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Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

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Re: Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

#161

Post by slg »

dtx1 wrote: post #125
wmichelin wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree that telemetry is inherently bad. As product engineers, telemetry is often our only visibility into whether or not a system is functioning healthily. How else can you detect difficult-to-spot bugs in production?

So why does $product need to send telemetry data via google? Why can highly complex software that runs most of the worlds internet infrastructure (linux) work without telemetry? Why is telemetry not opt-in or relies on reports in situation where a bug causes an issue like firefox crash reports? I'd rather have privacy and buggy software then bug free software in exchange for no privacy at all

>So why does $product need to send telemetry data via google?

Because Google is responsible for most of the software on said product. Who would be receiving that telemetry data if it wasn't Google?

>Why can highly complex software that runs most of the worlds internet infrastructure (linux) work without telemetry?

First, this is a false premise because it ignores the potential that telemetry could help improve this software but most Linux distros have decided against it for other reasons. Secondly, it ignores that some distros do in fact include telemetry.

>Why is telemetry not opt-in

It probably should be when it comes to something that has potential to invade privacy, but we have to be realistic that practically no one will actively turn on telemetry if it is initially set to off. That drastically decreases the value of the collected data and it basically turns into nothing more than something customer service can tell someone to turn on while trying to troubleshoot a specific issue.

>or relies on reports in situation where a bug causes an issue like firefox crash reports?

Telemetry isn't just about bugs. It is also about guiding future development, knowing what features are used, knowing the workflow for users, etc. It can provide value beyond crash reports.

>I'd rather have privacy and buggy software then bug free software in exchange for no privacy at all

This is completely fair. I would generally agree with you and bet that most HN readers would too. However this is not a binary choice. Not all telemetry is inherently bad. Not all loss of privacy is inherently damaging. This is a complicated issue that will involve compromises and anyone sticking to a complete extreme of it being all bad or all good isn't going to offer anything productive to this conversation.

Re: Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

#162

Post by kuratkull »

teraflop wrote: post #25

"20X more telemetry", in terms of data usage, is a pretty meaningless statistic on its own (unless it's large enough to affect your mobile data cap or something). For instance, I would consider it a much bigger privacy violation for my phone to transmit my exact location every hour than my current CPU usage every 10 seconds.

I was also surprised by the emphasis on "20x more data" aspect. The table on kinds-of-data sent was showing Apple in a much more negative light.

Re: Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

#163

Post by harry8 »

rdw wrote: post #34
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #4

" Modern cars regularly send basic data about vehicle components, their safety status and service schedules to car manufacturers, and mobile phones work in very similar ways." -Google This is a beautiful quote because it is an example of one industry's bad behavior leading to another industry's bad behavior, upon which the first industry then users the second's similarity to justify themselves. Cars only started doin…

The 30% cut was considered very good at the time. It was way better than the 50-90% cut that traditional publishers would take. A sibling comment notes that Steam charged 30% at the time (though some had better deals) but it's worth noting that Steam was not an open platform that anyone could publish on. Much like for consoles, to put a game on Steam you had to have a preexisting relationship with Valve, or try to de…

This is such a nonsense justification.

You want to sell software you wrote to run on an iphone. You have zero choice. Apple tax your revenue.

You want to sell software you wrote to run on a pc. Steam is not your only choice. I am not defending steam or valve here, I've never sold anything using their stuff, nor am I suggesting anything other than that their market power over pc compared to apple's store over the iphone is not remotely comparable.

It actually works against you to suggest apple's iphone software store and steam are comparable at all because it's so incredibly bogus.

You want to make the case that steam suck too but with loads less market power. Go right ahead. We're listening. You don't need absolute and total market power to be abusive of it. Apple will immediately attempt redefine the market to include android or people spending money on coca cola instead of apple product to suggest that customers have real choice so there is no market power abuse here.

Re: Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

#164

Post by yellow_postit »

pessimizer wrote: post #124
jodrellblank wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You aren't required to use the Apple store to distribute your product. You can sell to Android users and desktop/laptop users. > " That's different. That's very different Is it? Why is it? You can't sell software to run on Kindle Paperwhite even though it's a full computer inside. What's the specific difference between that and iOS, other than "Apple's ecosystem and customers are desirable, so I want to use it" and "…

Your argument rests on the strange assumption that people who are against IOS restricting apps on the iPhone would for some reason support Amazon's restrictions on Kindle apps.

I can also easily load PDFs and other formats to a Kindle even if I didn’t go through the Amazon store.

Re: Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

#165

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

swebs wrote: post #147
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of the distributions on the PinePhone work well for all the things that people use that little computer in their pocket (which is no longer just a phone) for. For maps, for instance, all of the PinePhone's choices are little more than lightweight tech demos compared to, say, OSMAnd on Android. There is no official Signal client, no powerful browser beyond the clunky Desktop-Firefox-for-Postmarket-OS hack, etc. I…

Well it can make calls, transfer data over cellular networks, and access a web browser. For some people, that's all they need. For maps, I use Nextcloud Maps through Firefox. You can also use Google Maps that way or whatever OSM provider. It comes with a Telegram client and Matrix client. >no powerful browser beyond the clunky Desktop-Firefox-for-Postmarket-OS hack, etc. I don't really know what you mean by this. It'…

> For some people, that's all they need.

History tells us that when you have a device that does a few things that only for a tiny minority of people – within already a tiny minority of nerds – are "all that they need", and the dev community is so small, there is no future to the device. For someone who was around in the OpenMoko and Nokia N900 days, it is hard not to see the PinePhone as a stillborn device, which will never progress beyond "pre-alpha" state. A year after I got my PinePhone, it remains just as disappointing an experience as in the beginning.

> You can also use Google Maps that way or whatever OSM provider.

Browsing Google Maps is a joke on the PinePhone's weak processor. And again, OSM on the PinePhone is vastly inferior to the OSM choices on Android. Merely showing OSM tiles does not a good map app make.

> It's the exact same Firefox that's in desktop Linux

And that is the problem. Desktop Firefox was never designed to work at those screen dimensions. Many features of the Firefox UI do not actually work on the PinePhone. (They might possibly work if you dock the PinePhone with a monitor and mouse – I haven’t checked – but they don’t work on the PinePhone as a phone.)

Re: Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

#166

Post by wunderflix »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #4

" Modern cars regularly send basic data about vehicle components, their safety status and service schedules to car manufacturers, and mobile phones work in very similar ways." -Google This is a beautiful quote because it is an example of one industry's bad behavior leading to another industry's bad behavior, upon which the first industry then users the second's similarity to justify themselves. Cars only started doin…

I seriously don’t mean this in an offensive way. But isn’t bringing Apple now into this, “Whataboutism” in disguise?

Re: Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

#167

Post by ConceptJunkie »

danielrhodes wrote: post #46

Data collection is what companies do when they have no empathy. It's like an ivory tower effect where you don't interact with customers day to day or don't know what they want, so you try to use data to fill in the (large) gap. I could come up with countless examples of amazing products where nobody was using data to justify their decisions.

That's because the user of the service or device is not the customer.

Re: Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

#168

Post by harry8 »

rdw wrote: post #34
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #4

" Modern cars regularly send basic data about vehicle components, their safety status and service schedules to car manufacturers, and mobile phones work in very similar ways." -Google This is a beautiful quote because it is an example of one industry's bad behavior leading to another industry's bad behavior, upon which the first industry then users the second's similarity to justify themselves. Cars only started doin…

The 30% cut was considered very good at the time. It was way better than the 50-90% cut that traditional publishers would take. A sibling comment notes that Steam charged 30% at the time (though some had better deals) but it's worth noting that Steam was not an open platform that anyone could publish on. Much like for consoles, to put a game on Steam you had to have a preexisting relationship with Valve, or try to de…

"The 30% cut was considered very good at the time."

Let me fix this.

There was a full range of views. Some considered the 30% cut to be good at the time, some didn't consider it much at all, some considered it to be a criminal abuse of market power. I remember commenting myself that microsoft would be crucified for attempting to tax everyone who wanted to write software for windows 30% of revenue. I don't recall anyone suggesting that was a controversial comment.

Re: Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

#169

Post by kuratkull »

livre wrote: post #87
mankyd wrote: post #3

Not mentioned in the headline: When the user is _not_ logged in, iOS collects "location" whereas Android does not. I am actually a little surprised that iOS would gather this information. What use would it serve?

> When the user is _not_ logged in Does this matter? How many people do you know that aren't logged in on their phones? It is literally one the first things Android asks you to do even before showing you the main screen.

I also found this to be an almost useless case to examine. The number of people not-logged-in must be infinitesimal.

Re: Google collects 20 times more telemetry from Android devices than Apple from iOS

#170

Post by clairity »

kuratkull wrote: post #133
clairity wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as i understand it, by not communicating directly, companies avoid the most damning potential evidence that they are colluding. it's theoretically possible to still determine that their behavior is collusive, but quite difficult in practice. i personally think anti-trust/anti-monopoly regulations should be tightened by an order of magnitude or so. any market that exhibits such extended, obviously inflated profit marg…

"Fair" and "free" are almost opposite values in regards to markets, what you want is not "free", you want regulation. Fairness means you got to oppress a party in favor of another party.

a fair market is one that is devoid of coercive influence by any market participant, almost diametrically opposed to oppressiveness. whereas in a "free" market, oppression is the expected steady-state, because it inherently invites manipulation to produce advantage, as with any game (in the academic sense) without rules. try playing basketball without rules and see what happens.
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