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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

#361

Post by a1369209993 »

mdorazio wrote: post #334
bravoetch wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using a VPN to watch TV in another country is a privacy reason.

The end result might be privacy, but the demand is for bypassing content blocking. Your average user of a VPN doesn't care if it prevents people from identifying them, all they care about is if it lets them watch The Office from wherever they are.

Well, you could argue about whether it counts as privacy per se, but: a, they don't care to ensure that no one can identify them; b, they very much do care that it prevents whatever server they're getting The Office from from identifying them.

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

#362

Post by geofft »

tfha wrote: post #314
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.

The biggest problem that I have is that it's privacy built on a closed source platform that works extremely hard to wall users in and create substantial vendor lock-in. As someone who has tried multiple times to dip their toes into the Apple world, I can tell you that it's highly hostile to users who try to pick and choose how much they want to be an Apple citizen. If you don't agree to sign up for Apple cloud on the…

This is quite at odds with my experience with my iPhone, so I'm confused.

I don't have an iCloud account. I'm not sure what "basic functions for a smartphone" I'm unable to use, but, I don't want my photos backed up to iCloud - I'll handle that on my own, for the photos I actually want somewhere other than on my local device. Everything otherwise seems to work.

I don't use iMessage. I've ticked the little box that says to use regular SMS and not iMessage. (This was back when there were stories of people getting stuck on iMessage and losing messages when they switched to another OS, and I wasn't sure I wanted to buy into the Apple platform permanently. I could probably switch back now, since I've been a regular iOS user for years and I hear that https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/ works.) Multi-party SMS works fine. Multi-party Signal, Hangouts, Slack, etc. chats also work great. Similarly, I don't use FaceTime, but I've got tons of messaging apps that support video calls on their own.

Generally things have been fine, so I'm curious what specifically hasn't worked for you.

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

#363

Post by kgwxd »

MBCook wrote: post #339
smt88 wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every company wants to retain users and their business. I think GP's point is that Apple is doing this using lock-in, rather than having the best possible products. If there were multiple app stores for iOS users, you could argue that Apple is behaving just like every other business. But they're not. They're stifling competition to lock their customers in.

Purely as a user, I don’t want to deal with 5 competing app stores. That sounds like a mess. I think there is a reason there is basically one App Store on each platform (outside desktops).

As a user, I don't want to deal with any app stores.

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

#364

Post by pwinnski »

damnyou wrote: post #321
yalogin wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 swit…

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

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

Each time you buy an Amazon Echo or Google Home or Chromecast or whatever else it becomes harder to switch away from Amazon/Google products.

At least iMessage is based primarily on phone number, so you can turn off iMessage and keep your contacts. Deleting your Facebook account or trying to change Gmail addresses means losing it all. Lock-in is only lock-in if you let it be. Personally, I worry more about Google than Apple, but your mileage may vary.

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

#365

Post by pwinnski »

IMTDb wrote: post #207
Talyen42 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true. Using apple's in-app billing system is optional. You can always keep your billing entirely out of your free app.

Not anymore, they updated their policy recently

You absolutely, 100% can handle billing completely outside of Apple's infrastructure and have your app be a "Reader app," to use Apple's term for such apps. Apple just posted a document[0] that lists Amazon Kindle, Netflix, Audible, and Spotify as examples of this.

You seem very confident about your understanding of things, but you seem to have misidentified the exact cause of your rejection.

[0] https://www.apple.com/ios/app-store/principles-practices/

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

#366

Post by GenghisSean »

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…

Or you could jump ship and try out Purism's new phone. https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/

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

#369

Post by dijit »

jvolkman wrote: post #212
dijit wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can access https://www.icloud.com/#iclouddrive from any device. Are you complaining that there is no app?

"Your browser is not currently supported." Up-to-date Chrome on Android.

Interesting, chrome on linux works. (via qt-webengine).

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

#370

Post by ballenf »

maxxxxx wrote: post #333
tfha wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest problem that I have is that it's privacy built on a closed source platform that works extremely hard to wall users in and create substantial vendor lock-in. As someone who has tried multiple times to dip their toes into the Apple world, I can tell you that it's highly hostile to users who try to pick and choose how much they want to be an Apple citizen. If you don't agree to sign up for Apple cloud on the…

I agree. They are sitting on more and more data they will be very tempted to use if they can’t hit their growth rates in the future. It would be better if no single entity had that much data.

Isn't Apple one of the few companies going out of their way to keep as much data as possible on-device instead of in the cloud? I agree that shareholders value margins over principles and that could be an issue for companies who do hold a lot of user data.
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