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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

#391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 hundr…

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

It isn't; over the past decade the tech world has shifted more and more towards telemetry, advertising, and low quality user experience. Popular sites like Instagram, Reddit, Facebook, YouTube have added more and more adverts and less and less social connection, become more centralized (Microsoft buying LinkedIn and GitHub, Facebook buying WhatsApp and Instagram), Windows has added more advertisements and telemetry, and iOS has held out as a comparatively stable, predictable, clean, low-ad, low-telemetry, user focused platform through all of this.

> "blatant anti-trust issues"

Allowing my proverbial elderly mother to buy a device which cannot, in any way, be the subject of a scam like this:

https://old.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/mfy1sw/my_...

by having someone talk her through disabling the sideload protection and installing a malware, is not "anti-trust", it's "pro-trust". And yes I do understand that I'm swapping the meaning of "trust" here between your use and mine, and that's deliberate. Look at the comments in that thread:

"Sounds dumb, but my 79 year old dad fell for it completely. Something like $100 and they got him to install remote control software while they ran a virus scan. Of course that was just what was on the screen, who knows what they were really doing."

"My parents were scammed in a very similar way out of $50,000 about a month ago."

"This happened to a relative of mine, but for $80K. Though the thieves claimed they were working with the Shanghai police. The thieves were brazen enough to get her to not only transfer everything she had in her bank account, but to also cash in her 401K"

"I know somebody who fell for something similar about two years ago. Also out about $20k"

"My SO was inches away from walking through the finale of the scam, I caught it before we lost money"

The argument "nobody should be able to buy a system which has some protections in the design, because I want {geek code} on every device" just isn't good enough. And neither is the tech-world answer "they're dumb and deserve it". Buy an iPad and someone can maybe be conned into setting up a bank transfer, but not into side-loading a crypto coin ransomware, it's one level of defense in depth.

> "I'm currently forced to use one of those two mobile platform for my daily use"

And your solution is to drag iOS down to the level of Android or Windows? Who is forcing you? Why can't you use a dumbphone? Is this a "forced because I don't want to change jobs" thing?

> "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"

Apple owns your device is a lie, you bought it, you own it. Take it apart, take the LCD out and plug it into something else, see if Apple comes at you for breaking "their" device. They won't, because they don't own it. Turning "they didn't build it so I can run Linux on it" is not the same thing as them owning it, any more than Bosch not building a washing machine to let you run Linux on the controller does not imply Bosch own your washing machine in perpetuity.

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

#392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't really care how and why those two companies got their monopoly, that's beside the point. How do you expect to beat Apple or even an argument on the internet, let alone with Congress, if you’re not even willing to learn from your (so called) competitors?

Which competitors? They aren't any. I expect anti-trust laws to be applied, as simple as that.

What anti-trust measures made Blackberry give up and switch to Android? Was it Apple's doing that Microsoft bought Nokia and Nokia imploded with Symbian and Maemo and inability to compete with iOS? Was it Apple's doing that Microsoft went from Windows CE to Windows Mobile to Windows Phone 7 to Windows Phone 8, each incompatible with the previous, and they couldn't attract developers because they couldn't keep a stable API and didn't embrace the web? Was it Apple's doing that all the featurephone providers from Motorola to Sony, and all the PDA providers like Psion and Palm and Dell, and all the computer companies like IBM and Intel, all completely failed to release a credible competitor device?

Apple have 27% of the mobile OS market.

Simple as what? What do you expect, what do you want, anti-trust laws being applied to do? Magically conjour up a competitor from nowhere? Or just smash iOS in resentment for its success so you can have avoid having to suffer Android?

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

#393
post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The costs of making a game work on multiple platforms might exceed the expected revenue from the additional platforms, especially for a smaller organisation.

Well then publish it just on steam/gog. I don't see any plus having your Game just on Xbox rather than the PC, sells are probably the same no?

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

#394
post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearby WiFi spots can be easily used to track device location. Here is a neat little project that does exactly that for IOT tracking [1]. [1] https://github.com/dmsl/anyplace

Nearby wifi hotspot location is the base for aGPS. Without it it would be slower and eat up more battery.

No... aGPS doesn't use wifi at all. aGPS uses specific services built-in to the cellular network to accelerate your initial fix.

You're right aGPS does speed up your initial time to fix so the GPS receiver doesn't have to be on as long to get an ephemeral location but other than that it doesn't have any impact on battery life such as when you're looking at Google maps with a constant fix.

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

#395
post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the iPhone is a PDA. There's 20 years of PDAs before iPhone. There was no price to put an app on my 1998 Windows CE PDA, nor my Sony Clie, nor my Dell Axim. Just install the software same as PC. The software vendors had the option to sell direct, go through a distributor, a publisher, various stores, etc..

I think there's a lot of truth to this take. Pre-iPhone phones were a completely different category of phone. They ran limited, special-purpose operating systems. Smartphones of today are pocket computers that just happen to be able to make phone calls. And yes, they connect to a wireless carrier's network. But I can also connect my laptop to a wireless carrier's network by buying a USB dongle and a SIM card. I'm cer…

>Pre-iPhone phones were a completely different category of phone. They ran limited, special-purpose operating systems.

That doesn't resemble anything like my memory of the time. I had multiple general purpose windows mobile phones before iPhones existed. It wasn't limited and it could install apps. Neither Microsoft not the carrier took 30%.

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

#396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> " I don't give a crap about money. I despise intellectual property and proprietary software. I'll never sell a byte. " > " People buy smartphones because you need one to function in the modern society. They choose either Google or Apple. Neither of these corporations deserves all the credit they feel entitled to. " And you can sideload on Android, and they chose not-Android. and you could do so on Blackberry, and W…

You aren't making sense, again. > And you can sideload on Android, and they chose not-Android. How many people actually know anything about what it takes to publish to the app store? Developers literally aren't allowed to tell them. If you write the very sensible "this content is not available on this device due to Apple App Store policies", you app will be rejected. Almost no one says bad things about Apple because…

> ""I wish my phone didn't allow me to install on it what I want" said no one ever. They failed for other reasons."

I said that. Implicitly, when I said "I want to use iOS and I'm willing to accept the tradeoffs that come with that". I have plenty of devices I can install random software on. including previous Android tablet and phone, I don't need or want yet another ARM/Linux device, what I need and want is a trustworthy phone that works well, and Apple appears to be the closest thing to that, by a long long way.

> "Computers and phones aren't the same thing, you can't compare them like that. I use a Mac precisely because it's great experience AND it allows me to run whatever the hell I tell it to. I use Android for the same reason."

One moment you're "robbed of choice", the next moment you're explaining how you chose a thing which does what you want. While still denying and ignoring that other people might want and choose something different. The same way I don't want my dishwasher to run an IRC client, I would prefer one that cannot do so, as it's simpler and less complex and has less to go wrong and has smaller security boundaries, I want a smartphone that I can trust. Should I want a device I can "install whatever" on, there are tons and tons and tons and tons of Android devices to choose from along with many non-Android devices such as Debian Cosmo Communicator, Linux running Pinephones, Librems, small Linux and Windows tablets, and all kinds of other things approximately nobody uses because they don't work very well.

> "You don't have this as an iOS user. If Apple says something isn't good for you, this decision is final. You just aren't getting that app no matter how much you want it."

I'm OK with this. This is a choice. The same way I'm OK with the government saying I cannot have an asbestos roof. I can have that app if I want it, by using a device where the app runs. If I want it enough, I can go where it is.

> "Almost no one says bad things about Apple because of the fear that they might be denied presence on iOS."

Citation needed; the tech internet is full of criticisms about Apple, like this thread and their appstore cut, or Airpod batteries that wear out too quickly, or Airpod sound quality, or dongle-gate, or lack of ports on laptops, or macOS phoning home to launch binaries, or worsening UX on macOS, or ever-increasing price of flagship phones, or lack of an iPhone SE (until recently), or "so brave" headphone socket, or no 3rd-party repairs and Luis Rossman's outspoken rants on that. It absolutely isn't the case that "nobody says bad things about Apple".

> "This is a very large power imbalance, and this absolutely needs to be dealt with."

It is a large power imbalance. It does not need to be dealt with. The day the Apple AppStore looks like the old Cydia app store will be a terrible day. The app store is already full of junk clones, I would rather it very very much more strictly curated, honestly.

It's like the comment I've linked elsewhere recently about the early days of search engines, narrowing down "all web pages" to "1 million results" does absolutely nothing useful for me. Providing me with "choice" of 100 apps to do a thing is way more than I can usefully vet for basic functionality, let alone signups, hidden fees, telemetry, dark patterns, reliability. "Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded" used to be a joke, now it's a description of Amazon - by adding more and more third party sellers and more "choice" at the low end, it's far harder to find anything and the experience of shopping for "a thing to do X" has got significantly worse.

> "Calling things "spam" or "not spam" is users' own choice. You as an email user always have the last word in whether something is spam. You don't have this as an iOS user."

For the severalth time, you /don't have to be an iOS user/. iOS makes up less than one third of the smartphone market. If I outsource my spam filtering to a paid service, it's because I choose to give up that option to save time and effort.

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

#397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they should. It assists with repairs, increases safety, leads to recalls, and in cars with GPS units, even reports road emergencies and saves lives . You can feel uncomfortable that this is happening, which is an entirely okay opinion to have, but when it comes to forcing that opinions on others, please don't. Imagine if we were debating the qualities of buttons because the Amish were uncomfortable using them.

Sure but Amish have the right to choose to use the button or not. You should have the option to opt-out. Or at least have that option until society says “well given how many life’s are save we need to collect this data from everyone”. But you’d get a say in that conversation as well.

You can opt out, the exact same way.

Don't buy a car that uses telemetry, just like you don't buy clothes that uses buttons.

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

#398

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…

>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!

Apple bears all the same costs for iOS and it all comes out of that same 30% fee. For free apps, they eat all those costs.

Hell, Apple provides free in-person customer support as well as support by phone.

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

#399
post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearby wifi hotspot location is the base for aGPS. Without it it would be slower and eat up more battery.

No... aGPS doesn't use wifi at all. aGPS uses specific services built-in to the cellular network to accelerate your initial fix. You're right aGPS does speed up your initial time to fix so the GPS receiver doesn't have to be on as long to get an ephemeral location but other than that it doesn't have any impact on battery life such as when you're looking at Google maps with a constant fix.

My bad, I have been conflating aGPS and WPS. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_positioning_system Still, phones do use hotspot location databases for positioning.

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

#400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i wouldn't count out network effects so quickly, which apple has in spades, to keep people, especially non-technical folks, on their app store as a default (and usually only) option. that's incidentally how google became the default (and often only) search engine without having any substantive lock-in early on.

Sure I agree with that completely. But firstly that wouldn’t solve the issue for developers as then the arguments will just shift that other app stores should come preinatalled and later will shift it again (developers will never be happy with any percentage but also the review process does cost money, in app transactions infra as well), and secondly it increases the attack surface for scams (just watching on YouTube…

along those lines, instead of being preinstalled, choosing app stores could be part of the setup process. so if you only wanted the apple app store, you’d just set it up that way. adding another app store would necessarily present more friction than that.
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