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Which is exactly why as of last month bought my first iPhone. The pro privacy stance that Apple is taking is wonderful to see. No idea if anyone pushing this at
by boyter 9y ago
Which is exactly why as of last month bought my first iPhone. The pro privacy stance that Apple is taking is wonderful to see. No idea if anyone pushing this at Apple will ever read this but you have a customer for life if you continue to do so and will champion your products to their entire sphere of influence.
- Sholmesy 9y agoAgreed. Apple has been mostly good wrt to privacy in the past, but since they've started to make it a selling/differentiation point, I expect them to solidify their stance. I think it's a genius move. People will begin to understand in the coming years just how much information these companies are tracking/extracting, and turn(or stay) to Apple. I think users would care about privacy, if they truly knew just how much information is being gathered.
- ramblerman 9y agoApple has shareholders and changing CEOs. This is really naive at best
- Angostura 9y agoAs long as the company can show the shareholders that differentiating on privacy provides good ROI, they will be happy.
- pilsetnieks 9y agoThere doesn't have to be a good ROI. Quoting Tim Cook: "When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind, I don't consider the bloody ROI. [..] If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock." 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...
- pilsetnieks 9y agoCompared to most companies, their CEOs don't change that much. The last one stayed on for life, for example. And with regard to displeasing shareholders - Tim Cook has no problem with that - to quote, "if you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock." http://www.businessinsider.com/tim-cook-versus-a-conservative-think-tank-2014-2 http://www.businessinsider.com/tim-cook-versus-a-conservativ...
- FussyZeus 9y agoHe's not as bad as Steve Ballmer for example - though you can draw many parallels - but he's never had the vision Jobs had. iPhones and iPads are going well, but the Mac is suffering badly under Cook because it has such a low return. I hope he proves me wrong, but at this point I'm very worried about the future of the Mac.
- tertius 9y agoAt this point? The Mac has not been one of their main products for almost a decade.
- FussyZeus 9y agoI don't disagree, but there was a definite tonal shift in how it was handled shortly after Cook took over. Jobs seemed to recognize that the Mac was a tool used by their pro/developer userbase that helped make not only the App Store the envy of Google and Microsoft in terms of the variety and quality of the software available, but as a big draw for the deep-pocketed developer community as a whole. Cook doesn't seem to get that, a problem that was on flagrant display when they unveiled the Macbook Pro last year, with a gimmicky input mechanism no one wanted, and no first-party displays to go with it. In other words: It was a niche product and always has been, but that niche has played a large role in the success of iOS. It should be one of Apple's primary concerns to keep them happy.
- tertius 9y ago
- Sholmesy 9y agoMaybe. Curious to what "at worst" would be... For the record I'm not saying they are taking this stance for some charitable reason, I'm saying it would/could make financial sense for them, especially considering their branding as a premium product.
- coldtea 9y agoMobile phones aren't for life. Parent can change company again whenever they like. This is really irrelevant at best. (Besides Apple's CEOs tend to last a long time. 14 years with Jobs at the helm for example, and 6+ years with Cook and counting).
- jp555 9y agoApple has deep seated values throughout the organization that it's been nurturing for 40 years. I think a mismatched CEO would either lose fighting it, or destroy the core of what makes Apple great, which shareholders will not like.
- breatheoften 9y agoIt’s also much easier to care about privacy when there is a viable alternate way to do something desirable which preserves privacy. Care about privacy? Ok, don’t use gmail instead setup your own mail server and configure gpg. Vs Care about privacy? Ok: use apple products when they work for you.
- doktrin 9y agoAs a longtime Android fanboy who was actually waiting for the upcoming Pixels, I am tempted to switch over. I'm losing faith in Google's good faith, and want to reward / support companies that take my privacy at least semi-seriously.
- FussyZeus 9y agoWith no snark whatsoever, though this question I realize implies it but I'll try my best to not: What good will? Google wrote the book on directed advertising. I'm genuinely interested why this attitude pervades Google's user base, that the Internet giant with 80% of the smartphone market is some kind of 'scrappy underdog' compared to Apple.
- dasil003 9y agoAndroid was an underdog for years as iPhones rewrote the industry from top to bottom, killing Blackberry, Nokia, Windows Phone. It took years of intense focus to bring Android to parity, and lucky for Google, there are a few areas where Apple is weak... Apple is underdog in services. To this day Apple Maps is a pale shadow of Google Maps. They're getting better to be sure, but still an underdog.
- rkowalick 9y agoI imagine the only reason Apple Maps is worse than Google Maps is because the community around Google Maps has been updating it consistently for over a decade. Apple maps transit experience is, in my opinion, much more carefully though out than Google's, so I know they can do something with the right information.
- FussyZeus 9y agoApple Maps had a rough start, but people forget Google Maps wasn't always perfect either. It would be nice if Apple users had the ability to submit corrections to Apple somehow.
- hellbanner 9y agoIs your iPhone more secure than an open source version?
- zie 9y agoCompared to what we have currently out in open-source that easily runs on hardware the answer is yes. Google's Android is trying, but it's just not there yet, and it's not full Open Source. The rest of the open-source phone platforms are all dead as far as I'm aware.
- KyeRussell 9y agoApple has a proven track record of respecting user privacy, Google has hardly any. iOS has a proven track record of respecting user privacy, Android has hardly any. Other 'open-source' alternatives shouldn't be considered generally viable at the moment.
- kbart 9y agoDefine your security model. If you are talking about advertisers, then both can achieve about the same "security" level. But there's no point talking about security (as remotely inaccessible) while we don't have an open hardware + firmware. Baseband is a "micro PC", some even run modified Linux kernel under the hood, WiFi chip, battery controller etc. -- all are capable of running spyware/malware too.
- mi100hael 9y agoJudging by the amount of malware that shows up in the Play store and pwns rooted phones, absolutely.
- evilduck 9y agoAFAIK there's no such thing as a completely open source cell phone.
- hellbanner 9y agoUnfortunately not. Even if there was, it's the mesh network they run on that breaks security - corporate & gov controlled cellular towers
- awj 9y ago> The pro privacy stance that Apple is taking is wonderful to see. Yeah, it is. Welcome to what it feels like to be wholly the customer, instead of partially the product.