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I switched from a Bose QC35 to a Sony WH-1000XM3 about half a year ago, and the Sony app on iOS was egregiously requesting permission for location access, even

I switched from a Bose QC35 to a Sony WH-1000XM3 about half a year ago, and the Sony app on iOS was egregiously requesting permission for location access, even while the app is in background. The cited reason for location access sounded rather flimsy and suspicious. Luckily, everything that can be done with the app can also be done with the physical buttons on the headphones. I guess their design philosophy is that if you want the convenience of using an app with the product that you’ve already paid a lot of money for, you’ll need to pay for it with your location info.

hsivonen 7y ago
Pre-GDPR Sony’s terms claimed a very wide scope of data collection (“content” of the device the headphones were connected to) without opt-out UI. It appears that the terms have been narrowed now to cover only the technical attributes of content, such as codec. Is there now a way to opt out of data collection?
noisem4ker 7y ago
What was the "cited reason"?
- eightysixfour 7y ago
  It uses your movement and location to determine what noise-cancelling mode to put the headphones in. It is awful at picking though, not worth the privacy implications or battery life drain.
  - jvolkman 7y ago
    It's more likely just that BLE access in Android requires location permissions. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33045581/location-needs-to-be-enabled-for-bluetooth-low-energy-scanning-on-android-6-0 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33045581/location-needs-...
    - eightysixfour 7y ago
      My info was from the iOS version of the app which does not need Location Services for BLE.
    - derefr 7y ago
      Which, IIRC, is because having BLE access equates to having location permissions, in the sense that you can reconstruct someone’s location from the BLE tags (Bluetooth MAC addresses) you sense, using location correlates of those tags in a separate database you’ve purchased. (This is equivalent to how phones reconstruct their location—in absence of GPS signal—using a wi-fi SSID triangulation database.) Due to the bad layering of the BLE model it’s next to impossible to actually hide from the app the data of what peers are around the device, while still allowing the app to communicate over BLE. This isn’t true of regular Bluetooth, but BLE is solving a harder problem, sort of like how WebRTC is solving a harder problem than HTTP. Still, you’d hope they’d come up with some way to obscure the peer BT MAC addresses or something. Maybe an approach like Apple used with device IDs, where each app sees the device ID hashed with a per-app salt—each app would see a separate list of virtual BT MACs that, when it sent messages to, the OS would translate back to the real MACs. Like BT “file handles”, almost.
imglorp 7y ago
Same, WH-900N. I just used the app to flash updated firmware on the headphones (!) and then deleted the app. It has zero value.
JustSomeNobody 7y ago
On iOS location access is a workaround for being able to kinda stay awake in the background. Some photo sync apps do that so they can (near) constantly sync your photos. On that subject, I really wish Apple would allow me to use photos app to sync with a network share.
- scarface74 7y ago
  https://www.photosync-app.com/home.html https://www.photosync-app.com/home.html
  - JustSomeNobody 7y ago
    From the link: Note: Autotransfer on iOS is "location based transfer" only. I won’t use it because of that. But thanks.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      I only saw one instance of the word “location” on the entire page. Transfers original files and preserves EXIF metadata including location data in all directions. What is “location based transfer”?
      - JustSomeNobody 7y ago
        In the autotransfer section. Click learn more.
        scarface74 7y ago
        Ok. What’s wrong with that? Wouldn’t you want a file transfer to your own server happen when you are at home? If you are worried about the privacy implications, when an app tells iOS that it wants to be notified when it is in a certain location. It doesn’t get your location until you are there. It doesn’t have the ability to continuously track you.
javajosh 7y ago
A company should exist that simply takes wonderful products, removes the offending bits, and resells them, perhaps at a premium. Both headphones are really good, and I certainly would pay a $100 premium if the maker was "one of the good ones" and provided, e.g., an optional, open-source app with minimal permissions.
- ImprovedSilence 7y ago
  I'm 100% right there with you. But the inner pessimist in me isn't holding my breath. Said new company would perhaps start with an excellent and wholesome mission statement, make some great products and then take on funding, need to experience exponential growth, maybe have an IPO, and eventually betray it's users in the quest for "maximizing shareholder value" and providing a "better user experience". If it can happen to Google it can happen to anyone... Also, can I even buy a sound bar for my TV that doesn't listen to me and need an internet connection these days... It's unreal the unneeded complexity and bullshit they put in some electronics. The real heroes the world needs are just independent founders that use slow growth over several generations and never sell the business, thus minimizing incentives other than having a lifestyle business and making great stuff. But the money is just too tempting eventually, or the business just isn't feasible at that scale.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    Google was never “wholesome”. Their business model from day one was to collect user information and sell ads.
    - derefr 7y ago
      For the first few years of its life, Google (nee BackRub) was a business-model-less company that just ran a search indexer. They looked like they were heading toward the Inktomi model of selling their compiled search-index (or access to their index data warehouse) to companies to use. Google Ads came later, and was honestly quite a shock to everyone who was telling their friends that Google is an unalloyed good as the new AltaVista.
windexh8er 7y ago
I own the WH-1000XM2 (same app for both models) and the reason the app requests location is for a singular feature called 'Adaptive Sound Control'. This feature lets the app change sound profiles based on where you are, so yes - location access is required. Stating that this is "their design philosophy" is a stretch here. I realize Sony doesn't have a stellar track record but in their defense if you don't use 'Adaptive Sound Control' the app does not and will not try to enable Location access unless you turn said feature on and the app doesn't already have access. So, no - you don't need to pay for the convenience of Sony's app by allowing Location access as it's not required but for a singular feature that is fundamentally based around setting profiles based on your location.
- woadwarrior01 7y ago
  > So, no - you don't need to pay for the convenience of Sony's app by allowing Location access as it's not required but for a singular feature that is fundamentally based around setting profiles based on your location. I reinstalled the app to see if I was misremembering it. The app requests for always on location information upon installation and pairing with the headphones. The garden path in the UX of the app is to allow location access. If the user chooses to not allow location access by tapping the tiny "Later" button, the main screen prominently features a Switch control (which is off) for Adaptive Sound Control, tempting the user to toggle it on, which requests always on location access. Given all of this, it's very difficult to interpret this "feature" in a favorable light. Fortunately, the app's privacy policy[1] does not seem to mention anything about them collecting location information (but they do claim to collect "country or region"). On the other hand, the manual for the app[2] also has no mention of it requesting always on location access either, which doesn't inspire much confidence. Not to mention the 27 month data retention policy and the policy of sharing with their "affiliates". After having read the privacy policy, I'm glad I chose not to use the app and will continue to do so. [1]: https://musiccenter-cdn.meta.ndmdhs.com/headphones/pp/20190305/pp/hpc_pp_en.html https://musiccenter-cdn.meta.ndmdhs.com/headphones/pp/201903... [2]: https://helpguide.sony.net/mdr/hpc/v1/en/index.html https://helpguide.sony.net/mdr/hpc/v1/en/index.html
  - sosborn 7y ago
JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> I switched from a Bose QC35 to a Sony WH-1000XM3 about half a year ago, and the Sony app on iOS was egregiously requesting permission for location access I did too, and I stopped using them largely because of the amount of information the app collects. If this lawsuit gets a class certified, an analog for Sony might be something I look into.
lovedva 7y ago
How do the two compare, which do you like better?

hsivonen 7y ago

Pre-GDPR Sony’s terms claimed a very wide scope of data collection (“content” of the device the headphones were connected to) without opt-out UI. It appears that the terms have been narrowed now to cover only the technical attributes of content, such as codec. Is there now a way to opt out of data collection?

noisem4ker 7y ago

What was the "cited reason"?

eightysixfour 7y ago
It uses your movement and location to determine what noise-cancelling mode to put the headphones in. It is awful at picking though, not worth the privacy implications or battery life drain.
- jvolkman 7y ago
  It's more likely just that BLE access in Android requires location permissions. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33045581/location-needs-to-be-enabled-for-bluetooth-low-energy-scanning-on-android-6-0 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33045581/location-needs-...
  - eightysixfour 7y ago
    My info was from the iOS version of the app which does not need Location Services for BLE.
  - derefr 7y ago
    Which, IIRC, is because having BLE access equates to having location permissions, in the sense that you can reconstruct someone’s location from the BLE tags (Bluetooth MAC addresses) you sense, using location correlates of those tags in a separate database you’ve purchased. (This is equivalent to how phones reconstruct their location—in absence of GPS signal—using a wi-fi SSID triangulation database.) Due to the bad layering of the BLE model it’s next to impossible to actually hide from the app the data of what peers are around the device, while still allowing the app to communicate over BLE. This isn’t true of regular Bluetooth, but BLE is solving a harder problem, sort of like how WebRTC is solving a harder problem than HTTP. Still, you’d hope they’d come up with some way to obscure the peer BT MAC addresses or something. Maybe an approach like Apple used with device IDs, where each app sees the device ID hashed with a per-app salt—each app would see a separate list of virtual BT MACs that, when it sent messages to, the OS would translate back to the real MACs. Like BT “file handles”, almost.

imglorp 7y ago

Same, WH-900N. I just used the app to flash updated firmware on the headphones (!) and then deleted the app. It has zero value.

JustSomeNobody 7y ago

On iOS location access is a workaround for being able to kinda stay awake in the background. Some photo sync apps do that so they can (near) constantly sync your photos. On that subject, I really wish Apple would allow me to use photos app to sync with a network share.

scarface74 7y ago
https://www.photosync-app.com/home.html https://www.photosync-app.com/home.html
- JustSomeNobody 7y ago
  From the link: Note: Autotransfer on iOS is "location based transfer" only. I won’t use it because of that. But thanks.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    I only saw one instance of the word “location” on the entire page. Transfers original files and preserves EXIF metadata including location data in all directions. What is “location based transfer”?
    - JustSomeNobody 7y ago
      In the autotransfer section. Click learn more.
      - scarface74 7y ago
        Ok. What’s wrong with that? Wouldn’t you want a file transfer to your own server happen when you are at home? If you are worried about the privacy implications, when an app tells iOS that it wants to be notified when it is in a certain location. It doesn’t get your location until you are there. It doesn’t have the ability to continuously track you.

javajosh 7y ago

A company should exist that simply takes wonderful products, removes the offending bits, and resells them, perhaps at a premium. Both headphones are really good, and I certainly would pay a $100 premium if the maker was "one of the good ones" and provided, e.g., an optional, open-source app with minimal permissions.

ImprovedSilence 7y ago
I'm 100% right there with you. But the inner pessimist in me isn't holding my breath. Said new company would perhaps start with an excellent and wholesome mission statement, make some great products and then take on funding, need to experience exponential growth, maybe have an IPO, and eventually betray it's users in the quest for "maximizing shareholder value" and providing a "better user experience". If it can happen to Google it can happen to anyone... Also, can I even buy a sound bar for my TV that doesn't listen to me and need an internet connection these days... It's unreal the unneeded complexity and bullshit they put in some electronics. The real heroes the world needs are just independent founders that use slow growth over several generations and never sell the business, thus minimizing incentives other than having a lifestyle business and making great stuff. But the money is just too tempting eventually, or the business just isn't feasible at that scale.
- scarface74 7y ago
  Google was never “wholesome”. Their business model from day one was to collect user information and sell ads.
  - derefr 7y ago
    For the first few years of its life, Google (nee BackRub) was a business-model-less company that just ran a search indexer. They looked like they were heading toward the Inktomi model of selling their compiled search-index (or access to their index data warehouse) to companies to use. Google Ads came later, and was honestly quite a shock to everyone who was telling their friends that Google is an unalloyed good as the new AltaVista.

windexh8er 7y ago

I own the WH-1000XM2 (same app for both models) and the reason the app requests location is for a singular feature called 'Adaptive Sound Control'. This feature lets the app change sound profiles based on where you are, so yes - location access is required. Stating that this is "their design philosophy" is a stretch here. I realize Sony doesn't have a stellar track record but in their defense if you don't use 'Adaptive Sound Control' the app does not and will not try to enable Location access unless you turn said feature on and the app doesn't already have access. So, no - you don't need to pay for the convenience of Sony's app by allowing Location access as it's not required but for a singular feature that is fundamentally based around setting profiles based on your location.

woadwarrior01 7y ago
> So, no - you don't need to pay for the convenience of Sony's app by allowing Location access as it's not required but for a singular feature that is fundamentally based around setting profiles based on your location. I reinstalled the app to see if I was misremembering it. The app requests for always on location information upon installation and pairing with the headphones. The garden path in the UX of the app is to allow location access. If the user chooses to not allow location access by tapping the tiny "Later" button, the main screen prominently features a Switch control (which is off) for Adaptive Sound Control, tempting the user to toggle it on, which requests always on location access. Given all of this, it's very difficult to interpret this "feature" in a favorable light. Fortunately, the app's privacy policy[1] does not seem to mention anything about them collecting location information (but they do claim to collect "country or region"). On the other hand, the manual for the app[2] also has no mention of it requesting always on location access either, which doesn't inspire much confidence. Not to mention the 27 month data retention policy and the policy of sharing with their "affiliates". After having read the privacy policy, I'm glad I chose not to use the app and will continue to do so. [1]: https://musiccenter-cdn.meta.ndmdhs.com/headphones/pp/20190305/pp/hpc_pp_en.html https://musiccenter-cdn.meta.ndmdhs.com/headphones/pp/201903... [2]: https://helpguide.sony.net/mdr/hpc/v1/en/index.html https://helpguide.sony.net/mdr/hpc/v1/en/index.html
- sosborn 7y ago

JumpCrisscross 7y ago

> I switched from a Bose QC35 to a Sony WH-1000XM3 about half a year ago, and the Sony app on iOS was egregiously requesting permission for location access I did too, and I stopped using them largely because of the amount of information the app collects. If this lawsuit gets a class certified, an analog for Sony might be something I look into.

lovedva 7y ago

How do the two compare, which do you like better?