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Of course Tim Cook would say that. His business model doesn't depend on it. When he decides to unwall the iPhone garden, i'll give him the time of day on issues
by darawk 9y ago
Of course Tim Cook would say that. His business model doesn't depend on it. When he decides to unwall the iPhone garden, i'll give him the time of day on issues like this. Until then, he's just looking out for his own interests, as far as i'm concerned.
- bmarquez 9y agoOpening up iMessage to Android users would definitely reduce Facebook's collection of user data, since friends wouldn't be compelled to use FB Messenger. But yeah it's not in his business model.
- gaius 9y agoSee also: BBM
- gkya 9y agoCompelled to use FB Messenger when WhatsApp is available? I don't think there are many people who have FB, but not WhatsApp.
- scottmf 9y agoFacebook owns WhatsApp.
- gkya 9y agoCertainly but WhatsApp is rather privacy-friendly.
- bmarquez 9y agoI find WhatsApp is ubiquitous among my international friends, but my American friends who joined Facebook in college don't have it. Anecdotal data, of course.
- aianus 9y agoYou know the phone numbers of all of your FB contacts? Getting someone's phone number has always felt like a much higher bar than their FB since you could harass them with calls, SMS, etc and it's more difficult to block. Plus there's an implicit sexual connotation if you ask a woman for her phone number that doesn't apply to Facebook or LinkedIn. I really don't like how WhatsApp piggybacks on phone numbers and phone contacts but clearly I'm in a tiny minority given how successful they've become.
- gkya 9y ago> You know the phone numbers of all of your FB contacts? I don't have a Facebook account. > Getting someone's phone number has always felt like a much higher bar than their FB since you could harass them with calls, SMS, etc and it's more difficult to block. It's quite easy to block a number. If they'll go as far as to use a different phone to call you, then they could also use someone else's FB account too. > Plus there's an implicit sexual connotation if you ask a woman for her phone number that doesn't apply to Facebook or LinkedIn. That's probably something specific to your culture or a misconception on your part. I don't see how the two actions are different when in the same context, except friending someone on FB means you let them not only try communicate you, but observe a certain period of your past and see pictures/videos/posts of yours. I can't see how that's not more demanding in terms of privacy than asking for someone's phone number. I'd ideally go for an e-mail address instead of both of them, but well...
- kgwgk 9y agoBut I would be more concerned about the privacy of the iMessage content on an Android device than on an iOS device.
- forgot-account 9y agoIt’s nice that Apple’s interests and my interests align. It always refreshing when a company puts a lot of effort into structuring their company in such a way that it aligns with users’ beat interests.
- treis 9y agoNote: Above not valid in China
- toomuchtodo 9y agoKnow when to hold, know when to fold.
- darawk 9y agoIt's just co-incidence that they align on this issue, though. They care about user privacy because they happen to make most of their money by selling hardware, not ads or data. But ask them to open up that hardware and let you install your own OS? That's a no. Even something as simple as letting your preferred mapping software be the default. Apple loves privacy and hates freedom. It sure looks like the only thing they actually care about is their financial interest.
- evgen 9y agoApple can make a very good case that your vision of freedom is in opposition to privacy. By preventing certain things you categorize as 'freedom' Apple can provide stronger security and privacy protection, they can limit the ability of untrustworthy developers to sidestep protections, they can make it incredibly difficult to set up side-channels that leak privacy, and they can set OS-mediated protections of device info (GPS, etc) that are difficult to bypass. The fact that this privacy protection happens to be in the financial interest of Apple pleases me, because they are unlikely to sell out long-term interests in protecting reputation for short-term gain in abusing my trust. This alignment of interests makes Apple a better guardian of my privacy, not worse.
- 9y ago
- turboturbo 9y agoIf a company’s business model is aligned with statements by its CEO, I would consider those statements more valid, not less. Apple is putting its money where Tim Cook’s mouth is. That’s a good thing.
- darawk 9y agoThey didn't align their business model in order to further privacy, though. It just happened to shake out that way. If Apple cared in the slightest about issues like this, they wouldn't make it impossible to control your own hardware when you buy an iPhone.
- jpttsn 9y agoThat’s Apple cared only about issues like this. In the slightest is too narrow. Plausibly they care for many things and trade them off.
- darawk 9y agoThat's fair. My point is only that self-interest explains more variance here than caring about privacy. They may genuinely care about privacy to some degree - just as i'm sure Google and Facebook do. They both just care about profit more, and for Google/FB, those things come into conflict. For Apple they don't.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- glhaynes 9y agoYour stance seems unfalsifiable. If a company did exist that cared more about their values than profit, how would you recognize it? But more importantly: who cares? We’re not judging whether Tim Cook oughta get into heaven. People seem highly driven by the profit motive, arguably more than by most other motives. If Apple’s goals are aligned with mine and motivated by profit so they’re likely to be careful to keep from damaging their reputation... great!
- gaius 9y agoApple, Microsoft and Amazon will be perfectly unperturbed when the so-called “attention economy” goes away. They are real companies offering real goods and services.
- earenndil 9y agoI don't know about completely. They still all show ads and collect user data. But they will be less affected than some others (google).
- htormey 9y agoI think it will hit them as well, just not to the same extent as Facebook & Google. Microsoft owns LinkedIn, which is an advertising company. I also seem to recall that they make a reasonable chunk of change from search advertising and other online properties. According to this link they took in a little over 6 billion in advertising revenue last year: https://www.statista.com/statistics/725388/microsoft-corporation-ad-revenue/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/725388/microsoft-corpora... According to this link, amazon took in somewhere in the region of 1.7 billion in revenue from mainly advertising last quarter alone: https://www.statista.com/statistics/725388/microsoft-corporation-ad-revenue/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/725388/microsoft-corpora...
- ModernMech 9y agoMicrosoft for example has several billion dollar businesses aside from Windows, Office, and enterprise. Their Surface and Xbox hardware, for example, pulls in that much revenue each. They'll be fine.
- donttrack 9y agoYeah, Google and Facebook are not tech companies. They are mainly ad companies run by social justice activists. Their only purpose is to stuff ads down peoples throats.
- gaius 9y agoGoogle could exist in a diminished form off their cloud and office suite. But e.g. GMail is not a viable business without slurping user data.
- eight_ender 9y agoI get where you're coming from, but I'm not sure that matters to me personally. Privacy and security are important to me, and that's what Apple is selling, so I'm going to buy. The more consumers support privacy as a selling feature, the more Apple will guard it. I'll gladly pay a premium to a company that has a vested interest in keeping my shit safe, and a straightforward business model of keeping me happy enough to sell me more shiny things.
- darawk 9y agoI don't disagree. I'm not trying to discourage anyone from buying their products. If you care about privacy, absolutely, buy an iPhone. I'm just trying to point out that their caring about privacy comes as much from a place of greed and fortunate coincidence than anything else.
- eight_ender 9y agoI'm not sure it's fortunate coincidence, seems like Apple chose this path. As for greed, well, they're a corporation. That's a given. They're driven to profit by their very nature. If you need a phone you choose one, or you build one yourself.
- macspoofing 9y agoIt's a cynical view but valid. It's not like Apple made a decision to be a non-player in social media for moral reasons - they just never got around to it because of the insane profits they got from selling iPhones.
- kerng 9y agoCorrect. They didn't build a business model around doing something unethical, which eventual can get the entire company in trouble - so great strategic leadership I'd say.
- millstone 9y agoOf course Google will tell you that cigarettes cause cancer and climate change is a threat: they don't sell tobacco or drill for oil! They're just looking out for their own interests. Apple actively chooses to not pursue these revenue streams even though they have the resources and reach to do so.
- darawk 9y ago> Apple actively chooses to not pursue these revenue streams even though they have the resources and reach to do so. I disagree. Apple can't compete in those spaces effectively because they're already owned by Google/FB. Microsoft has similar resources to Apple, and they tried to compete with Google on search - look how that turned out. Even Google can't compete with FB in social, look at Google Plus. Apple has, intelligently, recognized that they cannot compete in that space. So they aren't trying. They are then using that to their advantage, by focusing on privacy, which is something their competitors cannot focus on. It's a perfectly legitimate strategy, and there's nothing wrong with them doing that. I support it wholeheartedly. On the contrary however, it is not in Apple's strategic interest to give users's sovereignty over their devices. In both cases, their behavior aligns not with user interests, but with their own. Being financially self-interested better explains the sum total of Apple's behavior than any interest in user well-being.
- cdancette 9y agoMicrosoft azure is not going so bad, and it started in a space where amazon was far ahead. A large head start doesn't mean that you can't compete, it depends largely on the space.
- darawk 9y agoYou're completely right. I didn't mean to imply that you can't compete with a head start. What I meant to imply was that in social/search specifically, it's extremely difficult to compete, due to the virtuous cycles of networks and data.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- rimliu 9y ago"Unwall the iPhone garden"—you mean allow anyone to access things like SMS, or chat logs as was the case on Android? In that case I very much like those walls, thank you.