Clickbait headline - could it get changed to clarify the alleged answer is “very little”?
Agreed, headline is very clickbait-y, should be changed
How much does Apple know about me? The answer surprised me
41–50 of 74 posts
Re: How much does Apple know about me? The answer surprised me
#42I have a theory that the only reason Apple is today's beacon of user privacy is that they couldn't manage to compete in either the ad (iAd), mail (at least not at G-scale) or social network world (see: Ping). The only path left for them was to say they were all about user privacy. If Apple had succeeded wildly in any of those three spaces, I think they'd be caught up like Google, Facebook et al. I'm not saying this i…
I agree, if the success was there they'd follow it.
But to be fair I think Steve Jobs was pretty interested in privacy and put some of that philosophy in the company. So they were already pursuing privacy goals but there would be these conflicts of interest that they would eventually have to resolve.
Luckily they continued to suck at social networking and many online things. It works better for them to double down on privacy.
Re: How much does Apple know about me? The answer surprised me
#43I have a theory that the only reason Apple is today's beacon of user privacy is that they couldn't manage to compete in either the ad (iAd), mail (at least not at G-scale) or social network world (see: Ping). The only path left for them was to say they were all about user privacy. If Apple had succeeded wildly in any of those three spaces, I think they'd be caught up like Google, Facebook et al. I'm not saying this i…
They certainly used the data they had from their franchisees to decide where to put their apple stores.
Re: How much does Apple know about me? The answer surprised me
#44I have a theory that the only reason Apple is today's beacon of user privacy is that they couldn't manage to compete in either the ad (iAd), mail (at least not at G-scale) or social network world (see: Ping). The only path left for them was to say they were all about user privacy. If Apple had succeeded wildly in any of those three spaces, I think they'd be caught up like Google, Facebook et al. I'm not saying this i…
I agree, if the success was there they'd follow it. But to be fair I think Steve Jobs was pretty interested in privacy and put some of that philosophy in the company. So they were already pursuing privacy goals but there would be these conflicts of interest that they would eventually have to resolve. Luckily they continued to suck at social networking and many online things. It works better for them to double down on…
What if the causal relationship was reversed? Perhaps the success wasn't there in those areas due to a previously established philosophy concerning privacy.
Grasping and purely conjecture obviously, just putting it out there.
Re: How much does Apple know about me? The answer surprised me
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly my thought. If they can connect all siri queries made by a user, it doesn't matter much if they don't store the name of that user. Deanonimisation happens easily through correlations, some correlations are really hard to predict. Id't be better if they just didn't store an ID with the data.
I think the article is badly phrased, and that they mean that _each_ individual Siri request from a device is from a random identifier, so they can't track it back to you.
According to Apple's privacy page[0]:
> Siri and Dictation do not associate this information with your Apple ID, but rather with your device through a random identifier. Apple Watch uses the Siri identifier from your iPhone. You can reset that identifier at any time by turning Siri and Dictation off and back on, effectively restarting your relationship with Siri and Dictation.
So it looks like it keeps the same ID until you turn Siri off; if you turn Siri back on, you'll have a new ID.
Re: How much does Apple know about me? The answer surprised me
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree, if the success was there they'd follow it. But to be fair I think Steve Jobs was pretty interested in privacy and put some of that philosophy in the company. So they were already pursuing privacy goals but there would be these conflicts of interest that they would eventually have to resolve. Luckily they continued to suck at social networking and many online things. It works better for them to double down on…
What if the causal relationship was reversed? Perhaps the success wasn't there in those areas due to a previously established philosophy concerning privacy. Grasping and purely conjecture obviously, just putting it out there.
This seems reasonable to me. If the leadership decisions and the culture are a constant "drag" towards an organization being competitive in these areas, the organization will do badly at them, and be unable to compete. This can be seen as a feature rather than a bug, of course depending on where you sit.
Re: How much does Apple know about me? The answer surprised me
#47I have a theory that the only reason Apple is today's beacon of user privacy is that they couldn't manage to compete in either the ad (iAd), mail (at least not at G-scale) or social network world (see: Ping). The only path left for them was to say they were all about user privacy. If Apple had succeeded wildly in any of those three spaces, I think they'd be caught up like Google, Facebook et al. I'm not saying this i…
Or they realized that hardware and software (App Store) is the better long term approach. Hardware is what Apple has always been known for and Jobs in general if you add in Next.
Google and FB sell ads and their products are built around better selling ads. Privacy is counterintuitive to their business model. Apple and even Microsoft can and should focus on privacy because their business models won’t be impacted as much. They can strengthen their relationships with customers who buy into their ecosystems.
Android is the oddball for google and I don’t know enough to comment about privacy.
Re: How much does Apple know about me? The answer surprised me
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
The eye opening part was how little data there was and the hoops needed to verify the recipient. This is in comparison to Google and Facebook. Both have orders of magnitude more data and sent the data with, apparently, little verification.
It's eye opening that the author doesn't use iCloud? Why? Almost nobody uses iCloud. Each of its components is worst in class.
I use iCloud for storage. It’s worked great for me. I’ve never had a problem with it. It wasn’t eye opening to me that the author doesn’t use iCloud.
Re: How much does Apple know about me? The answer surprised me
#49I have a theory that the only reason Apple is today's beacon of user privacy is that they couldn't manage to compete in either the ad (iAd), mail (at least not at G-scale) or social network world (see: Ping). The only path left for them was to say they were all about user privacy. If Apple had succeeded wildly in any of those three spaces, I think they'd be caught up like Google, Facebook et al. I'm not saying this i…
I think it's important to bear in mind that Apple's goal (generally) isn't to do cross-platform social apps. iMessage is a success because it bridges to non-Apple platforms via SMS. Everything else is largely siloed to Apple devices. This naturally limits them.
Re: How much does Apple know about me? The answer surprised me
#50I have a theory that the only reason Apple is today's beacon of user privacy is that they couldn't manage to compete in either the ad (iAd), mail (at least not at G-scale) or social network world (see: Ping). The only path left for them was to say they were all about user privacy. If Apple had succeeded wildly in any of those three spaces, I think they'd be caught up like Google, Facebook et al. I'm not saying this i…
The only problem with that theory is that Apple is a much older company stemming from the days that the only way to make money was to sell things to consumers. Nearly all of that company's infrastructure and inertia has always been that way. They may be opportunistically touting privacy now like they're doing us a favor (and they kinda are...), but the main favor they did was simply never commit massive resources to a pivot to data-driven services. iAd, for example, was basically a "me too!" way of creating revenue for early iOS app devs (because Google's Android was the only competition in that market).
For all of the other companies mentioned: data was basically their only asset and business model, and they were started 25+ years after Apple.
(Edit for grammar)