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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

#361

Post by yazaddaruvala »

grishka wrote: post #220
jodrellblank wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The whole point is that Apple is selling an Apple experience Once you bought a thing, you own it. That's it. It's cool to have a curated app store for those developers who want it. It's uncool for Apple to retain control of devices after they've been sold. > This is like a restaurant demanding smart shoes for customers You can't make this comparison. You don't get to choose what kind of mobile device other people u…

> I just want to make an app and distribute it straight to my users. That's it. Apple forcibly inserting itself in between me and my users doesn't do any good to either side.

As an iPhone user, I invited (even pay) Apple to gate me from abusive software. Don’t blame Apple, blame me, and charge more for it if you need (this is how I pay Apple for the service).

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

#362

Post by sellyme »

nanna wrote: post #359
sellyme wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Side note but what does one do with 20,000 games? Do you actually play this many? Genuine curiosity, not trying to troll or anything.

I've 100% completed about 2500 of them, so I don't have a great completion rate but it's not like they're just there for show. I've probably played around 6000 total.

A very large number of them I would not have bought individually, but they came in a bundle with other games I wanted.

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

#363

Post by yazaddaruvala »

zamadatix wrote: post #274
tchalla wrote: post #257

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. 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…

As an Apple customer, I will lose value from my purchase if iOS was required to have additional (non-Apple controlled) AppStores. This change cannot be made retroactively to my previous purchases.

The law (if it ever exists) should only apply to new iPhones and Apple should let users decide what they want.

Unlocking extra AppStores would likely also be more expensive than a locked in iPhone because of Apple’s ROI from the controlled AppStore. I don’t want to subsidize other people using a non-Apple controlled store when I know I wouldn’t.

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

#364

Post by realusername »

yazaddaruvala wrote: post #358
realusername wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 to suffer it on iOS as well. > That argument would be fine if we had plenty of mobile OS providers So your problem is Apple solved the customer problem so well with “an Apple experience” that all other phone OSes were abandoned. And…

> So your problem is Apple solved the customer problem so well with “an Apple experience” that all other phone OSes were abandoned.

I don't really care how and why those two companies got their monopoly, that's beside the point.

> And as a result Apple should be forced to ruin that experience beloved by their customers, so that the relatively small number of software developers make a little more money?

There's hundreds of thousands of developers on mobile platforms and juste two single companies on the other side with blatant anti-trust issues, that's an easy argument here.

> As an Apple customer, I’m glad your software is being gated from me. I don’t trust your judgement.

I really don't care if you use my software or not either. I'm currently forced to use one of those two mobile platform for my daily use and both choices are terrible in their own way due to anti-trust issues. You have absolutely zero power over Apple which owns your device anyway so I'm not sure why you would say that, it's not like your opinion would matter to them.

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

#365

Post by antman »

Well I have a different personal email account and a different google phone account. There used to be more android mail apps that allow logging in directly without using the phone’s credentials but its getting more and more rare. Any Android mail apps suggestionsthat use web login than android are welcome

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

#367

Post by sunstone »

You can turn "location" off on Android just as you can turn "third party cookies" off on the Chrome browser. Google counts on 95% of users not doing that. Neither of these are perfect solutions but they do help a lot for minimal effort.

EDIT And this just in, more third party cookies:

     https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/google-testing-its-controversial-new-ad-targeting-tech-millions-browsers-heres

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

#368

Post by TeMPOraL »

nitrogen wrote: post #135
mason55 wrote: post #126

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…

And the market for grandpas is much larger than the market for tinkerers. This kind of thing has become a meme. It's basically irrelevant. If the market of tinkerers was big enough 20 years ago, it's more than big enough now, and the GPU shortage kind of proves that. It's also an all-or-nothing fallacy -- nobody can protect all financial victims, and restricting the tech device market is probably one of the least eff…

> If the market of tinkerers was big enough 20 years ago, it's more than big enough now

It isn't, because the momentum is with big vendors, and big vendors look at economies of scale. Doesn't matter if "tinkerer's market" is 10x as big as it was 20 years ago, when "grandpa's market" is now 100x bigger than that, an every marginal unit of effort is better spent on that than on catering to power users.

> and the GPU shortage kind of proves that.

It doesn't prove the tinkerer's market grew, it's a result of being able to use GPUs to turn electricity directly into money. It's not tinkerers who buy them, it's the business-savvy people. Tinkerers' role is to handle setup.

> It's also an all-or-nothing fallacy -- nobody can protect all financial victims, and restricting the tech device market is probably one of the least effective ways to try.

It's not a fallacy, and it is effective. That's why everyone is doing it. That's why, for example, smartphones are locked down tight and the ecosystem shuns attempts at unlocking them. The pressure is everywhere. Even if the phone vendor lets you root it, your banking app will try to detect it and refuse to run.

> There are much better chokepoints for combatting both malware and fraud than the sanitized amusement park experience.

Can you name some? Because as much as I hate the "sanitized amusement park experience" trend, I honestly can't think of an alternative approach that would work. Past a certain point, security and usability are mutually exclusive - the features needed to protect you from someone impersonating you, or to protect you from getting tricked into self-pwning, are directly restricting what you can do on your own device.

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

#369

Post by nanna »

sellyme wrote: post #362
nanna wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Side note but what does one do with 20,000 games? Do you actually play this many? Genuine curiosity, not trying to troll or anything.

I've 100% completed about 2500 of them, so I don't have a great completion rate but it's not like they're just there for show. I've probably played around 6000 total. A very large number of them I would not have bought individually, but they came in a bundle with other games I wanted.

Maybe not a great completion rate respective to the amount of games you've got but probably (surely?) with respect to other gamers! If someone asked you to pick your favourite three...?

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

#370

Post by TeMPOraL »

babypuncher wrote: post #195
kuratkull wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a software engineer I disagree. You are saying that you want to collect my personal information so you can fix your bugs. I don't see it being a valuable trade. I'll just find someone who can fix their bugs without tracking me.

Personal information is a bit nebulous. Do we consider the list of function calls in a stack trace "personal information"?

If I sent the stack trace to you, no. Otherwise, yes. It's my stack trace after all.

(Perhaps "private" not "personal" is a better term here, but stack traces can expose personal information too, if they include details about function arguments.)

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