Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

appleinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 461 posts

Re: iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

#221

Post by tialaramex »

merpnderp wrote: post #44
jccooper wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is from Apple Insider, so I guess it's no surprise they don't mention it, but Android 10 has the same functionality, including reminders and per-app 3-way location tracking settings (always on, on with app open, off).

Granted it's been quite some time, but one of the reasons I switched to iOS from Android was Facebook kept "accidentally" exploiting bugs in Android and Google never did anything about it. At the time Facebook wasn't even one of the apps you could delete from your phone. Hopefully Android is better now.

> one of the reasons I switched to iOS from Android was Facebook kept "accidentally" exploiting bugs in Android and Google never did anything about it. At the time Facebook wasn't even one of the apps you could delete from your phone. Hopefully Android is better now

Um? What?

None of my Android phones, going back a great many years, had Facebook. So sure, I couldn't delete it - because it wasn't there.

Re: iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

#222

Post by Nextgrid »

_bxg1 wrote: post #61
novok wrote: post #8

The alert is annoying although for apps you want to have always on location tracking although, like some life logging apps. (Arc, etc) It's like OS doesn't want to accept there are apps you want always on location tracking on and for it to stop annoying you about it.

They just need a "don't ask me again about this app" option. I'm surprised they don't have that already.

This can be exploited by Shitbook and the likes. Messenger for example displays a fake notifications prompt with an arrow pointing to the "Allow" button and the only way to proceed is to tap the allow button, at which point they'll call the real OS-provided notifications prompt (which looks just like the fake one) and hope you also click allow on that one (of course the real one can be denied but unless you're tech-savvy you wouldn't even notice/understand what just happened or how a company could be so nasty to be pulling tricks like this).

Re: iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

#223

Post by voltaireodactyl »

w-ll wrote: post #67
freehunter wrote: post #24

On the other hand Apple has forced apps to use location data for purposes it should not be used for. Termius, for example, is my favorite iOS SSH app. But according to them, they can’t keep an SSH session running in the background unless they’re constantly tracking your location data. And somehow Apple approved this usage of location data. I don’t want to give Termius my location. I don’t want them tracking me everyw…

Anyone know of a good open source alternative to the Termius input on iOS? I loved Termius but didnt realize that keys were uploaded to their servers until I opened it on my laptop and saw it download all my keys. Spent the day rotating all my keys.

I’m a huge fan of Blink Shell. App Store version is pricey but worth every cent. Or you can build from source.

Re: iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

#224

Post by banachtarski »

VintageCool wrote: post #212
KMnO4 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t believe the IDFA is unique per developer (assuming I’m understanding you correctly). I use analytics in my company’s app and I get my team to send me their IDFA by downloading a free app from the App Store. The IDFA in my analytics is the same IDFA in the 3rd party app.

There is an IDFA (ID for Advertisers) and an IDFV (ID for Vendors). The IDFV is unique per developer; the IDFA is unique per device. The device user can reset their IDFA at any time, and if the user disables ad tracking then the device returns 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000.

Yes but in practice, users never do, and when they do a reset, fingerprinting employed by most (all?) ad exchanges can make the association without issue.

Re: iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

#225

Post by htfu »

killface wrote: post #145
Waterluvian wrote: post #77

I'm probably saying the complete obvious, but Apple can completely crush Google if they execute this angle properly. Google has no choice but to support ads. They're an ad company. Apple has to keep hammering how bad the ad and privacy experiences are with Android. Make iOS an absolute delight to use in contrast. I'd pay a premium for that. Android has done a great job making me want an iOS device again, these last t…

Until I can get a browser adblocker on a non-rooted, non-unlocked iphone, it's not a switch worth making. firefox mobile + ublock origin is the only way I find the mobile web tolerable.

Content blocker extensions have been a thing on iOS for half a decade. Prior to that I'd just use a browser like iCab with built-in support for exactly the same type of filtering lists.

So it's always been both possible and trivial.

Re: iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

#226

Post by NicoJuicy »

Waterluvian wrote: post #77

I'm probably saying the complete obvious, but Apple can completely crush Google if they execute this angle properly. Google has no choice but to support ads. They're an ad company. Apple has to keep hammering how bad the ad and privacy experiences are with Android. Make iOS an absolute delight to use in contrast. I'd pay a premium for that. Android has done a great job making me want an iOS device again, these last t…

I think you are generalizing your own perspective.

Facts: 87% Android and 13% iOS

Re: iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

#227

Post by throwaway55554 »

scarejunba wrote: post #204
throwaway55554 wrote: post #163

Replace each occurrence of “location data” with, say, “cocain”. > Despite the reduced amount of cocain available, the amount that is still available to use is more valuable, while the market for cocain continues to thrive. I mean it’s disturbing.

Hey, good one, mate. Now let's try the First Amendment. I'm going to try replacing "speech" with "cocaine". > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of cocaine, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Good god. This is immeasurably distu…

Are you somehow trying to equate ad companies hoovering up our location data with the first amendment?

I was simply trying to convey how addicted they are to that data.

Re: iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

#228

Post by htfu »

lilyball wrote: post #122
saagarjha wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Under normal usage, iOS will kill apps a lot earlier than 10 minutes. In the general case it's really not possible to do this, and I would argue that shipping with a flaky feature is probably worse than not shipping with it at all.

I haven't checked in a while but in the past it was fairly reliably 10 minutes. In any case, there's a property `UIApplication.backgroundTimeRemaining` that tells you how long you have, so you can use that to calculate the appropriate notification time.

I thought it was 3 minutes? Or is it 3 guaranteed, 10 maximum?

And yes, the app in question of course does exactly that notification dance (I've used it since long before it got its current name). GP is talking about a new feature to keep sessions open in bg for a loong time. I've disabled it, not for fear of tracking but because it seems like a silly way to forget connections open and drain the battery for no reason.

App has indeed also always supported mosh... me I just attach to tmux. But I agree with whoever wrote it's better to have such a bg hack feature than not, for those who find it useful.

Re: iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

#229

Post by htfu »

w-ll wrote: post #106
saagarjha wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently it's E2E encrypted: https://docs.termius.com/termius-handbook/synchronization ?

Yea, it's just one of those things that I rather inspect, I didn't need syncing, I just needed a decent terminal app on iOS.

Wait, if you don't want sync why would you pay them that much money every month specifically for that feature?

Just stop paying...

Re: iOS 13 app tracking alert has dramatically cut location data flow to ad industry

#230

Post by ryandrake »

mikestew wrote: post #57
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure that the reason for this is dependencies. People don't just write apps anymore. They write CocoaPods frameworks. I was just looking at something that someone wrote that does basically the same thing as one of my open-source utilities. The one I wrote is a 300-line file. It's so small that it isn't even worth writing a pod for it. The more popular one has over a dozen source files, and also brings in t…

Good thought that I hadn’t considered, but should have. Because when Apple did their big crackdown on private APIs, one of my apps got flagged. Yup, framework I was using.

Good lesson to learn: know your dependencies. Before you pull in some third party library that you think is going to be an awesome time saver, dig in to it a little and figure out what it’s actually doing. Too many Kitchen Sink third party SDKs out there.
Post reply on HN