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> I don't know what Amazon does for AI The Alexa/echo ecosystem. > However it's tough to beat Google in this space...they also have a lot of data on users...

> I don't know what Amazon does for AI The Alexa/echo ecosystem. > However it's tough to beat Google in this space...they also have a lot of data on users... Agreed, the amount of data is key. This is where Apple will struggle when looking to upgrade Siri/AI capabilities in coming years. > Tim Cook's Apple is making a stand for privacy and security, which is actually quite rare to witness in this day and age. He's a man with principles and for this I appreciate him a lot Privacy and security (and, secondarily, a full physical keyboard) was Blackberry's key differentiator before they lost to the touchscreen-enabled iPhone app ecosystem. Now that competitor's offerings are becoming more powerful (hardware) and refined (software), and the smartphone market is close to saturation in advanced economies, Apple needs a non-technical differentiator. Security/privacy is the perfect talking point. I have no reason to believe that Tim Cook is acting in the interest of users ("a man with principles") while marketing Apple products as private and secure; rather, he is acting in the interest of shareholders, as he should be given that he is the CEO of a public company. Happily, user and shareholder interests seem to be mostly aligned at the moment - Apple can sell more phones if people trust the brand. If it makes more financial sense in the future to ditch user privacy (in order to get closer with Facebook & Microsoft so as to compete with Google), he probably will. But don't expect to hear an announcement about it until the info is leaked. It's impossible to truly discern the character of a public company's CEO because they are always acting, and tons of things happen within their organizations without their knowledge.

Eric_WVGG 10y ago
I disagree. Apple's stance on privacy has everything to do with the personality and life experiences of Tim Cook. Stop for a moment to imagine what being a homosexual teenager in 1970's Alabama was like. Also it's well known that his career at IBM was torpedoed over a gay "glass ceiling." Tim Cook is a man who understands that privacy is a human right.
- roymurdock 10y ago
  Maybe. I don't know Tim Cook personally, so I'm in no position to judge his character. I'd like to believe his case for privacy is a moral one, grounded in his own challenging personal experiences. That would certainly be refreshing. What I do know for a fact is that he is the CEO of a public company, and as such he has a duty to maximize shareholder value. This isn't a judgement of his character, it's simply a description of his job. I believe he is very capable of performing his job.
  - taurath 10y ago
    You can maximize shareholder value by aligning your company to make money while doing the right thing. There's plenty of salable arguments that a CEO can make about the benefits of not acting like a cutthroat psychopath business - just because CEOs like Trump loudly and proudly flout their ability and willingness to fuck over anyone they can in the pursuit of more wealth doesn't mean he will actually succeed. Building loyalty with both customers and employees is not something that shows up on the balance sheet every quarter, but when you have the loyalty you can do a lot more things than someone who doesn't. I'm planning to buy a macbook pro this thursday at well over $1000 over the price for similar hardware by ASUS/Acer/Lenovo etc because of the perception that Apple has the consumer in mind.
  - drumdance 10y ago
    There are many, many ways to maximize shareholder value. Or at least try to. No path is without risk. He could focus on privacy and discover that for most people it's not a big deal. Or some kind of WikiLeaks/NSA scandal could happen and people decide it's a very big deal. (Oftentime timing is everything. DoubleClick lost a third of its value because of controversies about cookies, but 10 years later Facebook went far, far, far beyond DoubleClick and their market value went up.) He could decide that price is the most important thing and move all their operations offshore. A recession might come and it turns out low cost is the way to go. Or the economy might boom and people spend money like it's 1999. Apple has had a pretty golden touch over the last 15-20 years, and it's hard to argue with success. But past performance is no guarantee of future results. Microsoft stomped Apple and everyone else for 20 years, then went sideways for 10+ (as measured by stock market performance). But it's not like they decided to stop trying to maximize shareholder value. They just had difficulties figuring out how.
- glhaynes 10y ago
  Also it's well known that his career at IBM was torpedoed over a gay "glass ceiling." I guess I've missed hearing this. That's disappointing, especially since I've always thought of IBM as being pretty progressive in that respect.
- criley2 10y ago
  >I disagree. Apple's stance on privacy has everything to do with the personality and life experiences of Tim Cook. Stop focusing on feelings and personality. It would be a violation of his role as Chief to lead the business on purely emotional grounds, making decisions based on his experiences growing up. He has an obligation to return value to his shareholders. Privacy is a Business Moat[1] for Apple, it's something they can offer to differentiate themselves from their competitors, and frankly: nothing more. It's a clever moat because Google's moat is the actual opposite. Google says we will take your private data, reorganize it and return it to you in more useful ways. This is a powerful moat because consumers demonstrate that they like the convenience of Google's features. Apple chose the exact opposite moat: we will respect your privacy and not run advanced intelligence against the dataset of you. It's clever because it turns a disadvantage (Google is waaaaay better at it) into an advantage (Not doing it is a good thing). You can rationalize the calculus with feelings but that doesn't change the fact that Apple isn't a business run on emotions it's run on rational decisions, like market differentiation to create a perception of value. [1] http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/economicmoat.asp http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/economicmoat.asp
  - npizzolato 10y ago
    I hate this argument that companies are completely void of all emotion. You could just as easily say that no one cares about privacy and that taking a stand is a bad financial decision. Given the amount of bad press Apple got for their stand against the FBI, that doesn't seem like a very difficult argument to make. So given that it's not very hard to make the arguments that standing up for privacy might be or might not be a good financial decision, why would you think the decision Tim Cook chose had absolutely nothing to do with his life experiences? EDIT: Another comment chain had this quote from Tim Cook in a shareholders meeting that I think illustrates my point. From https://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/tim-cook-soundly-rejects-politics-of-the-ncppr-suggests-group-sell-apples-s https://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/tim-cook-soundly-rej...: ""When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind," he said, "I don't consider the bloody ROI." He said that the same thing about environmental issues, worker safety, and other areas where Apple is a leader."
    - 10y ago
elithrar 10y ago
> Privacy and security (and, secondarily, a full physical keyboard) was Blackberry's key differentiator before they lost to the touchscreen-enabled iPhone app ecosystem. Was it? Blackberry often co-operated to provide governments with access to BBM message content[1][2]. [1]: http://thenextweb.com/asia/2013/07/10/after-a-lengthy-battle-blackberry-will-finally-let-the-indian-government-monitor-its-servers/ http://thenextweb.com/asia/2013/07/10/after-a-lengthy-battle... [2]: https://news.vice.com/article/exclusive-canada-police-obtained-blackberrys-global-decryption-key-how https://news.vice.com/article/exclusive-canada-police-obtain...
- roymurdock 10y ago
  Both of your sources (2010, 2013) don't apply to Blackberry pre iPhone (2007). Even so, I'm speaking to brand perception rather than reality - BB may might have given out keys/built in backdoors pre 2007 and still maintained the perception of being trustworthy.
vhold 10y ago
Amazon's recommendation engine more or less falls under the umbrella of AI, it's just not one that consumers are really even aware they are interacting with.

Eric_WVGG 10y ago

I disagree. Apple's stance on privacy has everything to do with the personality and life experiences of Tim Cook. Stop for a moment to imagine what being a homosexual teenager in 1970's Alabama was like. Also it's well known that his career at IBM was torpedoed over a gay "glass ceiling." Tim Cook is a man who understands that privacy is a human right.

roymurdock 10y ago
Maybe. I don't know Tim Cook personally, so I'm in no position to judge his character. I'd like to believe his case for privacy is a moral one, grounded in his own challenging personal experiences. That would certainly be refreshing. What I do know for a fact is that he is the CEO of a public company, and as such he has a duty to maximize shareholder value. This isn't a judgement of his character, it's simply a description of his job. I believe he is very capable of performing his job.
- taurath 10y ago
  You can maximize shareholder value by aligning your company to make money while doing the right thing. There's plenty of salable arguments that a CEO can make about the benefits of not acting like a cutthroat psychopath business - just because CEOs like Trump loudly and proudly flout their ability and willingness to fuck over anyone they can in the pursuit of more wealth doesn't mean he will actually succeed. Building loyalty with both customers and employees is not something that shows up on the balance sheet every quarter, but when you have the loyalty you can do a lot more things than someone who doesn't. I'm planning to buy a macbook pro this thursday at well over $1000 over the price for similar hardware by ASUS/Acer/Lenovo etc because of the perception that Apple has the consumer in mind.
- drumdance 10y ago
  There are many, many ways to maximize shareholder value. Or at least try to. No path is without risk. He could focus on privacy and discover that for most people it's not a big deal. Or some kind of WikiLeaks/NSA scandal could happen and people decide it's a very big deal. (Oftentime timing is everything. DoubleClick lost a third of its value because of controversies about cookies, but 10 years later Facebook went far, far, far beyond DoubleClick and their market value went up.) He could decide that price is the most important thing and move all their operations offshore. A recession might come and it turns out low cost is the way to go. Or the economy might boom and people spend money like it's 1999. Apple has had a pretty golden touch over the last 15-20 years, and it's hard to argue with success. But past performance is no guarantee of future results. Microsoft stomped Apple and everyone else for 20 years, then went sideways for 10+ (as measured by stock market performance). But it's not like they decided to stop trying to maximize shareholder value. They just had difficulties figuring out how.
glhaynes 10y ago
Also it's well known that his career at IBM was torpedoed over a gay "glass ceiling." I guess I've missed hearing this. That's disappointing, especially since I've always thought of IBM as being pretty progressive in that respect.
criley2 10y ago
>I disagree. Apple's stance on privacy has everything to do with the personality and life experiences of Tim Cook. Stop focusing on feelings and personality. It would be a violation of his role as Chief to lead the business on purely emotional grounds, making decisions based on his experiences growing up. He has an obligation to return value to his shareholders. Privacy is a Business Moat[1] for Apple, it's something they can offer to differentiate themselves from their competitors, and frankly: nothing more. It's a clever moat because Google's moat is the actual opposite. Google says we will take your private data, reorganize it and return it to you in more useful ways. This is a powerful moat because consumers demonstrate that they like the convenience of Google's features. Apple chose the exact opposite moat: we will respect your privacy and not run advanced intelligence against the dataset of you. It's clever because it turns a disadvantage (Google is waaaaay better at it) into an advantage (Not doing it is a good thing). You can rationalize the calculus with feelings but that doesn't change the fact that Apple isn't a business run on emotions it's run on rational decisions, like market differentiation to create a perception of value. [1] http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/economicmoat.asp http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/economicmoat.asp
- npizzolato 10y ago
  I hate this argument that companies are completely void of all emotion. You could just as easily say that no one cares about privacy and that taking a stand is a bad financial decision. Given the amount of bad press Apple got for their stand against the FBI, that doesn't seem like a very difficult argument to make. So given that it's not very hard to make the arguments that standing up for privacy might be or might not be a good financial decision, why would you think the decision Tim Cook chose had absolutely nothing to do with his life experiences? EDIT: Another comment chain had this quote from Tim Cook in a shareholders meeting that I think illustrates my point. From https://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/tim-cook-soundly-rejects-politics-of-the-ncppr-suggests-group-sell-apples-s https://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/tim-cook-soundly-rej...: ""When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind," he said, "I don't consider the bloody ROI." He said that the same thing about environmental issues, worker safety, and other areas where Apple is a leader."
  - 10y ago

elithrar 10y ago

> Privacy and security (and, secondarily, a full physical keyboard) was Blackberry's key differentiator before they lost to the touchscreen-enabled iPhone app ecosystem. Was it? Blackberry often co-operated to provide governments with access to BBM message content[1][2]. [1]: http://thenextweb.com/asia/2013/07/10/after-a-lengthy-battle-blackberry-will-finally-let-the-indian-government-monitor-its-servers/ http://thenextweb.com/asia/2013/07/10/after-a-lengthy-battle... [2]: https://news.vice.com/article/exclusive-canada-police-obtained-blackberrys-global-decryption-key-how https://news.vice.com/article/exclusive-canada-police-obtain...

roymurdock 10y ago
Both of your sources (2010, 2013) don't apply to Blackberry pre iPhone (2007). Even so, I'm speaking to brand perception rather than reality - BB may might have given out keys/built in backdoors pre 2007 and still maintained the perception of being trustworthy.

vhold 10y ago

Amazon's recommendation engine more or less falls under the umbrella of AI, it's just not one that consumers are really even aware they are interacting with.