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Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company

• blatchcorn 7y ago
  Apple is a 'use all of our products, or else we will make life inconvenient for you' company. The fact that this happens to offer some privacy benefits is just a strategy credit[1] [1] https://stratechery.com/2013/strategy-credit/ https://stratechery.com/2013/strategy-credit/
  • 4eleven7 7y ago
    Or "If you use all of our products, you'll reap the benefit of tight vertical integration". I suppose its a cup half full type deal.
  • eklavyaa 7y ago
    I think its still fine, as long as someone can afford it. We can't ask them to be fair its just take it or leave it. These days privacy is a luxury, rather than a fundamental right.
    • wereHamster 7y ago
      > These days privacy is a luxury, rather than a fundamental right. The EU things differently. For us privacy is very much a fundamental right, such as right for access to clean water/air, right for free access to information (internet) etc.
      • loriverkutya 7y ago
        Last time I checked Facebook was still selling our data to Cambridge Analytics and whoever they wanted to and tracking us around the whole internet. So on paper it is, in practice not so much.
      • xvector 7y ago
        And yet Google and Facebook still regularly invade privacy and build shadow profiles of users.
        • wereHamster 7y ago
          We have laws against murder and yet people commit it all the time. What kind of argument are you trying to make? Both Google and Facebook have been hit with lawsuits in the EU. The laws are there and companies violating them are being punished. One could argue that the punishment is not large enough, if companies still repeatedly violate the laws. It'll take some time though until we see whether companies change their stance on privacy. One company which doesn't need any 'encouragement' is Apple, that's pretty clear now.
          • stef25 7y ago
            Did anything ever come of this? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-belgium/facebook-loses-belgian-privacy-case-faces-fine-of-up-to-125-million-idUSKCN1G01LG https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-belgium/facebook...
        • afiori 7y ago
          Whether what they are doing is legal or will go unpunished remains to be discovered. In the meanwhile there is a considerable increase in public awareness of (e.g.) how creepy facebook is (I know that the biggest facebook competitor is instagram, but there is a real difference between how people interact with the two platforms and also in expectations on how much public your profile and post are)
          • stef25 7y ago
            > In the meanwhile there is a considerable increase in public awareness of (e.g.) how creepy facebook is Every non tech person I know has some notion of FB being creepy but not a single one has changed their online behavior in any way. Everyone cares until it's actually time to delete your account.
      • eklavyaa 7y ago
        In some countries clean water/air and internet are still luxury my friend
      • stef25 7y ago
        > privacy is very much a fundamental right Looks good on paper but in reality what's being done about it? Apart from a few token court cases. People are still dumping their data wholesale in to social networks and EU is mostly powerless when faced with these companies (FB, Google). > right for access to clean water/air Here in Brussels you can't throw a rock without hitting 10 diesel cars that come with almost every desk job and include free diesel no questions asked. They spend most of their time sitting in some of the worst traffic in Europe. Air quality is constantly at the worst end of the scale, both indoors and outdoors and takes years off your life. At the same time there's more and more calls for regulation of Lime scooters. EU cares but mostly just pats itself on the back for churning out reports.
  • SXX 7y ago
    I'm not in any way an Apple fan and only look at their ecosystem via VM, but I curious. What company have more convenient integration of both own proprietary services and 3rd-party one? As I see it with Apple you can be at least fairly sure their products going to have good integration within their closed-garden ecosystem. With anyone else not even this is guaranteed and you'll likely be bombarded by ads. I'm among the guys who use FOSS everywhere and it's just hard to setup and maintain own infrastructure like Desktop+Laptop+Phone+Cloud+Services integration. So I wonder if you know better options.
    • robjan 7y ago
      I can use Google Drive on pretty much anything. Now try using iCloud Drive on an Android...
      • killjoywashere 7y ago
        Seriously... Even Microsoft came around to putting Office on Android. Apple? Nowhere to be seen.
        • close04 7y ago
          Because it makes no financial sense for them. MS’s Office is ubiquitous and has a market beyond the borders of a specific OS. Apple’s solution isn’t nearly as competitive as Google’s or MS’s. It’s a “better than nothing” approach as far as I can tell. Even Google’s solution only competes because of the synergy with the ecosystem (Android), not because of technical superiority. It’s similar to the reason MS stopped making a mobile OS. And if you’re wondering, Google’s solution also integrate pretty poorly with the competition’s products, if they can get away with it. But in their case it’s not because it doesn’t make sense, it’s to force people into using G stuff. Maybe this will change if Apple guarantees some privacy features but without solid technical features to compete, it’s still a tough sell.
        • johannes1234321 7y ago
          Why should they? They want to sell you the Apple experience, where iCloud is fully integrated. Integration into Android will be half backed, which gives a bad impression. Microsoft failed with their Windows mobile strategy and uses a different playbook, trying to get everything in Azure, no matter the specific client.
  • dijit 7y ago
    Not sure how true this is. I run my own infra (caldav,carddav,imap/smtp) and all of it intergrates seamlessly into iOS and macOS. I tried the same on android and it did not work seamlessly with anything except google services. Sure, their own stuff works better with their own stuff, and yes, the watches can't be configured without a phone, but that's also true of android.
    • josteink 7y ago
      Could you outline what kind of problems you had with android and integration? In my experience android is the superior platform for plugging in your own modules and your own data where you want it.
      • dijit 7y ago
        The way you describe it; I would agree. You can "do anything" on Android, but this leads to poor implementations for common things. What I'm referencing is that the OS and Apples own applications are built to support what I would be consider very sane defaults (as in, it supports me doing my own thing, without the need for plugins/modules). My experience is that on Android I had to have many third-party integrators to get things up and working, and they were very poor quality and would run in the background murdering my battery life. (and I had to pay for it: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=at.bitfire.davdroid&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=at.bitfire.dav...) IMAP/SMTP Were less of a problem but it always /felt/ very third party when using tools for that purpose, where google mail was truly first class. On iOS I don't feel this way at all, once I had push notifications set up the experience was identical (if not a little better with my own server due to apples SMTP servers getting overloaded). So, you're right when you say that Android is more modular and supports stronger composibility of the system. But the experience of actually using it is so incredibly poor that even with Apple doing it's bullshit (no small phones, no headphone jack, protruding camera) I have very little inclination to go back- the "feeling" I get is that it's funnelling me to third parties, whether it be google or samsungs awful "samsung cloud ecosystem"
        • josteink 7y ago
  • Angostura 7y ago
    > 'use all of our products, or else we will make life inconvenient for you' company. I see them more as the 'use all of our products and we will make life convenient for you' company.
• nanokilo 7y ago
  They’re offering privacy, yes, but not as a service. They’re still very much in the business of selling devices to their customers, and this business model is incidentally one of the main reasons they, unlike Facebook or Google, can afford to offer such comprehensive privacy measures.
• amelius 7y ago
  Their marketing campaign ("what happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone") is of course providing a false sense of security ...
  • pulse7 7y ago
    This message is a big lie... there were many cases, where police got the data about "what happened on your iPhone"... How can they say such untruth? Can one sue for such untruth in marketing in US?
  • qrbLPHiKpiux 7y ago
    With Apple apps, sure. With third party apps, no.
    • amelius 7y ago
      Well, Safari is an Apple app. And Onion browser for Tor isn't.
• adarsh_thampy 7y ago
  Apple's strategy is simple. They want to retain control over their customers; at the same time, force the developers into relying entirely on Apple as a middle man so that they can't cut Apple out of any transactions. This way, Apple gets their cut and user's get some level of privacy. That they can get away with this arm-twisting as "privacy" is to give credit to their brand positioning.
  • threeseed 7y ago
    You can release a free app and sell subscriptions through real world means e.g. advertising, PR. You control the customers and you pay Apple nothing. So this idea that Apple is forcing developers to do anything is nonsense.
    • ubersync 7y ago
      This is totally incorrect. If you have an app on Apple store and sell subscripttions through your website, or other means, Apple forces you to sell the same subscriptions through their store.
      • rahoulb 7y ago
        I use Spotify, FreeAgent, Toggl, Zoom, Pipedrive, Asana and Trello (plus Basecamp previously) on my iOS devices - and pay for all of those through the respective websites without any option to pay in the App Store. (Edit: I know Spotify used to have an option for it but they dropped that and I never used it anyway)
      • dmitriid 7y ago
        It doesn’t force you, but if you don’t, you can’t even tell people how to subscribe. See Spotify, Kindle.
        • threeseed 7y ago
          You can tell people how to subscribe outside the app. But you just can't use Apple's own platform against them.
• nafizh 7y ago
  Lots of negativity/skepticism here which is reasonable I would say given tech companies' abuse of our trust. I for one, am happy that Apple can afford to offer privacy as one of its strong suites. Whether they can do it because of their business model or not is moot IMO. Everyone is here to make money, I would rather have someone who doesn't have to sell every aspect of my life to do it.
  • grumdan 7y ago
    Whether it's because of their business model is an important question though, because it may tell us if we this has a good chance of being genuine and whether we can expect this to last. If it's in their financial interest to protect users' privacy, then I'm much more inclined to believe that they are actually trying to do that. If they right now appear to care about privacy, but it's for some other reason, I'd expect financial motives to eventually overrule that.
    • secfirstmd 7y ago
      Am I the only person we thinks Apple might be setting itself up to take a shot at a private, secure, ad-free, paid for social media play? I mean there are a growing number of people leaving Facebook (ok mostly for Instagram and WhatsApp) who would be willing to pay a few dollars a month to have an advert free experience in a private social media network.
      • ianai 7y ago
        I don’t see it being foretold by their actions, but you have a point. I hope they keep out of social media though. It would bring them within distance of becoming yet another bad privacy actor. I also prefer the separation of my apple account and such things.
      • scarface74 7y ago
        They have failed at every attempt at social media.
• kkarakk 7y ago
  Give me an example of Apple not bowing down to chinese censors and i just may believe you. https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/25/18020508/how-china-complicates-apples-chest-thumping-about-privacy https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/25/18020508/how-china-compl...
  • RantyDave 7y ago
    But that's censorship - and Apple are not aligning themselves to any "free speech" kinda line.
• yholio 7y ago
  It's a devil's bargain: now we have to choose between walled gardens that offer some privacy and extract their revenue from lock-in, and more open systems that live off spying our data. Truth be told, the software development cost of these systems (Android and iOS) is not that huge, a reasonably good open source alternative could probably be created for less than a billion dollars, knowing how financially efficient are open source projects compared to commercial companies. That's a few cents per smartphone user per year, for the next decade, negligible compared to hardware costs. If this order of magnitude funding could be secured for a well organized open source project, we could have the best of both worlds, a truly open ecosystem with privacy at it's center.
  • zimpenfish 7y ago
    > the software development cost of these systems [...] is not that huge > probably be created for less than a billion dollars I don't think I've worked anywhere that's put more than $500M into a single software project. That is "huge" cost. (Except maybe Yahoo! but even then I'm not sure.)
    • yholio 7y ago
      Something like an Android clone is a conglomeration of many, many different projects.
      • jethro_tell 7y ago
        getting an OS up an running on a phone is easy, its the backend services and building an eco system that will/has sunk a few companies that have attempted it.
    • cromwellian 7y ago
      They're sunk costs now though. How much more needs to be added to Mobile OSes? Can't they just innovate functionality though installed apps?
      • 7y ago
• ngcc_hk 7y ago
  It is good to have alternative. Except in china I guess. That place seems somehow everyone is making exception like people are different kind of human. They are the same human. Should have the same human rights.
  • kmlx 7y ago
    from wikipedia on human rights: > The onset of the Cold War soon after the UDHR was conceived brought to the fore divisions over the inclusion of both economic and social rights and civil and political rights in the declaration. Capitalist states tended to place strong emphasis on civil and political rights (such as freedom of association and expression), and were reluctant to include economic and social rights (such as the right to work and the right to join a union). Socialist states placed much greater importance on economic and social rights and argued strongly for their inclusion.
• thefounder 7y ago
  Still they were/are part of PRISM so keep in mind that the privacy offered depends by various U.S agencies.
  • pulse7 7y ago
    Yes - they were part of it - and they are saying "What happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone."... so they are effectively lying... It would be better not to say anything...
    • marvin 7y ago
      They're constantly pushing you to upload your data to ICloud as well -- I apparently must have consented to upload an entire backup of my phone there recently, because I can't remember saying yes to this, but there it is. So even if my data was private while it was on my phone, it's not any more.
      • scarface74 7y ago
        There is nothing forcing you to back up to iCloud and yes it does ask you. You can still as of now back up using iTunes.
        • saagarjha 7y ago
          Or not back up at all, if you like making poor choices.
        • deleted 7y ago
          [deleted]
    • gnode 7y ago
      I took this to mean: we can't legally guarantee your privacy for anything not on your own device; nobody can. Their claim seems to be that private data is kept on the device (from https://www.apple.com/privacy/ https://www.apple.com/privacy/ ), and protected by encryption within the user's control. By designing the software such that private data stays on the device, it can't be gotten without targeted physical access (and perhaps coercing the user's passcode from them), rather than scooping up everyone's data from the cloud, unbeknownst to the users, and unauditable to security researchers. That said, I'm not sure how much trust I'd place in Apple, but at least this security model is to some extent auditable.
• fluffycat 7y ago
  Sure sure, If you avert your gaze from China.
• p4bl0 7y ago
  I still can't access Techcrunch and other Oath website on mobile. Instead of the article I land on a GDPR cookie page and I can only say "OK" there is no way for me to refuse tracking or turn off part of the cookies like on every other websites. WTF?
• hesarenu 7y ago
  They had to focus on privacy to separate out from the competition. Also this distracts the focus on walled garden criticism and freedom to own the devices.
• zaro 7y ago
  Is it only me imagining some kind of scenario where, if this gains traction, suddenly 3rd party developers will have to share revenue with Apple for being able to use the Apple sign in.
• paulcarroty 7y ago
  Apple makes good products, but they build closed ecosystem for premium price. So, I not use they products, maximum run macOS in VM sometimes. And if will be forced to use a smartphone (maps in new city for example), it will be iPhone, 'cause I prefer privacy vs "open source with spy" by Google.
• zoobab 7y ago
  Not open source, and if it was, the cloud is someone's else computer.
• zahrc 7y ago
  I’ve been in this circlejerk of hating apple for its very expensive and closed environment. I’ve been using windows and android for years, until I started working in security which actually made me realize how vulnerable data is and how certain providers and services treat their consumer data and that privacy comes with a price. I switched to an iPhone XR now and I couldn’t be happier, even tho I wish some of the features would be implemented for other platforms, especially Linux and windows. I’m not saying that apple is completely trustworthy nor perfect, but in the end it’s an compromise I’m willing to make, when the other choice is google/Samsung.
• LiamMcCalloway 7y ago
  Are we so brainwashed that we barely can feel outrage at a title like this? How about privacy as a basic human right?
  • kotrunga 7y ago
    why was this downvoted? I think that privacy, to a point, should be a basic human right as well.
  • cftorres 7y ago
    Finally I've found at least one coment related to this point. Everyone seems so atonished because of a new alternative for monetization, they forgot that privacy is a right that tech companies must fulfill. We are running fast towards a content distopy.
  • MBCook 7y ago
    Until the government decides it’s a right, which they don’t seem to be doing (license plate scanners, facial recognition, etc) it’s not a right. So this is the best we get.
• b1daly 7y ago
  I don't think there's any need to pretend Apple is marketing this simply as a virtuous act. They have competitive advantages in some areas, and not in others. They are taking advantage of such an advantage.
• olivermarks 7y ago
  My cynical side read this as cheap/free = google/android who own your data in return for their services vs expensive = Apple who are selling you some degree of perceived privacy baked into the operating systems of their primarily hardware offerings, which you pay more for.
  • lotsofpulp 7y ago
    Why is that cynical?
  • wycy 7y ago
    Sure, but that's the always-acknowledged reality. Either you're paying for the product, or you are the product.
    • bluntfang 7y ago
      I think reality is more along the lines of: you are the product or you're paying for the product and you're also the product.
    • t0t4lnoo3 7y ago
      > Either you're paying for the product, or you are the product. Where would you place an app like Signal?
      • satyenr 7y ago
        Will signal continue to be free if they have a billion users like WhatsApp? Who will fund the infrastructure and development?
  • freehunter 7y ago
    Are Apple phones really more expensive though? Yes you can get cheaper Android devices, but the hardware that competes against iPhones still costs roughly the same as an iPhone. A Galaxy S10 costs $900, an iPhone XS costs $999. Cloud storage from Google costs $10/TB, iCloud storage costs $10/TB. Apple Music costs $10/mo for one person, $15 for families. Google Play Music costs $10/mo for one person, $15 for families. You can get Android phones that are cheaper than iPhones, but that's just a function of Apple not competing in the mid and low end of the market. Comparable phone hardware is comparably priced and comparable services are comparably priced. So in that case it's more of a tradeoff of expensive and selling your data vs expensive and not selling your data.
• bashwizard 7y ago
  That's all fine and very good for the consumer. Now they just have to get the fuck out of PRISM and I'll start taking them seriously in the privacy realm.
  • merpnderp 7y ago
    Do they have an option? It was my understanding that national security letters are involved.
    • RantyDave 7y ago
      That's not the point though. Either they can offer privacy, and have a way by which the whims of the government cannot affect that, or they can't.
      • freehunter 7y ago
        That's why Apple puts so much emphasis on functions working on your phone and not in the cloud. At the keynote they said "this happens on your phone and nothing is sent to Apple" at least half a dozen times. If it's stored on your phone, it's not subject to Prism and is encrypted so the government can't pry through it at will.
• craigsmansion 7y ago
  Next up: Aaas, Anonymity as a service... The bottom line is, only you care about your privacy, because you're the only one who can care about your privacy. You can do that by voting, and by running Free Software. Effective privacy and anonymity are based on control:control of your software, control of your hardware, control of your life. Everyone asking you for control in exchange for anonymity or privacy does not necessarily have your best interest at heart. Apple's business model is about monetising control, and now they're extending that by ostensibly selling some of that control back to you. Apple will only grant you privacy as long as it doesn't interfere with them taking control.
  • DonHopkins 7y ago
    Daas: Doxing as a Service, on an Open Identity Marketplace (meBay). Users can selectively sell their anonymity and personal information, consensually doxing themselves to the highest bidder, and Apple gets a 30% cut.
    • pxtail 7y ago
      Applause, that's how disruptive unicorns are invented.
• tanilama 7y ago
  Paraphrase it: you are paying Apple a premium to not sell your data.
  • TheRealDunkirk 7y ago
    And I, for one, am OK with that. I'm glad there's a vendor who is baking a device's lifetime of backchannel personal data "monetization" into the upfront price, and I keep my privacy.
  • leowoo91 7y ago
    .. in obvious way.
• dancemethis 7y ago
  Yeah, right. And I'm Napoleon. There is no privacy with proprietary software.
• buboard 7y ago
  The ‘service’ here is the apple developer subscription of $100/year. Apple is pandering to its beloved developers here, because, let s be real, the public doeskin care.
• riazrizvi 7y ago
  Apple delivers privacy from 3rd party developers and at the same time retains all that user data for itself, shoring up its unfair competitive advantage as a non-neutral-platform who makes major forays into its partners’ businesses. Eg health apps, maps, news, podcasts, imusic, etc, etc.
  • nabla9 7y ago
    User data has less value for Apple. The main economic incentive to collect massive amounts of user data comes from two-sided market (users and advertisers). Google, Facebook are in that market.
  • saagarjha 7y ago
    Health data is end-to-end encrypted.
• hsnewman 7y ago
  Declaring your something doesn't mean your that. Show me.
• nadc 7y ago
  From reading the developer documentation it looks like developers need to implement & maintain Sign In with Apple as a new SSO method: https://developer.apple.com/sign-in-with-apple/ https://developer.apple.com/sign-in-with-apple/ When I read the keynote highlights I assumed Apple were extending the existing (iCloud) Keychain/Safari integration to include username generation, and obfuscated email generation resolving to your iCloud account. Since they implemented 2FA codes auto filling in the QuickType bar in iOS 12, they could've extended this UX further, or used 'Siri suggestions' to complete email verification. I assume they didn't take this approach as it's harder to present a consistent call to action to initiate sign up, but it seems like a missed opportunity to me. Does anyone know of a password manager that allows you to generate unique email addresses as a part of the core UX?
  • davidy123 7y ago
    Ideally, they would work with Solid, a standards based approach to decentralized identity, to provide a general solution, rather than creating yet another new one.
    • nadc 7y ago
      I find Solid incredibly interesting academically, and watch it with interest, but I'm sadly skeptical that it'll find traction— it requires both substantial development resources (as apps need to be rewritten to its standards) and a change in consumer behaviour. I'm reminded of this Steve Jobs response from WWDC 1997 [1]: > One of the things I've always found is that you've got to start with the customer experience and work backwards for the technology. You can't start with the technology and try to figure out where you're going to try to sell it. And I made this mistake probably more than anybody else in this room. And I got the scar tissue to prove it. The beauty of the implementation I described is that it could work with any existing (web) app with little-no development effort while leveraging affordance users already have from using Touch/Face ID to authenticate Keychain, Apple Pay etc. Until a proposal like Solid is widespread, I'd love for a browser/password manager vendor I trust (for me, Mozilla or Apple) to integrate with a privacy-forward email vendor for unique email addresses to provide a less 'fingerprinted' approach to auth, useful today with all legacy (web) apps. [1] https://youtu.be/FF-tKLISfPE https://youtu.be/FF-tKLISfPE
• afpx 7y ago
  When I was a teen, my uncle, who was an executive at Oracle at the time, yelled at me for admitting on a medical form that I smoked pot. I said, "But, it's confidential, right?". He told me, "It may be confidential now, but it won't always be. Databases are forever." Apple won't be a privacy company in 10 or 20 years.
  • hellofunk 7y ago
    I think we are living at just the dawn of a long and very privacy obsessed era, that will probably become more intense as the decades pass, and the generations. I don’t see why a company that pounces on this reality now won’t be still successful at it decades from now.
    • the_resistence 7y ago
      Decentralized zero trust can't come quickly enough. The evil do'ers are afraid but have the upper hand for now.
    • afpx 7y ago
      Because, eventually, Apple will lose revenue, and their shareholders will demand profit. And, Apple will be sitting on a trove of data, or metadata, or predictive models built from that data.
      • hellofunk 7y ago
        That sounds speculative. Why will they lose revenue eventually? Do you think 40 years from now they will be in a worse position than today? After all, they are today in a better position than 40 years ago. Perhaps a privacy-focused company will actually perform better in a society obsessed with privacy, and eventually, their competitors who don't share these perspectives will be the ones that lose revenue. All we can do is speculate.
        • afpx 7y ago
          It’s not speculation, just logic. Shareholders seek as much profit as possible. The moment that being PrivAAS is worth less than not being one, they’ll switch strateg
• snickmy 7y ago
  I feel Apple is abusing their dominant position (single app store) to force all the developers to implement & maintain Sign In with Apple as a new SSO method: https://developer.apple.com/sign-in-with-apple/ https://developer.apple.com/sign-in-with-apple/ I'm really curious to see how this will fly with the Antitrust
  • ojilles 7y ago
    I suspect perfectly fine, actually. Why would this somehow trigger just above a certain threshold?
• nunbit 7y ago
  I don't undersand many of your comments here. Also couldn't belive my fucking eyes when i saw Apples' billboard "What happens on your iphone, stays on your iphone" Everyone already forgot so quickly about, vulnerability bruteforcing with Cellebrite, Greyshift - Greykey or Apples' active PRISM involvement? All those prove their billboard is bullshit. Nobody minds that Apple probably until this very day doesn't even know what was or still is exploited by Cellebrite? And yet many of you happily hail Apple for privacy? It's closed source - that's why unsecure by default and anything they say cant't be proven only blindly trusted by stupid. I am waiting for upcoming Linux phones now which are gonna be only privacy guaranteed phones. Apple is again manipulating simple and stupid people showing them shiny brushed objects and promises that they won't be able to keep because they are fucking closed source which goes against the whole privacy bullshit they try push so much. Good luck people just buy those iphones than watch how law enforcement and maybe soon your employers extract your data. CCTV and IP Cameras spying and data collection are everywhere. Fucking GDPR is useless. Try to sue someone for gdpr violations than let me know how many years it took you to get justice if at all. You people will never learn do you?
• mcv 7y ago
  It's good to see at least one tech giant wants to compete on privacy, rather than selling our data. It's great that Apple does this. And yet, I find the Apple ecosystem closed and restrictive. I'm not eager to get an iPhone and would much rather use something like Lineage OS, for example.
• kfrzcode 7y ago
  Is there an existing alternative service (read: FOSS) that would auto-generate temporary emails and manage identity for services like "Login with Apple"?
  • paxys 7y ago
    There are lots of temporary email services, most or all of which are blocked by major sites.
  • rikkus 7y ago
    Using a password manager and a catch-all domain works fine for me. I don't use the federated systems (any more - I used to use Google) - I just make up an email address for anything I want to sign up for and save the credentials.
• digianarchist 7y ago
  If Apple really wants to help me then they need to create a product to wean me off Gmail.
  • saagarjha 7y ago
    iCloud has a mail service.
    • neilalexander 7y ago
      It's feature-lite though, by comparison.
• snrji 7y ago
  This headline is pure propaganda.
  • temptemptemp111 7y ago
    Yep, and we can always just scroll to the end of the thread with show-dead 'on' for all of the censored truth.
• paxys 7y ago
  I am clearly in the minority here but I think "Sign in with Apple" is terrible for consumers. You keep your email address hidden from service providers, sure, but you are also placing your online identity entirely in the hands of Apple. If you get on the wrong side of Apple's algorithms, there is zero recourse. At least in the case of Facebook and others the third party still has your email address so you can always start using that to identify yourself.
  • srfilipek 7y ago
    > If you get on the wrong side of Apple's algorithms, there is zero recourse. I don't follow what you're implying.
    • pedrocx486 7y ago
      If Apple decided you're a bot and deletes your account, everything tied to it will also go.
      • redbergy 7y ago
        This is true for Google, Facebook, and Twitter logins as well. It's a valid criticism for using any third party authentication provider (which I personally avoid and will be avoiding Apple's).
        • paxys 7y ago
          The login provider doesn't store the service account itself, so it's possible to "eject" your account and use some other sign in mechanism as long as you have control over the email address.
    • CamelCaseName 7y ago
      I think I understand the GP. Let's say I sign up for an online game using Apple's secure sign in because I don't want to share my information. Some time passes, and I've invested 250 hours into the game, when Apple decides to ban my account for whatever reason (perhaps I've refunded too many apps, maybe the credit card that pays my Apple Music expires, my country gets sanctioned by the US gov. etc.) Apple would, presumably, shut down email services for me. Meaning, I won't be able to log into that game any longer. With no alternative log in method (which would defeat the purpose of using Apple's sign in) I would likely lose access to that game forever.
• mlang23 7y ago
  Apple was the first company to take accessibility seriously. And that is definitely a market where it likely didn't make a lot of revenue, if any at all. Just consider this, if you think every niche market is irrelevant.
• jasonsync 7y ago
  I for one, am happy that Apple can afford to offer privacy as one of its strong suites. But can you afford to buy it?
  • throwayEngineer 7y ago
    Spend 2x on a lower quality product, and Apple won't share my obsession with Microcontrollers and tall girls? Oh I'm so torn
• fyoving 7y ago
  It's worth remembering that Apple's privacy spin began with people noticing that Siri is a joke and other ML powered functions in Apple's software are not nearly as good as the competition's, so the company line basically became "our software sucks because we don't spy on you" and because tech journalists are predisposed to hate everyone else and really love framing their stories as rivals dueling they gladly adopted that narrative.
  • mft_ 7y ago
    My read (at the time) was that it was simply a clear play against Google/Android, as their main competitor in the mobile space.
  • hi5eyes 7y ago
    I love how during the keynote the only real mention of siri was hey we use neural text to speech to improve the sound of the voices, otherwise yeah siri is still a shitshow that being said... I've had a macbook pro/ipad combo since like 2012 haha...
  • TomVDB 7y ago
    Why is that worth remembering when the end result, being privacy conscious is much more important than the reliability of Siri?
    • fyoving 7y ago
      Says who? Personally I prefer sophisticated software that works to this ill conceived fear mongering notion of privacy.
      • TomVDB 7y ago
        We all have our own preferences. But whatever they are, that still doesn't mean that Apple failure with Siri as alleged reason to focus on privacy is relevant when the end result is better privacy.
  • tibyat 7y ago
• pidg 7y ago
  As a non-iOS user, can someone explain what is happening in this image?: https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/20190603174213_461726.jpg https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/2019060317... Does the 'X' mean "selected" or "don't share"?
  • MichaelApproved 7y ago
    I'm am iOS user and I have no idea. Could it mean that it's mandatory to share? As in, it's selected and you can't unselect it? These types of ambiguous toggles drive me nuts.
    • EduardoBautista 7y ago
      It's just to clear the text.
      • MichaelApproved 7y ago
        I doubt that's it. First, it's the same size and shape and position as the selectors below. Second, the usual "clear text" X only shows up when the input box is in focus. That doesn't look to be the case in the picture.
        • jfaat 7y ago
          I think it is to clear the text, thus not giving your full name to the app. I assume when the email is selected it’s not filled with an x but a check mark.
        • deleted 7y ago
          [deleted]
  • lucaspm98 7y ago
    From my iOS experience I would expect the 'X' to delete all of the text in the field, but it's very confusing considering the toggles below it.
• saulio-g 7y ago
  They’ve been building up to this point, taking this lead by presenting at EU data conferences in Brussels, and calling for stronger US data protection law. Facebook on the other hand, has announced they are now a Privacy focused company (whilst appealing the Cambridge Analytica fine of £500k) and gearing up with legal teams. Not walking the walk. I wouldn’t say they are a privacy-as-a-service company, I’d suggest they are a company that are future proofing their revenue streams by enforcing privacy rules on their development / APP environment. Remember Apple control their environment. It’s a closed shop. So perhaps these changes are really protectionism against Regulation.
• appleshore 7y ago
  Except the iOS Mail app is so exceptionally bad one is forced to use Gmail or another app.
  • saagarjha 7y ago
    Anecdote: I’ve been using the iOS Mail app exclusively ever since Inbox shut down. I don’t feel “forced” to use another app at all.
• YeahSureWhyNot 7y ago
  I highly doubt apple isnt collecting inform on users of their services, they just aren't letting anybody else access it. Its matter of time before Apple builds something that uses all the info they have collected.
• inevitable2 7y ago
  Insanity.... plus hackernews has been posting a ton of Apple propaganda. How rude of you, trading the quality we appreciate for money. Every body has a price...apparently even hackers and their news/
• Corrado 7y ago
  I've been an Apple fan for a long time but for the past 10 years or so I've been using more Google products. Well, I think that is changing. Google is proving itself more and more untrustworthy and Apple is moving in the right direction. For example, I've been using Android phone ever since the second iPhone came out and have been very happy. I signed up for Google Fi as soon as I could and have been rocking a Nexus or Pixel device every since. However, this PaaS push by Apple, and Google's more recent announcements, have pushed me over the edge. I want to get cameras on my home. I want to sign up for things using email. I want to be able to use my personal devices without having to worry that law enforcement can back-door them. I think Apple is the only company that is taking this seriously and can be trusted to do it right.
• tambourine_man 7y ago
  “Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company”… as well. Assuming it’s its defining characteristic is a bit over the top
• cftorres 7y ago
  I don’t get how this is a value proposition. Privacy should be included in any service related to technology and data. It’s not a plus, they are trying to charge for an obligation. We are losing our rights for the creation of new markets.
• KrishMunot 7y ago
  I rather pay Apple with my money than the other companies with my privacy to use their product
• randall 7y ago
  Control f "china". Nothing. I have a hard time trusting anything that doesn't message how iMessage is end-to-end secure but Apple operates in China. Nobody has ever talked about that.
• Razengan 7y ago
  I love this. Apple is one of the only companies (alongside perhaps Mozilla) with the brand muscle to get away with shooing third-party vultures away from a user's implicit information, like the new protections against inferring your location through IP addresses, the option to share your location only once, and enforcing other restrictions like requiring "Sign In With Apple" on all apps that offer Facebook/Google sign-in. [0] Some developers may balk at giving up all that tasty data, but as a user, this is GREAT. Regardless of how you feel about Apple on the whole, who else do you think can afford to put their foot down against predatory practices in favor of the user? [0] https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=06032019j https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=06032019j
• pmontra 7y ago
  In other news "Apple’s privacy reputation at risk with new iTunes class-action lawsuit" > The plaintiffs allege that a third party can purchase a list of iTunes customers based on different demographic requirements, like a list of unmarried people who have a taste for a particular genre of music: > The lawsuit further alleges that the third-party beneficiaries of this listening data match it to other sensitive personal information gathered about iTunes users from various sources, and then resell that information on the open market. [1] https://thenextweb.com/business/2019/05/27/apples-privacy-reputation-at-risk-with-new-itunes-class-action-lawsuit/ https://thenextweb.com/business/2019/05/27/apples-privacy-re...
  • graeme 7y ago
    Do they have any evidence? The prices listed are 13 cents per itunes user. That seems an awfully low price for apple to throw away its privacy reputation.
  • r00fus 7y ago
    Their main claim revolves around "iTunes & Pandora data" based on a 3rd party aggregator's claims. Interesting that they mention Pandora - is that how the data got exfiltrated/aggregated? All the claims in the suit mention "publicly available information" but the references given don't present actual harm to the class. It'd be very unlikely to me that this class action goes anywhere.
• bbcfake 7y ago
  Ballshaite company is apple
• A7med 7y ago
  NSA probably have full access to the backend of this service
• eoinmurray92 7y ago
  And you need to pay an absolute premium for this pricacy - I've plotted the price of iPhone prices increase here and even after adjusting for inflation the price growth is really high. Especially if you look at the flagship phones https://kyso.io/eoin/iphone-prices https://kyso.io/eoin/iphone-prices
• bhhaskin 7y ago
  The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.
• tzakrajs 7y ago
  But Tim Cook said they were a Health Services company. What if privacy is part of human health?
• thatoneuser 7y ago
  ITT people who are blowing off privacy as though it's not valuable while simultaneously talking about Apple lock in like they're the only company to do that. Idk what yall are on but privacy is valuable to most of us. That comes with a cost and it's not hard to see why - selling private data is how companies make more profit while charging less than apple. Don't wanna pay? You lose privacy. Want privacy? You pay. It's that simple. At last apple gives an option, meanwhile idk how Facebook and Google and all don't face regulation for the egregious privacy violations they commit.