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Why is this titled this way? This is not inherent or specific to iPhones. The title should really be "Apps can do whatever you let them including send your data

Why is this titled this way? This is not inherent or specific to iPhones. The title should really be "Apps can do whatever you let them including send your data to unknown servers". This is the worst kind of piggyback article out there. It's piggybacking on another, more detailed source and it's using the term "iPhone" just to be more sensationalized.

iamnotacrook 7y ago
"Why is this titled this way? This is not inherent or specific to iPhones." My guess is that it's because that's what the article is about. Specific, named apps (for example "DoorDash"), running on an iPhone, and sending specific, named data ("device name, model, ad identifier and memory size") to other companies servers. So it's a very accurate title. It's bizarre to complain about this with whatabout statements. It's like reading an article about soldiers from a given country killing civilians and saying that we already knew this, and that soldiers from other countries do it too. So what? This story is about this specific instance of it.
- dpkonofa 7y ago
  Ok but that entire insinuation is disingenuous. The article is taking a statement that Tim Cook made about what happens on an iPhone users phone in terms of Messages, FaceTime, and Apple Pay and is attempting to apply it to the entire App Store when that's never ever been the argument Apple's making. If anything, Apple is the only company that's tried to educate users about their data and isn't actively seeking to make a profit off that data. And even your "whatabout" complaint seems disingenuous. This is more like reading an article that says that the US government is killing innocent civilians and then someone pointing out that the civilians were actually killed by an individual that worked for a contracting company that the US government hired. You can't, in good faith, make the connection that the actions of an individual somehow equate to the actions of the whole organization just because there was some tangential relationship. Apple doesn't do this. Full stop. Specific apps do it and they do it regardless of the platform. This has nothing to do with Apple and the article, source and re-post, are simply dragging Apple into it for clickbait headlines.
  - SomeOldThrow 7y ago
    What's the point of the walled garden to the end user if they don't use it to stop behavior like this? The entire pitch was that it allowed quality control. Without that it's just blatantly getting a cut of other people's work.
    - dpkonofa 7y ago
      The walled garden isn't some impenetrable fortress, though. It does allow quality control and that is shown time again and easily seen when you compare the Apple App Store against the Google Play store, for example. All Apple is verifying, though, is that the app is coming from who it says it's coming from. It's these companies themselves that are selling the data to third-party companies. Unless Apple can someone predict and detect this reliably for every app, the onus of responsibility should be on the companies and their developers, not on Apple.
  - iamnotacrook 7y ago
    "simply dragging Apple into it for clickbait headlines." The headline doesn't mention Apple at all. It's about iPhone apps. Your desire to defend Apple ("...the only company...actions of an individual....Apple doesn't so this"). is causing you to lose sight of the point of this story. The story is about iPhone apps communicating with unknown servers. You're welcome to write your own story about how good Apple is at stopping iPhone apps communicating with unknown servers, but that isn't what this story is about.
    - dpkonofa 7y ago
      Now you're being disingenuous or just flat-out lying. The title and headline of the story is literally "It’s the middle of the night. Do you know who your iPhone is talking to? - Apple says, 'What happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone.' Our privacy experiment showed 5,400 hidden app trackers guzzled our data — in a single week." It's taking something that Apple said out of context and applying their actions to it as if they're somehow being duplicitous.
awinter-py 7y ago
apple has been promoting themselves as the safe and private operating system. Tim Cook would probably argue that it's not newsworthy when android apps steal from you. Articles like this put apple's claims in context: even if the OS is nicer to you, it's hard to tame the apps.
- coldcode 7y ago
  Nothing to do with Apple at all, if apps call services it can call anything at any time, some companies even hide things while Apple is reviewing then turn them on later. No way for Apple to know you are calling https://sometwiddle.com https://sometwiddle.com is nefarious or not, at runtime. At least in iOS the app has to ask for specific permissions to access things the app should not get without informing the user. But what it does with the info you give it permission to is not something Apple can control.
  - bonestamp2 7y ago
    > No way for Apple to know you are calling https://sometwiddle.com https://sometwiddle.com is nefarious or not, at runtime They could blacklist the common tracking app's domains/IPs. It might be futile since I'm sure they'd jump IPs daily/hour/etc if they need to. Perhaps they have a better way to detect them during app approval. Either way, the point is that Apple is trying to combat tracking in safari but it seems like they've completely missed this attack surface and that might be why they're being targeted. But you're still right that a better article would also investigate Android apps since they're surely doing the same thing.
  - gubbrora 7y ago
    Hypothetically they could require developers to show up in person to their genius bar with government ID. There you would sign a legal agreement. If you are found to have breached the agreement they'd then call in a swat team to shoot your dog and put you in the rape cage for the rest of your days. Hypothetically.
    - dang 7y ago
SomeOldThrow 7y ago
Probably because you have agency to restrict this on other platforms.
dahfizz 7y ago
Because apple constantly markets the iPhone as a private and secure device. "What happens on an iPhone stays on an iPhone" is a blatant lie.

iamnotacrook 7y ago

"Why is this titled this way? This is not inherent or specific to iPhones." My guess is that it's because that's what the article is about. Specific, named apps (for example "DoorDash"), running on an iPhone, and sending specific, named data ("device name, model, ad identifier and memory size") to other companies servers. So it's a very accurate title. It's bizarre to complain about this with whatabout statements. It's like reading an article about soldiers from a given country killing civilians and saying that we already knew this, and that soldiers from other countries do it too. So what? This story is about this specific instance of it.

dpkonofa 7y ago
Ok but that entire insinuation is disingenuous. The article is taking a statement that Tim Cook made about what happens on an iPhone users phone in terms of Messages, FaceTime, and Apple Pay and is attempting to apply it to the entire App Store when that's never ever been the argument Apple's making. If anything, Apple is the only company that's tried to educate users about their data and isn't actively seeking to make a profit off that data. And even your "whatabout" complaint seems disingenuous. This is more like reading an article that says that the US government is killing innocent civilians and then someone pointing out that the civilians were actually killed by an individual that worked for a contracting company that the US government hired. You can't, in good faith, make the connection that the actions of an individual somehow equate to the actions of the whole organization just because there was some tangential relationship. Apple doesn't do this. Full stop. Specific apps do it and they do it regardless of the platform. This has nothing to do with Apple and the article, source and re-post, are simply dragging Apple into it for clickbait headlines.
- SomeOldThrow 7y ago
  What's the point of the walled garden to the end user if they don't use it to stop behavior like this? The entire pitch was that it allowed quality control. Without that it's just blatantly getting a cut of other people's work.
  - dpkonofa 7y ago
    The walled garden isn't some impenetrable fortress, though. It does allow quality control and that is shown time again and easily seen when you compare the Apple App Store against the Google Play store, for example. All Apple is verifying, though, is that the app is coming from who it says it's coming from. It's these companies themselves that are selling the data to third-party companies. Unless Apple can someone predict and detect this reliably for every app, the onus of responsibility should be on the companies and their developers, not on Apple.
- iamnotacrook 7y ago
  "simply dragging Apple into it for clickbait headlines." The headline doesn't mention Apple at all. It's about iPhone apps. Your desire to defend Apple ("...the only company...actions of an individual....Apple doesn't so this"). is causing you to lose sight of the point of this story. The story is about iPhone apps communicating with unknown servers. You're welcome to write your own story about how good Apple is at stopping iPhone apps communicating with unknown servers, but that isn't what this story is about.
  - dpkonofa 7y ago
    Now you're being disingenuous or just flat-out lying. The title and headline of the story is literally "It’s the middle of the night. Do you know who your iPhone is talking to? - Apple says, 'What happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone.' Our privacy experiment showed 5,400 hidden app trackers guzzled our data — in a single week." It's taking something that Apple said out of context and applying their actions to it as if they're somehow being duplicitous.

awinter-py 7y ago

apple has been promoting themselves as the safe and private operating system. Tim Cook would probably argue that it's not newsworthy when android apps steal from you. Articles like this put apple's claims in context: even if the OS is nicer to you, it's hard to tame the apps.

coldcode 7y ago
Nothing to do with Apple at all, if apps call services it can call anything at any time, some companies even hide things while Apple is reviewing then turn them on later. No way for Apple to know you are calling https://sometwiddle.com https://sometwiddle.com is nefarious or not, at runtime. At least in iOS the app has to ask for specific permissions to access things the app should not get without informing the user. But what it does with the info you give it permission to is not something Apple can control.
- bonestamp2 7y ago
  > No way for Apple to know you are calling https://sometwiddle.com https://sometwiddle.com is nefarious or not, at runtime They could blacklist the common tracking app's domains/IPs. It might be futile since I'm sure they'd jump IPs daily/hour/etc if they need to. Perhaps they have a better way to detect them during app approval. Either way, the point is that Apple is trying to combat tracking in safari but it seems like they've completely missed this attack surface and that might be why they're being targeted. But you're still right that a better article would also investigate Android apps since they're surely doing the same thing.
- gubbrora 7y ago
  Hypothetically they could require developers to show up in person to their genius bar with government ID. There you would sign a legal agreement. If you are found to have breached the agreement they'd then call in a swat team to shoot your dog and put you in the rape cage for the rest of your days. Hypothetically.
  - dang 7y ago

SomeOldThrow 7y ago

Probably because you have agency to restrict this on other platforms.

dahfizz 7y ago

Because apple constantly markets the iPhone as a private and secure device. "What happens on an iPhone stays on an iPhone" is a blatant lie.