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Apple Change Causes Scramble Among Private Messaging App Makers

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Re: Apple Change Causes Scramble Among Private Messaging App Makers

#21

Post by simcop2387 »

pwinnski wrote: post #11
t0mbstone wrote: post #4

My wife and I use Life360 every day for giving us notifications whenever we leave work, arrive at home, arrive at our kid's school, etc. We use these tracking notifications for all sorts of things. For example, my wife won't start prepping dinner until she gets the notification that I've left work. I will be very annoyed if Apple's changes break tools like Life360. I opted into the tracking for a reason. I don't need…

What does Life360 provide that Apple's own 'Find My Friends' app does not? That's what my partner and I use to track locations.

Actively notifying you about changes in location, rather than it being a passive thing that the other party has to check.

Re: Apple Change Causes Scramble Among Private Messaging App Makers

#22

Post by NobodyNada »

t0mbstone wrote: post #4

My wife and I use Life360 every day for giving us notifications whenever we leave work, arrive at home, arrive at our kid's school, etc. We use these tracking notifications for all sorts of things. For example, my wife won't start prepping dinner until she gets the notification that I've left work. I will be very annoyed if Apple's changes break tools like Life360. I opted into the tracking for a reason. I don't need…

FYI, Life360 sells your location information, driving habits, and registration details to third-parties including advertisers and insurance companies. From their privacy policy (https://www.life360.com/privacy_policy/):

> One of the 3rd parties who we share data with is Arity. [...] Arity may use this data to [...] provide and service insurance products, including using personal data to perform profiling activities and to provide you with relevant and personalized advertising.

[EDIT] The "more detailed" privacy policy is more explicit (https://life360.helpshift.com/a/life360-family-locator/?s=pr...):

> We share your personal information, driving event data and other information to Arity 875, LLC (“Arity”), which provides driving analytics behavior services to enable us to provide certain functionalities of the Service, such as driving event history. Arity may also use this information to calculate discounts, rewards or pricing offers by third parties such as insurance companies, and to perform various profiling activities in order to produce a score which may predict the level of driver riskiness, and to develop its risk predictive models for its own analytics purposes. You hereby acknowledge and consent to the collection and use of your data and information by Arity as set out in this policy and in Arity’s privacy policy, which is located at https://www.arity.com/privacy.

So, in other words, they sell your driving information along with your name, phone number, email address, etc. to insurance companies so that they can adjust the prices you're charged based on how you drive.

Re: Apple Change Causes Scramble Among Private Messaging App Makers

#23

Post by acdha »

simcop2387 wrote: post #21
pwinnski wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does Life360 provide that Apple's own 'Find My Friends' app does not? That's what my partner and I use to track locations.

Actively notifying you about changes in location, rather than it being a passive thing that the other party has to check.

Find Friends also allows you to request notifications when someone leaves or arrives at a location. It's great for timing when to start dinner.

Re: Apple Change Causes Scramble Among Private Messaging App Makers

#24

Post by facethrowaway »

cromwellian wrote: post #10
t0mbstone wrote: post #4

My wife and I use Life360 every day for giving us notifications whenever we leave work, arrive at home, arrive at our kid's school, etc. We use these tracking notifications for all sorts of things. For example, my wife won't start prepping dinner until she gets the notification that I've left work. I will be very annoyed if Apple's changes break tools like Life360. I opted into the tracking for a reason. I don't need…

I also used Life360 to geofence my kids and get notifications when they leave school and return home. It actually caught my son running away from school one time, and when the guidance counselor couldn't find him, I was able to locate him outside the school wandering around the streets.

Sometimes I forget that this is a community full of engineers, many of whom have poor social skills.

Invest less time in apps and more time in trying to understand your kids.

Re: Apple Change Causes Scramble Among Private Messaging App Makers

#25

Post by AmericanChopper »

Icathian wrote: post #20
msie wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, and to think of all the times I've held myself back colouring within the app guidelines. Meanwhile other app developers are abusing the apis to no end.

Well sure, but on the other hand now all your stuff isn't broken. Give and take, I think.

Had a similar situation once. Apple announced a rule change that impacted our business. We talked to them and realized we had to suck it up. We spent 6 months completely redesigning our app to fit in with the new guidelines. Meanwhile we found out our competitors spend 6 months doing nothing but complaining to Apple. Apple reneged on the change. We lost 6 months dev time trying to comply with the new rules in good faith, our competitors spend those 6 months doing their regular work on new features.

Re: Apple Change Causes Scramble Among Private Messaging App Makers

#26

Post by hombre_fatal »

jakear wrote: post #15
cromwellian wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also used Life360 to geofence my kids and get notifications when they leave school and return home. It actually caught my son running away from school one time, and when the guidance counselor couldn't find him, I was able to locate him outside the school wandering around the streets.

Not a parent, but a recent kid, and I’d hate my parents having that kind of control over me. Though I guess I’d just turn off the phone. Which then makes me even more unreachable than if the tracking had never been instituted in the first place.

Running away from school is pretty serious. When I was a kid, I'd expect some serious repercussions from my father if I did such a thing. The phone just made the consequences arrive sooner, but it's not the root of the issue. And the commenter didn't give us nearly enough information to judge them, so let's not.

Re: Apple Change Causes Scramble Among Private Messaging App Makers

#27

Post by gnicholas »

cromwellian wrote: post #10
t0mbstone wrote: post #4

My wife and I use Life360 every day for giving us notifications whenever we leave work, arrive at home, arrive at our kid's school, etc. We use these tracking notifications for all sorts of things. For example, my wife won't start prepping dinner until she gets the notification that I've left work. I will be very annoyed if Apple's changes break tools like Life360. I opted into the tracking for a reason. I don't need…

I also used Life360 to geofence my kids and get notifications when they leave school and return home. It actually caught my son running away from school one time, and when the guidance counselor couldn't find him, I was able to locate him outside the school wandering around the streets.

Isn’t this possible with Apple’s Find Friends functionality?

EDIT: downvote because why?

Re: Apple Change Causes Scramble Among Private Messaging App Makers

#28

Post by paggle »

t0mbstone wrote: post #4

My wife and I use Life360 every day for giving us notifications whenever we leave work, arrive at home, arrive at our kid's school, etc. We use these tracking notifications for all sorts of things. For example, my wife won't start prepping dinner until she gets the notification that I've left work. I will be very annoyed if Apple's changes break tools like Life360. I opted into the tracking for a reason. I don't need…

You may be more than capable of making the decision yourself, but most people are not (cf Facebook's user count), so it's perfectly reasonable for Apple to set rules to minimize risk rather than enabling the most capable users.

Lewis Hamilton could probably safely drive at 150 miles an hour on Highway 101, that doesn't mean that the speed limit should be 150.

Re: Apple Change Causes Scramble Among Private Messaging App Makers

#29

Post by hombre_fatal »

facethrowaway wrote: post #24
cromwellian wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also used Life360 to geofence my kids and get notifications when they leave school and return home. It actually caught my son running away from school one time, and when the guidance counselor couldn't find him, I was able to locate him outside the school wandering around the streets.

Sometimes I forget that this is a community full of engineers, many of whom have poor social skills. Invest less time in apps and more time in trying to understand your kids.

Speaking of poor social skills, let's give each other the benefit of the doubt here, please. You have no clue what they're dealing with nor how well they understand their kid.

Re: Apple Change Causes Scramble Among Private Messaging App Makers

#30

Post by joecool1029 »

eridius wrote: post #17

It's pretty weird how the article doesn't even bother to mention that Apple has an official API for doing encrypted notifications, and I really have no idea why these apps are abusing the VOIP stuff instead of using the actual encrypted notification feature. The article quotes someone as claiming APNS isn't reliable, but with zero evidence, and it seems pretty darn reliable for all of the non-encrypted apps using it.

> The article quotes someone as claiming APNS isn't reliable

I looked into that, the second answer here gives better but slightly dated insight on the matter, it makes sense: https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/119624/how-is-w...

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