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iPhone = Privacy?

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Re: iPhone = Privacy?

#101

Post by rickdeckard »

hardnose wrote: post #98
rickdeckard wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple seems to prioritize privacy more than the competition, while for Google collecting, and combing through to monetize, your personal data is a big part of their business model. It's puzzling to me how this keeps getting repeated without any strong foundation. This story that others sell your data while Apple holds it secure is a narrative established by Apple that keeps coming up like a mantra. The implication…

>The implication is that Google is gathering personal data to then then sell it to third parties. No, the implication is that Google collects as much of your personal data as possible, stores it forever, and monetizes it. You can tell because that's what I actually said. What you're responding to is a red herring - you brought up third parties, not me. If I use the Apple Mail app with default settings from my iCloud…

> If I use the Apple Mail app with default settings from my iCloud account to e-mail ten lawn care services, I won't start seeing web ads for lawn care. If I use Gmail with default settings, I will.

That's because Apple doesn't operate ad-services on scale at this point, particularly not on the web. The fact that they are scanning each and every email was made clear when they announced their CSAM scanner you also mentioned. I strongly doubt that Apple operates a crime-fighting division and that is the only purpose of scanning content. It's much more likely that they already analyze messages and content with other ML-models to refine the persona they created of a user.

So yes,they don't show you personalized ads on webpages, but without them operating in ads that's not an indicator of privacy. After failing to compete on Ads since 2010, their effort just started to ramp up in the last year.

> No, the main thing that Apple does differently is make their money by selling hardware, software, and services directly to end users.

Agreed, but Hardware is a segment that is close to saturation, and the majority of SW R&D resources are spent on the OS which is provided free of charge when purchasing the Hardware. Their growth-strategy is quite obviously based on services, with the strongest-growing of them being platforms of consumption (Appstore, Music, TV,...) and platforms of data-aggregation (Cloud, Pay, Card, CarPlay, Homekit,...).

Those consumption platforms serve content of third parties competing with each other for the user, and as the platform provider Apple offers those sellers paid services to reach the user.

I am fine to disagree, but in the growing world of services which are about to reach 25% of Apple's revenue soon, the Apple user who created the hardware revenue is the product being sold by Apple. To App-Developers, Music publishers, Movie Studios, Mobile carriers,...

Re: iPhone = Privacy?

#102

Post by CharlesW »

fsflover wrote: post #36
CharlesW wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But why do they have to know your phone number and location? How can I avoid that? By not using a phone, because your carrier knows this information too and also sells this data (Apple does not).

The topic is about Apple knowing your data, please do not shift goals.

Hey fsflover, I'm not sure how answering your question "How can I avoid that?" is moving goalposts. My answer stands — don't use a phone if you don't want your location captured and shared.

It's trivial to turn off Location Services on an iPhone, in which case your location data isn't sent to Apple. You can also control this on an application-by-application basis if you wish. However, this doesn't stop your carrier from capturing and sharing your location data.

Hopefully this clears it up for you.

Re: iPhone = Privacy?

#103

Post by philjohn »

danaris wrote: post #93
philjohn wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Built in apps - iMessage. And yes, that does seem to be in the app store now, however, there's a lot there that seems to be missing - access to photos for example isn't listed in the health card, neither is microphone access - both of which are core features of the app.

Are they? It looks like the way it's implemented, access to photos comes through a Photos extension to iMessage (I think I recall these being called "iMessage apps"?), rather than it being inherent to the app. And options for the microphone similarly seem to belong either to the extensions, or to the system—which handles microphone input as a substitute for typing. It's possible you're right, and I'm missing somethin…

Is that available to other apps? If not - then this just looks like they're skirting around things they foist on third party developers to make themselves look squeaky clean.

Re: iPhone = Privacy?

#104

Post by danaris »

philjohn wrote: post #103
danaris wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they? It looks like the way it's implemented, access to photos comes through a Photos extension to iMessage (I think I recall these being called "iMessage apps"?), rather than it being inherent to the app. And options for the microphone similarly seem to belong either to the extensions, or to the system—which handles microphone input as a substitute for typing. It's possible you're right, and I'm missing somethin…

Is that available to other apps? If not - then this just looks like they're skirting around things they foist on third party developers to make themselves look squeaky clean.

I don't know the details, but I know that third-party apps can add iMessage apps. And the microphone input to replace/supplement the keyboard is a systemwide thing, working on any(?) text input.

Re: iPhone = Privacy?

#105

Post by philjohn »

danaris wrote: post #104
philjohn wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that available to other apps? If not - then this just looks like they're skirting around things they foist on third party developers to make themselves look squeaky clean.

I don't know the details, but I know that third-party apps can add iMessage apps. And the microphone input to replace/supplement the keyboard is a systemwide thing, working on any(?) text input.

The microphone access is also for voice messages, which are supported by other messaging apps, but again, has to be listed in the health card - and looks nefarious.

Re: iPhone = Privacy?

#106

Post by fsflover »

CharlesW wrote: post #102
fsflover wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The topic is about Apple knowing your data, please do not shift goals.

Hey fsflover , I'm not sure how answering your question "How can I avoid that?" is moving goalposts. My answer stands — don't use a phone if you don't want your location captured and shared. It's trivial to turn off Location Services on an iPhone, in which case your location data isn't sent to Apple. You can also control this on an application-by-application basis if you wish. However, this doesn't stop your carrier…

>> But why do they have to know your phone number and location? How can I avoid that?

> By not using a phone, because your carrier knows this information too and also sells this data (Apple does not).

What my carrier is doing has nothing to do with the problem at hand, which is Apple collecting unnecessary data on me. Not using a phone is not a (reasonable) solution to Apple invading my privacy. I can use another phone instead, which doesn't do that.

> It's trivial to turn off Location Services on an iPhone

Let me remind you that this thread started with "iOS sends a lot of data about your phone to Apple, such as your phone number, your unique device identifier...". How can I prevent Apple from collecting my phone number? You didn't reply to that, you shifted goals to location tracking of my carrier.

Re: iPhone = Privacy?

#107

Post by shockeychap »

philjohn wrote: post #88
bb123 wrote: post #37

For me it's a question of incentives. Apple makes the vast majority of its income selling hardware to people. That makes me the customer. Google makes the vast majority of its income selling user data to advertisers. That makes me the product and advertisers the customer. Which company has more of an incentive to compromise my privacy by accessing my data in a dishonest way?

Apple want to vastly increase the amount of money they make from ads - that blurs the line somewhat, no?

What is the source for this claim? I haven't heard anything to this effect and nothing I've seem from Apple signals anything along these lines.

Re: iPhone = Privacy?

#108

Post by philjohn »

shockeychap wrote: post #107
philjohn wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple want to vastly increase the amount of money they make from ads - that blurs the line somewhat, no?

What is the source for this claim? I haven't heard anything to this effect and nothing I've seem from Apple signals anything along these lines.

https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/15/report-apple-tested-ads-in...

There are MANY stories about their push into ads to augment their other newer services money streams. That's just one.

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