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

therecord.media

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

#271
post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument does not hold because you can compare Google to Apple (in this case and based on the article) and say that if this was the case, then Apple which gathers less data would have inferior (more bugs, slow feature development, etc.) than Google. I see the competition, which is Apple in this case, doing relatively fair without (presumably) gathering as much data, therefore I absolutely don’t buy this claim.

Funny enough you are saying my argument doesn't hold but your reasoning actually falls perfectly in line with my comment. The argument isn't that all telemetry is good or that we should accept any level of it. The argument is that all telemetry is not inherently bad. As the article states, Apple does telemetry too. If you are ok with Apple and not Google, you are agreeing with me that this is a nuanced issue and the…

I agree with you that not all telemetry is bad and as a software engineer I understand the value of it. What I am trying to say is this kind of argument has been used by the likes of Google, Apple, Facebook, etc. as an excuse to collect an excessive amount of data (even sometimes illegally) and that’s the reason I pushed back against it. As you correctly mentioned, this is a complex issue. For example, there is no way for most users to differentiate between what could be useful and what is unnecessary violation, what privacy breach is severe and what is not. Until we have a practical solution to these problems, I won’t trust those companies to play ethical and only use my data in good harmless ways. As for Google, it’s worth keeping in mind that we are talking about a company that intentionally misleads users in occasions to collect their data.

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

#272
post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can still do all those things on a computer. And now it’s so easy to put up a web app that I’d argue barriers are much, much lower than when you had to figure out how to get your physical software distributed. The goals of “keep grandpa from getting his life savings stolen by malicious software” and “allow a power user to do whatever they want” can literally never be solved by the same device. If there’s any way…

This is false. Windows used to be a sieve. The infection rates and general abuse Windows received went down by orders of magnitude once they added UAC and the default malware scanner/antivirus. And they didn't need to lock down everything, completely. The rest is an easy money grab from the OS vendors who obviously don't want to remain "dumb pipes".

Before Windows Vista there was no real file permissions.

Linux file permisdions are still kinda rubbish. Move a file from system A to system B and it's oner is no longer Rob, its now Bob because they have the same Id!

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

#273
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't help but feel like having it this way is breaking one of the huge reasons that made computers so absurdly exciting and enticing in the past. The fact that there was this wide open field, where, sure, maybe you paid Microsoft for the OS, but then the rest was up to you. Trade shareware CDs, install stuff from the internet, type in code from a book or whatever, it felt like an infinite open field of possibiliti…

> I can't help but feel like having it this way is breaking one of the huge reasons that made computers so absurdly exciting and enticing in the past. We live in a bubble, so it was exciting for us . The iPhone was exciting for everyone, for the whole world , and in no small part because normal people finally felt confident enough to try all that sweet sweet software that became available thanks to people like you wh…

> "The iPhone was exciting for everyone, for the whole world"

You live in a buble, most of the world can't afford to spend $1000 on a phone.

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

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At minimum if you operate an app store on your own platform that takes a cut the platform should allow alternative 3rd party stores to be used. Android/Windows/web/MacOS are already there on that software front. iOS/Consoles/SmartTVs and many others are not. It's probably why you hear about the Apple App Store 30% but not the Play/Microsoft Store 30% - those aren't the only options to distribute an app on those platf…

> At minimum if you operate an app store on your own platform that takes a cut the platform should allow alternative 3rd party stores to be used. So basically, Microsoft Windows should have an Apple app store and Android should have an Apple app store?

Not quite, just that they should _allow_ such app stores if the app store so wanted to go on the platform.

Microsoft Windows and Android already allow this today which I think is why you hear about Apple's App store so much - it does not allow this. E.g. on Windows you can install iTunes and listen to Apple Music without Apple having to use Microsoft's app store or pay a cut of the subscription to Microsoft. The same is true on Android, Apple does not need to go through Google Play - it's possible to load the APK without it. That being said Apple Music still has the option of listing in the native stores (which it is in both the Microsoft Store and Google Play) it's just not _forced_ to be the only way to get the app _forcing_ the 30% cut to be paid.

As a result you do see competition to the Microsoft Store on Windows and you do see competition to the Play store on Android. Each is still an option though but it's not without competition. On the Apple App store your option is "30% app store cut or get the fuck out, this user owns an iPhone so you can't sell to them direct now".

But there is no reason to force any particular stores to be available on a particular platform, simply making sure stores are allowed has seemed to enabled competition in every place that has tried it so far.

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

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't help but feel like having it this way is breaking one of the huge reasons that made computers so absurdly exciting and enticing in the past. We live in a bubble, so it was exciting for us . The iPhone was exciting for everyone, for the whole world , and in no small part because normal people finally felt confident enough to try all that sweet sweet software that became available thanks to people like you wh…

> "The iPhone was exciting for everyone, for the whole world" You live in a buble, most of the world can't afford to spend $1000 on a phone.

The "iPhone revolution", the trend the iPhone started. The majority of the world's population owns an iPhone style smartphone with access to an App Store style software store.

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

#276
post #237
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because Google is responsible for most of the software on said product. Who would be receiving that telemetry data if it wasn't Google? Depends, on Android maybe. On my Android Device, not really i don't use google software with the exception of the core android system without gplay services. On iOS, the HTML Based Web, or Desktop Systems, I see no need for google to exist. If you need telemetry, run your own damn…

>Depends, on Android maybe. On my Android Device, not really i don't use google software with the exception of the core android system without gplay services. On iOS, the HTML Based Web, or Desktop Systems, I see no need for google to exist. If you need telemetry, run your own damn telemtry server instead of feeding the FAANG Privacy nightmare even more. The article is specifically about the mobile OSes and the defau…

> You are doing the same thing again. You are assuming a level of "work just fine" without having a comparison for what it would look like with telemetry. Ignoring the privacy issues for a second, can you say definitively that Linux would see no technical improvements from developers having access to telemetry data?

"works just fine" in this case means "is the backbone of the global internet infrastructure". Could it potentially be better with telemetry? Maybe. Could it potentially be better if linus torvalds personally surveils all interactions with any technology i have, no matter how private? Likely. Could it be become better if i stick a probe up my butt to measure frustration when using any product? Sure. What an asinine argument, of course telemetry can make software better in some cases but the global invasion of privacy of literally every computer user is not a worthwhile trade off for some bugfixes and giving POs some rough idea of user interaction to ignore anyway.

> Because the benefits of telemetry are widespread while the downsides are localized. The incentive for an individual user to participate is low and isn't well understood so they will default to off. Expand that to everyone and you end up with the tragedy of the commons.[1] It has nothing to do with skulls on a cap, it is basic individualized economic incentives playing out that lead to less than ideal results for the whole.

the downsides are my privacy and the privacy of millions of user who frankly do not understand the implications of it is invaded for some fringe benefit to the developer. It's not a tragedy of the commons situation but abusive behavior from developers targeting users that don't know any better. Thought Experiment: If every person on the planet would magically gain a deep understanding of how telemetry works, what would the vast majority chose to do? Get it out of their live as much as possible. Would you give someone detailed data where you take your car, at what speed, at what time, with the added benefit of governments gaining access to that data so that you use 5% less wiper fluid?

> Once again you are returning to bugs. This is about more than just bugs. Very few pieces of software are published and then abandoned beyond bug fixes. Today most software needs to constantly evolve and add new features. Maybe you are the type who will request those features from a developer in official channels, but that isn't common.

This has nothing to do with bugs. I don't need google or mozilla to know how i use my webbrowser. It's none of their fucking buisness in any way shape or form. If it crashes enough i will either complain or use a different product. If they want to know what improvements they should make or how they should evolve their product they can ask me. openly, freely and with consent. If 99.999% of users do not care to answer, then that's fine. Just because you can invade my privacy to improve your product or evolve it doesn't mean you should or should be allowed to do so. In fact it should be fucking illegal without explicit, well informed consent.

> Also most users will simply decline when presented with the option to submit a bug report. They just don't see the a strong enough or immediate enough connection between a bug report and the bug being fixed. I would bet any developer who has spent time informally talking to their users would have heard some complaints about their software that were never previously voiced through official channels. That is just the nature of things. A developer will get more valuable data if they don't leave the sending of this information up to the whims of the user in the moment when a bug report screen might appear in front of them.

This is just insane. If a User doesn't care enough about a bug or a crash to fill out a bug report or voice their opinion on it why do think you can just invade their privacy instead? Just because almost everyone can't be bothered to answer surveys on the phone should survey designers just decide to go and analyse everyones trash instead without asking? It's valuable data after all and most people don't answer surveys. Why don't we just go ahead and track everyones movement while we are at it. I'm sure we can improve traffic flow with that valuable data. Just because most People wouldn't like that doesn't mean we cant just invade their privacy because we think we know better.

God, i hope the EU gets their shit together with the GDPR someday and fines devs and companys like that out of existence.

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

#279
post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The situation on Android shows us that consumers like consolidation and they like walled gardens and simple choices. These things benefit them. Plenty of Android phones come with 2 or 3 app stores. One for the carrier, one for the vendor and Google Play Store. There plenty are others as well, but the market has spoken. Even Epic had to fold and move to Play Store. Maybe Google played dirty, but I think it's perfectly…

> The idea that users would all be side loading apps and developers would be making far more money having their apps spread across 5+ different stores that would compete down to lower prices is delusional. If that were the case, why has this not happened on Windows or MacOS where side loading is actually the default yet Steam, GOG, etc still charge 30%? That has happened. The majority of my 20,000 Steam games were ac…

For you. You don’t speak for the rest of the market though, and Steam comfortable holds its lead for good reason.

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

#280
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. It was way better than the 50-90% cut that traditional publishers would take. Why didn't Steve Jobs go with web distribution of first class web apps or allow Flash on his platform? If they truly wanted to be remarkable, this would have been the future. The answer is control. Apple is a cutthroat business just like any other, and their "privacy first" veneer is just…

Flash was absolutely garbage on mobile at the time.

Signed, a heavy Windows Mobile user.

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