacy.
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