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Apple are no better data hoarders. A personal anecdote - last year I tried to (for the first time) use an iPhone. First of all, why do we need to "activate" it
by jakobdabo 8y ago
Apple are no better data hoarders.
A personal anecdote - last year I tried to (for the first time) use an iPhone. First of all, why do we need to "activate" it? What's wrong with just turning it on and using?
Then comes data collection, they wouldn't allow me to use my smartphone without a SIM card (I couldn't use my old SIM in that moment because it was not in the micro format). So, you can't "activate" your iPhone and use it as wifi-only device, they want your SIM card's data first.
OK, trying again with an old inactive SIM card from the drawer, now they want my full name, my email, my telephone, my birthday and my address. Why though? I decided to play their game and entered bogus data and a temporary email address. Now they want me to confirm the email and the telephone. Just let me use it already! I managed to confirm the email (the unconfirmed telephone number was nagging in the notifications area), and hooray, I already could use some of my phone and get online.
Next comes the iTunes account. If you want to install any app from the store you must have an iTunes account. Again, full name, telephone, address, zip code, etc.. In the end it refused to register (maybe some algo detected my bogus data which I didn't even try to make it look legit) and it just suggested to contact their support.
This is when I reseted it and decided to return it.
- davymac 8y ago“No better”? I’ll disagree there. “This is when I reseted it and decided to return it” - I respect this. I’m honestly very curious what you’ve decided on in its place.
- guitarbill 8y ago> I’m honestly very curious what you’ve decided on in its place. Me too. I'm looking for something with good privacy and good security, including things like anti-imaging or timely security updates for at least 3 years (don't change my phone very often). Seems like I could either buy Apple, maybe flash LineageOS (what a pain), or not use a smartphone.
- jakobdabo 8y agoA combination of a dumb phone and a wifi tablet with LineageOS.
- jarjoura 8y agoSIM card activation lock is required by phone carriers as a precondition to sell you the phone. You can create a bogus iTunes account by using gift cards and creating an anonymous account with that. At that point, yes the device is linked back to an account, but it's just as opaque as say, Reddit is. Beyond that, Apple doesn't even require you to sign into use the device. You can take photos and use Maps, and even surf the web all without any kind of account.
- dkonofalski 8y agoThis is flat out untrue. You don't need to provide any of that information to Apple in order to activate an iPhone. I know this because I've had to activate a phone (iPhone 7) that's on the latest OS with a dead SIM card and was able to bypass both the iCloud step and the iTunes account step without entering any info. There seems to be a lot of this willful misinformation being posted around this article. I wonder why HN is now getting inundated with this anti-Apple nonsense.