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Thieves took their iPhones. Apple won't give their digital lives back

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Thieves took their iPhones. Apple won't give their digital lives back

#111

Post by eesmith »

voidspark wrote: post #110
eesmith wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$4 billion in an Oct 20, 2022 article, with evidence that it's increased noticeably since then (because the 10-Q says so). I don't think dividing the pre-Oct 2022 ad income by the 2024 revenue is all that meaningful.

So what? Then it's at 2% now? It's an insignificant part of their business even if it doubled or tripled in size. Apple is obviously not "an advertising company" as opposed to Google which has been an advertising company since the beginning. Apple was founded as a computer company ~50 years ago which sold the Apple I. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Nothing to do with ads. Now 50 years later they are starting to make s…

I'm saying that and be the product."

You won't call them an ad company until it's 50% of revenue. I understand that.

But if Alphabet were to buy UnitedHealth Group, so that Alphabet's ad revenue were under 50%, Alphabet would still be an ad company.

The newspaper which I subscribe to is also an ad company, because they sell ad space.

The radio station I listen to most is not also an ad company, because it's a volunteer-run, listener-funded station.

My company is not an ad company because it only gets revenue from product sales and consulting services.

Re: Thieves took their iPhones. Apple won't give their digital lives back

#112

Post by seec »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #56
crazygringo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't make sense. This isn't a technical hurdle, is it? Apple already can unlock your account "for the gestapo" if they choose to. If the users have enabled Advanced Data Protection and don't have another Apple device, then I can understand why it would be lost for good. But that doesn't seem to be the case in these lawsuits. They make it clear that Apple has access to the data, and could transfer/restore it i…

> Apple already can unlock your account "for the gestapo" if they choose to But they don't.

Charitable interpretation is that you are naive, but more realistically it's an incredibly stupid belief.

Apple has played the marketing game around some high-profile cases because they got some incredibly juicy free promotion for it but they collaborate with many governments on a daily basis.

I don't have the link but there is a page out there showing all the requests for data access that are fulfilled by big tech companies. Apple is very much collaborating in the EU, without making a single noise about it.

It's all about marketing and keeping their power. If Apple had any principle they wouldn't even being able to operate in China...

Re: Thieves took their iPhones. Apple won't give their digital lives back

#113

Post by seec »

nashashmi wrote: post #2

My cousin’s phone was stolen in San Francisco. My mom’s phone was hooked up to the same account. Somehow the thief was able to change the account password and email account to something else. Now my mom cannot reset her phone because she doesn’t have access to the thieves account.

In the end, locking a hardware device to an online account is just stupid. They marketed it as a tool to prevent theft (and recover if lost) but in reality, it has not prevented theft at all (if anything it has increased as the phones value has ballooned).

Apple is the only one who truly profits the most from this "innovation".

I have had an iPad stolen, and while I could track, it definitely didn't make any difference.

Re: Thieves took their iPhones. Apple won't give their digital lives back

#114

Post by seec »

alabastervlog wrote: post #10

It took me a minute to figure out how this works, but it must have something to do with using a "lost password" email reset on the iCloud account, and having the relevant email account logged in (or saved to the password manager) on the phone itself, so that all you need is the passcode to get into the iCloud account. Something like that?

Yes it's that insane. And Apple is marketing the shit out of their "security".

It's all about posturing and pretending, image is the only thing that matters to Apple.

Re: Thieves took their iPhones. Apple won't give their digital lives back

#116

Post by voidspark »

eesmith wrote: post #111
voidspark wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what? Then it's at 2% now? It's an insignificant part of their business even if it doubled or tripled in size. Apple is obviously not "an advertising company" as opposed to Google which has been an advertising company since the beginning. Apple was founded as a computer company ~50 years ago which sold the Apple I. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Nothing to do with ads. Now 50 years later they are starting to make s…

I'm saying that and be the product." You won't call them an ad company until it's 50% of revenue. I understand that. But if Alphabet were to buy UnitedHealth Group, so that Alphabet's ad revenue were under 50%, Alphabet would still be an ad company. The newspaper which I subscribe to is also an ad company, because they sell ad space. The radio station I listen to most is not also an ad company, because it's a volunte…

You are being weirdly pedantic and arguing to the point of absurdity. At some point you just have to accept basic logic and common sense.

Apple has never been an "ad company". They sell computers, software, subscriptions, and they take a cut of the App Store revenue. Ads are a tiny part of their revenue now. Doesn't make them an "ad company" like Google, where ads are their primary revenue source.

I bought a lot of Apple products. They made their money from the high margin in the purchase price, not ad views which I have never seen anywhere on my Macs and maybe seen a couple of the ads on the app store on my phone. They earned about 1 cent on those two ad views, and thousands of dollars from the hardware sales and iCloud subscription.

Re: Thieves took their iPhones. Apple won't give their digital lives back

#117

Post by Forgeties79 »

VincentEvans wrote: post #68
Forgeties79 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>to protect a few dissidents Your opinion seems to be to trivialize how important this can be, which fine you do you, but I think saying it only protects "a few dissidents" is a bit ridiculous. Every protest I've filmed at I hit the lock button 5 times so it forces a passcode. I feel secure knowing the police can't just take it and start scrolling - they need a warrant or they're bust. You don't have to be a dissiden…

>hit lock button 5 times so it forces a passcode I didn’t know what that meant - so I googled it. And it says something entirely different…. Quote: Pressing the lock button (or side button) five times quickly on an iPhone or many Android devices will activate Emergency SOS. This will prompt a countdown and eventually, if not cancelled, initiate a call to emergency services, potentially alerting emergency contacts and…

Google is notoriously unreliable these days. I can tell you concretely that by default my iPhone does that. 5 clicks, passcode forced.

Note that there are 5 side buttons now (if you include the 2 volume button) on current iPhones. So “side button” doesn’t mean much. The top right side button is the default lock button on all iPhones and AFAIK always has been. That’s what you use to trigger it.

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