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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

#341

Post by Gene_Parmesan »

mlindner wrote: post #119
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?

Once upon a time fixing bugs in production didn't happen because the product got all the bugs out before production. If it had bugs in production, the product failed.

I've often wondered about this commonly repeated belief that software of ~30 years ago was less buggy than software today, because it doesn't really line up with my memories. There's definitely part of it that comes from a standard "back in my day", rose-tinted glasses sort of thing.

But I actually think a lot of it comes from the fact that modern software can be easily patched, whereas older software couldn't. It is easy to believe that software today is buggier because of just how many patches we get for it. But back in the day, any bugs that existed in the product were not as visible, because we weren't getting weekly updates where the patch notes say "Bug fixes."

How many massive vulnerabilities existed in major products of the day, and continued to persist unnoticed by all of us because of the relative impossibility of patching them out?

On top of that, modern software is simply more complex -- often times an order of magnitude more complex. (Whether this increased complexity is always needed/appropriate is a separate question.) I'm not sure what metric you would use to be able to do a "bugs per complexity unit" sort of comparison between then and now, something that attempts to control for increased complexity, but my intuition is that it would be pretty flat.

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

#342

Post by bronlund »

I think the most important point here is missing. When Google collects data, it's the basis of their whole existence. It is the source of their main stream of income.

When Apple does it, I'm sure it helps, but that data is not the reason Apple is one of the biggest companies in the world. And that is why I use iPhone.

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

#344

Post by nix23 »

GeekyBear wrote: post #287
harry8 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 anyo…

You want to talk about a criminal abuse of market power? Microsoft used to charge ridiculous fees for things as simple as submitting a patch for an XBox 360 game. >Double Fine's Tim Schaefer pegged the cost of submitting an Xbox 360 patch at $40,000 in an interview with Hookshot Inc. earlier this year. "We already owe Microsoft a LOT of money for the privilege of being on their platform," he said. "People often mista…

I don't get it, why make a exclusive game and pay Microsoft for it...a vulcan would say illogical...it's not like MS has any Hardware, that no one else has.

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

#345

Post by realusername »

jodrellblank wrote: post #202
grishka wrote: post #132

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. You aren't making much sense. You won't have any semblance of adoption if you don't have presence on iOS. Except maybe in India where iOS market share is tiny. > You can't sell software to run on Kindle Paperwhite even though it's a full computer inside. It's an appliance. It's marketed as…

Apple devices aren't crippled by it, they're improved by it. By curation and restriction. Users don't buy Apple gear to pay the lowest possible price for software, or to sideload software, users buy Apple to get something that works. The whole point is that Apple is selling an Apple experience, not an overwhelming flood of "fix it yourself" freeware. Users who want that can get it elsewhere, they shouldn't be forced…

That argument would be fine if we had plenty of mobile OS providers, except we have only two and it's a duopoly with very clear market issues.

If you don't like Bosch, there's hundreds of other manufacturer, if you don't like a restaurant, there's hundreds of other ones you can pick, if you don't like Android and iOS, well, you're screwed.

That's the market analogy, secondly, those monopolies are essential in today's computing world and currently power a great part of the tech industry, easy to see some issues there.

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

#347

Post by dtech »

fogihujy wrote: post #340
GeekyBear wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does that have to do with submitting a simple bug fix? How can that possibly cost $40,000 except through an extreme abuse of monopoly power? A simple 30% cut with no other price gouging additional fees was a huge improvement over the status quo. That article has a developer literally saying that in the end, their percentage of the profit on the XBox 360 was a negative number.

> How can that possibly cost $40,000 except through an extreme abuse of monopoly power? Microsoft has to handle patch distribution, patching itself, tech support for patching, complaints and rollbacks and so on for many years after release -- remember, they still provide patches for Xbox 360 games sold in 2005! If something breaks then I expect the total costs for all that could easily exceed $40k for very popular ti…

> I doubt CP2077 would even have been released for those platforms if they had been properly tested in the first place

They were, Sony and Microsoft just believed CDPR when they lied about fixing it before release [1]

[1] https://screenrant.com/cyberpunk-2077-developer-cdpr-admits-...

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

#348

Post by rand49an »

fogihujy wrote: post #340
GeekyBear wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does that have to do with submitting a simple bug fix? How can that possibly cost $40,000 except through an extreme abuse of monopoly power? A simple 30% cut with no other price gouging additional fees was a huge improvement over the status quo. That article has a developer literally saying that in the end, their percentage of the profit on the XBox 360 was a negative number.

> How can that possibly cost $40,000 except through an extreme abuse of monopoly power? Microsoft has to handle patch distribution, patching itself, tech support for patching, complaints and rollbacks and so on for many years after release -- remember, they still provide patches for Xbox 360 games sold in 2005! If something breaks then I expect the total costs for all that could easily exceed $40k for very popular ti…

I'm pretty sure CP2077 was denied several times by Microsoft because there were so many problems.

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

#349

Post by WanderPanda »

harry8 wrote: post #168
rdw wrote: 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." 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 anyo…

Microsoft also never managed to build a system that was secure enough to do e.g. banking on. I just noticed how I can do everything from my iPhone just using my fingerprint and don't even feel unsafe about it. I love that there are different approaches like you mentioned and hope that they continue to exist and are not overruled by a central authority as you suggest.

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

#350

Post by fsflover »

totaldex wrote: post #247
kuratkull wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many users care more about their privacy than your product.

Certainly true, but it doesn't counter the original claim: Anonymized telemetry collection with proper privacy considerations can have a net positive impact on the product.

I would agree to the telemetry if all code was FLOSS and everyone could see what exactly was being transferred.
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