At least google told me on my phone in a pop-up that it would be doing something like this.
Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15
661–670 of 1001 posts
Re: Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15
#662Earlier quoted context omitted.
This mindset is how we got those awful cookie banners. Even more dialogs that most users will blindly tap "Allow" to will not fix the problem. Society has collectively decided (spiritually) that it is ok signing over data access rights to third parties. Adding friction to this punishes 98% of people in service of the 2% who aren't going to use these services anyway. Sure, a more educated populous might tip the scales…
I use Firefox focus on android and Firefox with ubo and others.. On desktop and Firefox app, I only browse through private browsing so cookies are mostly irrelevant as session ends as soon as all windows close.
But you're an edge case, and an extreme one at that.
Re: Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15
#663Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except that, still, to this day, most sexual consent is assumed, not explicit, even in the highest brow circles where most people are pro-explicit-sexual-consent. The same way, most tech privacy consent is assumed, not explicit. Users dismiss popups because they want to use the app and don't care what you do with the data. Maybe later they will care, but not in the moment...
> Except that, still, to this day, most sexual consent is assumed, not explicit Did you miss my sarcastic little requote blurb that stated exactly that? Or do you normally rephrase the exact same point with added ad hominem attacks, and somehow frame it as a counterpoint? > The same way, most tech privacy consent is assumed, not explicit. And yet, you still have a right to it. In both instances.
What is the ad hominem attack here?
Anyways, the "right" you have to explicit sexual consent is not really there. In that, you cannot go to court and say "I said no" and get any meaningful damages or a conviction without other evidence. Similarly, courts treat these popups as essentially unreadable and you cannot go to court and say "They clicked "Allow"" and get away with anything unreasonable.
Re: Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15
#664Re: Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15
#665Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't do that. My Photos library contains camera snapshots and screenshots, nothing else.
The point still stands. That’s how geo-tagged images get in your photos, and the search function still works. For what it’s worth, I’m surprised that you never save photos to your phone that you didn’t take yourself. Do people not send you interesting pictures? Pictures of yourself?
I don't actually use my phone for much. Taking photos, making phone calls. I'm not the kind of person who lives on their phone. I live on my laptop (which has Location Services disabled entirely).
I don't even use Photos app on Mac anymore. They've ruined it compared to the old iPhoto. I just keep my photos in folders in Finder.
Re: Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15
#666Users of my (free, open-source) app seem surprised to learn that we've got zero insight into usage patterns. There are situations where a small amount of anonymous telemetry would be extremely helpful but I'm not going to touch it with a barge-pole.
Opt-in makes the data useless - not just in terms of the huge drop in quantity but because of the fact it introduces a huge bias in the data selected - the people that would opt-in are probably not a good sample of "typical users".
Opt-out - no matter what safeguards or assurances I could provide is unacceptable to a subset of users and they will forcefully communicate this to you.
Don't get me wrong - I understand both the ease at which bad actors abuse telemetry and the ease in which "anonymous data" can prove to be nothing of the kind in a multitude of surprising ways.
But it's hard not to feel a little sad in a "this is why we can't have nice things" kind of way.
Re: Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15
#667Earlier quoted context omitted.
This mindset is how we got those awful cookie banners. Even more dialogs that most users will blindly tap "Allow" to will not fix the problem. Society has collectively decided (spiritually) that it is ok signing over data access rights to third parties. Adding friction to this punishes 98% of people in service of the 2% who aren't going to use these services anyway. Sure, a more educated populous might tip the scales…
Nope, collective indifference to subpar user experiences has gotten us those lousy cookie banners. Web sites could legally use cookies for non-tracking purposes without cookie banners but considering people have not stopped visiting sites despite the fugly click-through cookie banners makes them a failure. All it takes is for 50% of the internet users to stop visiting web sites with them, and web site authors will st…
I read an article that said something along the lines of people aren't prepared to pay for apps, so instead we get app store silo advert supported crap-ware. And if it's not the apps its click bait making fractional gains by being supported by ad networks. That some of, but not all of us recoil from.
Re: Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15
#668Users of my (free, open-source) app seem surprised to learn that we've got zero insight into usage patterns. There are situations where a small amount of anonymous telemetry would be extremely helpful but I'm not going to touch it with a barge-pole. Opt-in makes the data useless - not just in terms of the huge drop in quantity but because of the fact it introduces a huge bias in the data selected - the people that wo…
Would there be a way to do the stats gathering on device, then once every few months send a popup with statistics?
Not sure what bias it adds
Like
"hey, we make this app, and we care about privacy, here is the information we have gathered over your usage for the past month, can we send this to ourselves, so that we can use it to improve the app?"
And then show human readable form of what data was collected.
Re: Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15
#669Users of my (free, open-source) app seem surprised to learn that we've got zero insight into usage patterns. There are situations where a small amount of anonymous telemetry would be extremely helpful but I'm not going to touch it with a barge-pole. Opt-in makes the data useless - not just in terms of the huge drop in quantity but because of the fact it introduces a huge bias in the data selected - the people that wo…
Would there be a way to do the stats gathering on device, then once every few months send a popup with statistics? Not sure what bias it adds Like "hey, we make this app, and we care about privacy, here is the information we have gathered over your usage for the past month, can we send this to ourselves, so that we can use it to improve the app?" And then show human readable form of what data was collected.
You'd still have extremely biased data - people who blindly click OK on every pop up are not representative of your typical user; people who get nightmares after hearing the word "telemetry" and will gather the pitchforks if they hear any hint of will always refuse, but depending on your app, might be your typical user (e.g. for self-hosted picture sync and catalogue, who is the target audience - people who don't trust Apple/Google/Amazon/Dropbox to store their images privately)
Re: Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15
#670Earlier quoted context omitted.
Graphene mitigates the locked bootloader issue by only supporting one line of phones (Pixel), which have unlocked bootloaders. A large amount of work has been put into making Graphene specifically work with banking apps. Mine does, for instance.
Are Calyx or Lineage worth a look? It’s a tough choice between the 3.
Don't forget Anom. (A cautionary tale.) https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/146/