6 ms·

> aboyt how much Apple cares about users No company cares about anything. A company is not a person. Apple, because of its privacy-marketing, is incentivized

by _bxg1 7y ago

> aboyt how much Apple cares about users No company cares about anything. A company is not a person. Apple, because of its privacy-marketing, is incentivized to be the privacy player in the market. But only so far as consumers keep them honest about it. They got away with this loophole because it stayed under the radar; if it gets enough attention and enough customers show that it matters to them, it could change. On the other hand, it's possible that because we have a smartphones duopoly, Apple only needs to maintain a position where people will say "well at least it's not as bad as Google". I'm upset about this personally, but I'm not ditching my iPhone. Of course, this does cement my decision to never pay for iCloud, for what that's worth (much less, but not nothing).

giancarlostoro 7y ago
> On the other hand, it's possible that because we have a smartphones duopoly, Apple only needs to maintain a position where people will say "well at least it's not as bad as Google". I'm upset about this personally, but I'm not ditching my iPhone. Of course, this does cement my decision to never pay for iCloud, for what that's worth (much less, but not nothing). Agreed, and I am likely going away from Android and into iOS for my next phone. It's still a setting you can change so it's not forced into their cloud thankfully. I wish Microsoft hadn't backed out. A Surface Phone would be kind of cool. I guess too much stigma about Microsoft has held them back from being competitive. I think they shoulda waited for their Microsoft Store to grow much more organically, then release the Windows Mobile phones. The other issue is Google's agreements.
- berkes 7y ago
  I'd argue that Android, without the Google stuff, is still the best option if you care about privacy and security. This is not accessible for average Joe, but I'm pretty certain the majority of readers here can use the tools to load an alternative ROM. That you can enable and use F-droid just fine. And are knowledgeable enough to know what apps to avoid.
  - mtgx 7y ago
    First off, it's useless to talk about "Android" because it ranges from phones literally bought with malware on them from stores to something like CopperheadOS (now GrapheneOS). But let's say we talk about Pixel phones, on which typically Google doesn't invade your privacy much more than it does on any other phone through its preinstalled apps, but at least it lacks additional OEM-installed spyware. A Pixel phone is not more privacy-friendly than an iPhone, not even close. But in this particular context, I do believe Google now allows encrypted backups of phone data with your own key. But, other than that, Pixels still leak data from all pores.
  - michel-slm 7y ago
    Ironically, the best phones to do that are Google's own Pixels - to give credit where it's due, at least the phones have unlockable bootloaders (unless you buy the Verizon variants). eg GrapheneOS currently only supports Pixel 2, 3 and 3a: https://grapheneos.org/releases https://grapheneos.org/releases
- _bxg1 7y ago
  They botched the original Windows Phone through a failure of management. They botched subsequent pushes on it because the bootstrapping problem around apps had grown too deep. At this point, if they tried to give it another go, there would be trust issues: "Am I investing in a phone ecosystem that's going to be dead in a few years?" Not to mention how much they've gone all-in on Android development. A Surface-branded Android phone wouldn't be out of the question, but my gut tells me it would die a quiet death from thin margins and differentiators that aren't big enough for people to get excited.
  - danieldk 7y ago
    They botched the original Windows Phone through a failure of management This. I had some Windows Phones besides my iPhones, because I liked very much what they were doing. Windows Phone 7, despite being technically weak (it was based on Windows CE), had an awesome UI. Nokia had some really affordable phones that were really well-built for the price and Windows Phone was getting traction. Quite a few friends/colleagues bought a Windows Phone, because it was the hip thing after the iPhone. The development story was also great, they used .NET and XAML (IIRC), which also made it possible to demo applications on web pages through Silverlight. Then they screwed over all the early adopters by completely deprecating Windows Phone 7, doing one final release (7.8). None of the Windows Phone 7 devices were upgraded to Windows Phone 8. Most of the traction they had up till that point was lost and they were basically starting over with Windows Phone 8. Windows Phone 7 was already late to the market, the hard WP8 cut set them back even more years. And then it was simply too late. There were technical reasons for WP7 -> WP8 (such as moving to the NT kernel, adding multi-processing support). But the hard cut was a catastrophical mistake. Either they should have started with the NT kernel in the first release or they should have had a gradual migration route from WP7 to WP8.
    - _bxg1 7y ago
      And underpinning all of that was the unfortunate fact that this truly innovative and lively new area of development at Microsoft found itself happening at the tail end of Ballmer's tenure. There was this spark of energy around Zune, and then Kin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Kin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Kin), and then Windows Phone that was just completely orthogonal to the stagnant money-printing strategy that Microsoft followed before Nadella. It was this little glimpse of an Apple-like spirit somewhere deep in the behemoth. It was exciting. But it was always treated as a side thing instead of being placed front-and-center. It's now been diffused into Microsoft's various consumer products, most obviously the Surface, but Windows Phone was already dead by the time things started to change. Aside: despite all the jokes about it, the Zune (2nd gen and forward) was awesome. It was a little late to the game - it really nailed the traditional mp3/video player right when the iPod touch had just come out - but I think it may've been the peak of that category. Everything from the UX to the hardware buttons was so meticulously considered, the screen was much bigger than an iPod Video, it had momentum scrolling that worked really well despite lacking a touch screen, etc. It did not at all feel like a Microsoft product of the time. It was even one of the first services to offer all-you-can-download, subscription-based music. And you could download songs over WiFi.
- bergie 7y ago
  > A Surface Phone would be kind of cool. They've announced that they'll release a Surface phone this year. But it'll run Android.
anoncake 7y ago
A company does care about things in that it has objectives.
rootsudo 7y ago
But a corporation is a person.
- seagullz 7y ago
  The inconsistency in that is telling. Corporations demand the rights of persons, yet do not tend to shoulder the responsibilities that come with it [0]. Given how gigantic they are, the consequences are way too costly for the society. [0] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/02/if-corporations-are-people-they-should-act-like-it/385034/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/02/if-corp...
  - _bxg1 7y ago
    I think the GP was being sarcastic
ehsankia 7y ago
Isn't Android at this point a more secure OS? The price for zero days at least is signaling that.
- _bxg1 7y ago
  As far as I know the consensus is still that iOS is more secure. Of course there are different definitions of that. Certainly Android is more ripe for abuse by apps downloaded from the store, for example; they can run freely in the background and do things like draw UX over other apps. Also, privacy != security. iOS is absolutely in a better position on privacy, even after this new development.
  - lern_too_spel 7y ago
    iOS has been worse for privacy for a very long time. You cannot even develop apps for your own device without telling Apple who you are or download apps without creating an Apple account. You cannot get your location without also sending it to Apple. Android suffers from none of these problems.
- guitarbill 7y ago
  It could be signalling one is a far more attractive target to exploit, because e.g. harden shell, soft interior (M&M architecture). Or maybe Apple patches quicker and gets them out quicker, so exploit lifetime is shorter. Just to be clear, I don't know if that's true, but it's equally plausible explanation for the exploit price
  - _bxg1 7y ago
    That's a good point- there are nine times as many Android devices out there as iOS devices, making exploits for the former more valuable in certain ways.
    - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
      The people with iOS devices probably have 9-times the money mind you?
vkou 7y ago
> No company cares about anything. A company is not a person. You're splitting hairs over the definition of 'cares'. I think we all understand what that word means in this context.
- _bxg1 7y ago
  > I think we all understand what that word means in this context. No, we don't, and that's exactly the point. We tend to anthropomorphize companies. "Good Guy Google" has become "Evil Google". "Micro$oft" has become "Altruistic, OSS Microsoft". Apple has become "Defender Of Privacy". But all of these are illusions created by marketing departments; there is no real sentiment behind any of them that can be used to predict future behavior. And it takes constant vigilance to remind yourself that those narratives are empty.
  - drdeca 7y ago
    Persons [edit: I don’t mean in the legal sense] they are not, but do you think it is reasonable to model companies as non-person _agents_? (In the sense of “thing which has goals/preferences, (and beliefs?) and acts so as to further those goals/preferences”.) If it is useful to model such organizations as non-person agents, then while they of course would not “care”, in the sense of emotions, about things, it would be coherent to say that such an organization e.g. “has protecting privacy as a goal”. Err, I guess I’m eliding the distinction between “being useful to model as an agent” and “being an agent”, which may be a mistake. I suppose what I should say is “if it is useful to model as an agent, it is useful to treat as coherent the claim that it has goals of e.g. privacy stuff.” .
- post_below 7y ago
  Even at this late date in the advance of capitalism I think it's still a useful reminder. With all of the carefully crafted marketing aimed at bypassing the forebrain and making people feel as though corporations care, it doesn't hurt to keep the fact that they don't at the forefront of the conversation.
  - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
panarky 7y ago
> No company cares about anything It's a common misconception that corporations are amoral incentive-driven machines impervious to ethics, morals or mission. Corporations are run by leaders. Many leaders choose to pursue unethical and immoral activities to maximize profit. They justify their actions by saying "it's just business", or "we have a fiduciary duty to the stockholders to maximize earnings per share by whatever means necessary". Other leaders realize that an ethical purpose can often deliver outsized profits over the long term. Leaders with a moral mission make decisions that sometimes sacrifice short-term profits with the intent to build an organization and a brand for long term.
- Finnucane 7y ago
  >t's a common misconception that corporations are amoral incentive-driven machines impervious to ethics, morals or mission. Not really, those leaders are pretty quick to hide behind the corporate veil when it's convenient for dodging questions of moral (or even legal) responsibility. The whole point of corporate legal structure is to create an entity that is _separate_ from the humans that occupy offices. That entity is not a person.
  - reroute1 7y ago
    OK, but isn't this largely semantics? Saying Apple doesn't care about customers may technically be true, but that is taking it quite literally. The statement can also be meant to imply the people in Apple care, of course no one would speculate that a non human corporate entity would care. I also largely agree that the Apple meme of privacy being trotted out lately doesn't quite jive with this news, but at the same time surely there are people who care about it at Apple, and maybe as a whole they even prioritize it more than others. But I also don't know how much I really disagree with the FBI's position. In general I have seen this kind of access to be used in the right situations (IE collecting communications of criminals). I understand this can be a slippery slope, but should we trade that for leaving clear evidence against criminals unturned in the name of "privacy"?
    - musicale 7y ago
IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
> No company cares about anything. A company is not a person. Personification is a useful concept. Companies do have some mechanisms that lead to consistently different decisions compared to other companies in similar situation. You're like the thousandth person objecting to the concept of HN, with always the same air of revelatory smartitude. But it's not contrarian insider knowledge. It's simply the inability/unwillingness to understand basic symbolic speech.
jariel 7y ago
"because of its privacy-marketing" No, it's because they can't effectively leverage your data to sell you stuff, they don't need it. Thus follows the privacy marketing. If Apple did find your data useful, they wouldn't be able to leverage that marketing angle. Companies are made up of people, who care about people, and also, corporate objectives are not evil, generally. Working with the FBI might raise your eyebrow, but it may not for others, and it's an ambiguous question to most. In the end, the balance of power has not fundamentally shifted. Most people have little to worry about, some criminals may have more to worry about. Of course the problem arises when innocents are needlessly entangled - hopefully this can be minimised. It's not like the FBI has instant and easy access to your phone, thankfully.
frozenlettuce 7y ago
Agreed. Once a company goes public, it is obliged to maximize its profits. The investors can literally sue you if you don't. So, anything considered legal is on the table.
rayhendricks 7y ago
Apple cares about me paying $999 for another iPhone in a couple years, along with trying to sell me iCloud storage (that sweet, sweet reoccurring revenue). Now I’m never going to purchase iCloud storage because the feds could snoop in it. If there is a more secure alternative available then I’ll go with that. Also iCloud backup is now turned off, no need to enable the surveillance state.
dang 7y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22108429 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22108429.

by _bxg1 7y ago

giancarlostoro 7y ago

> On the other hand, it's possible that because we have a smartphones duopoly, Apple only needs to maintain a position where people will say "well at least it's not as bad as Google". I'm upset about this personally, but I'm not ditching my iPhone. Of course, this does cement my decision to never pay for iCloud, for what that's worth (much less, but not nothing). Agreed, and I am likely going away from Android and into iOS for my next phone. It's still a setting you can change so it's not forced into their cloud thankfully. I wish Microsoft hadn't backed out. A Surface Phone would be kind of cool. I guess too much stigma about Microsoft has held them back from being competitive. I think they shoulda waited for their Microsoft Store to grow much more organically, then release the Windows Mobile phones. The other issue is Google's agreements.

berkes 7y ago
I'd argue that Android, without the Google stuff, is still the best option if you care about privacy and security. This is not accessible for average Joe, but I'm pretty certain the majority of readers here can use the tools to load an alternative ROM. That you can enable and use F-droid just fine. And are knowledgeable enough to know what apps to avoid.
- mtgx 7y ago
  First off, it's useless to talk about "Android" because it ranges from phones literally bought with malware on them from stores to something like CopperheadOS (now GrapheneOS). But let's say we talk about Pixel phones, on which typically Google doesn't invade your privacy much more than it does on any other phone through its preinstalled apps, but at least it lacks additional OEM-installed spyware. A Pixel phone is not more privacy-friendly than an iPhone, not even close. But in this particular context, I do believe Google now allows encrypted backups of phone data with your own key. But, other than that, Pixels still leak data from all pores.
- michel-slm 7y ago
  Ironically, the best phones to do that are Google's own Pixels - to give credit where it's due, at least the phones have unlockable bootloaders (unless you buy the Verizon variants). eg GrapheneOS currently only supports Pixel 2, 3 and 3a: https://grapheneos.org/releases https://grapheneos.org/releases
_bxg1 7y ago
They botched the original Windows Phone through a failure of management. They botched subsequent pushes on it because the bootstrapping problem around apps had grown too deep. At this point, if they tried to give it another go, there would be trust issues: "Am I investing in a phone ecosystem that's going to be dead in a few years?" Not to mention how much they've gone all-in on Android development. A Surface-branded Android phone wouldn't be out of the question, but my gut tells me it would die a quiet death from thin margins and differentiators that aren't big enough for people to get excited.
- danieldk 7y ago
  They botched the original Windows Phone through a failure of management This. I had some Windows Phones besides my iPhones, because I liked very much what they were doing. Windows Phone 7, despite being technically weak (it was based on Windows CE), had an awesome UI. Nokia had some really affordable phones that were really well-built for the price and Windows Phone was getting traction. Quite a few friends/colleagues bought a Windows Phone, because it was the hip thing after the iPhone. The development story was also great, they used .NET and XAML (IIRC), which also made it possible to demo applications on web pages through Silverlight. Then they screwed over all the early adopters by completely deprecating Windows Phone 7, doing one final release (7.8). None of the Windows Phone 7 devices were upgraded to Windows Phone 8. Most of the traction they had up till that point was lost and they were basically starting over with Windows Phone 8. Windows Phone 7 was already late to the market, the hard WP8 cut set them back even more years. And then it was simply too late. There were technical reasons for WP7 -> WP8 (such as moving to the NT kernel, adding multi-processing support). But the hard cut was a catastrophical mistake. Either they should have started with the NT kernel in the first release or they should have had a gradual migration route from WP7 to WP8.
  - _bxg1 7y ago
    And underpinning all of that was the unfortunate fact that this truly innovative and lively new area of development at Microsoft found itself happening at the tail end of Ballmer's tenure. There was this spark of energy around Zune, and then Kin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Kin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Kin), and then Windows Phone that was just completely orthogonal to the stagnant money-printing strategy that Microsoft followed before Nadella. It was this little glimpse of an Apple-like spirit somewhere deep in the behemoth. It was exciting. But it was always treated as a side thing instead of being placed front-and-center. It's now been diffused into Microsoft's various consumer products, most obviously the Surface, but Windows Phone was already dead by the time things started to change. Aside: despite all the jokes about it, the Zune (2nd gen and forward) was awesome. It was a little late to the game - it really nailed the traditional mp3/video player right when the iPod touch had just come out - but I think it may've been the peak of that category. Everything from the UX to the hardware buttons was so meticulously considered, the screen was much bigger than an iPod Video, it had momentum scrolling that worked really well despite lacking a touch screen, etc. It did not at all feel like a Microsoft product of the time. It was even one of the first services to offer all-you-can-download, subscription-based music. And you could download songs over WiFi.
bergie 7y ago
> A Surface Phone would be kind of cool. They've announced that they'll release a Surface phone this year. But it'll run Android.

anoncake 7y ago

A company does care about things in that it has objectives.

rootsudo 7y ago

But a corporation is a person.

seagullz 7y ago
The inconsistency in that is telling. Corporations demand the rights of persons, yet do not tend to shoulder the responsibilities that come with it [0]. Given how gigantic they are, the consequences are way too costly for the society. [0] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/02/if-corporations-are-people-they-should-act-like-it/385034/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/02/if-corp...
- _bxg1 7y ago
  I think the GP was being sarcastic

ehsankia 7y ago

Isn't Android at this point a more secure OS? The price for zero days at least is signaling that.

_bxg1 7y ago
As far as I know the consensus is still that iOS is more secure. Of course there are different definitions of that. Certainly Android is more ripe for abuse by apps downloaded from the store, for example; they can run freely in the background and do things like draw UX over other apps. Also, privacy != security. iOS is absolutely in a better position on privacy, even after this new development.
- lern_too_spel 7y ago
  iOS has been worse for privacy for a very long time. You cannot even develop apps for your own device without telling Apple who you are or download apps without creating an Apple account. You cannot get your location without also sending it to Apple. Android suffers from none of these problems.
guitarbill 7y ago
It could be signalling one is a far more attractive target to exploit, because e.g. harden shell, soft interior (M&M architecture). Or maybe Apple patches quicker and gets them out quicker, so exploit lifetime is shorter. Just to be clear, I don't know if that's true, but it's equally plausible explanation for the exploit price
- _bxg1 7y ago
  That's a good point- there are nine times as many Android devices out there as iOS devices, making exploits for the former more valuable in certain ways.
  - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
    The people with iOS devices probably have 9-times the money mind you?

vkou 7y ago

> No company cares about anything. A company is not a person. You're splitting hairs over the definition of 'cares'. I think we all understand what that word means in this context.

_bxg1 7y ago
> I think we all understand what that word means in this context. No, we don't, and that's exactly the point. We tend to anthropomorphize companies. "Good Guy Google" has become "Evil Google". "Micro$oft" has become "Altruistic, OSS Microsoft". Apple has become "Defender Of Privacy". But all of these are illusions created by marketing departments; there is no real sentiment behind any of them that can be used to predict future behavior. And it takes constant vigilance to remind yourself that those narratives are empty.
- drdeca 7y ago
  Persons [edit: I don’t mean in the legal sense] they are not, but do you think it is reasonable to model companies as non-person _agents_? (In the sense of “thing which has goals/preferences, (and beliefs?) and acts so as to further those goals/preferences”.) If it is useful to model such organizations as non-person agents, then while they of course would not “care”, in the sense of emotions, about things, it would be coherent to say that such an organization e.g. “has protecting privacy as a goal”. Err, I guess I’m eliding the distinction between “being useful to model as an agent” and “being an agent”, which may be a mistake. I suppose what I should say is “if it is useful to model as an agent, it is useful to treat as coherent the claim that it has goals of e.g. privacy stuff.” .
post_below 7y ago
Even at this late date in the advance of capitalism I think it's still a useful reminder. With all of the carefully crafted marketing aimed at bypassing the forebrain and making people feel as though corporations care, it doesn't hurt to keep the fact that they don't at the forefront of the conversation.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago

panarky 7y ago

> No company cares about anything It's a common misconception that corporations are amoral incentive-driven machines impervious to ethics, morals or mission. Corporations are run by leaders. Many leaders choose to pursue unethical and immoral activities to maximize profit. They justify their actions by saying "it's just business", or "we have a fiduciary duty to the stockholders to maximize earnings per share by whatever means necessary". Other leaders realize that an ethical purpose can often deliver outsized profits over the long term. Leaders with a moral mission make decisions that sometimes sacrifice short-term profits with the intent to build an organization and a brand for long term.

Finnucane 7y ago
>t's a common misconception that corporations are amoral incentive-driven machines impervious to ethics, morals or mission. Not really, those leaders are pretty quick to hide behind the corporate veil when it's convenient for dodging questions of moral (or even legal) responsibility. The whole point of corporate legal structure is to create an entity that is _separate_ from the humans that occupy offices. That entity is not a person.
- reroute1 7y ago
  OK, but isn't this largely semantics? Saying Apple doesn't care about customers may technically be true, but that is taking it quite literally. The statement can also be meant to imply the people in Apple care, of course no one would speculate that a non human corporate entity would care. I also largely agree that the Apple meme of privacy being trotted out lately doesn't quite jive with this news, but at the same time surely there are people who care about it at Apple, and maybe as a whole they even prioritize it more than others. But I also don't know how much I really disagree with the FBI's position. In general I have seen this kind of access to be used in the right situations (IE collecting communications of criminals). I understand this can be a slippery slope, but should we trade that for leaving clear evidence against criminals unturned in the name of "privacy"?
  - musicale 7y ago

IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago

> No company cares about anything. A company is not a person. Personification is a useful concept. Companies do have some mechanisms that lead to consistently different decisions compared to other companies in similar situation. You're like the thousandth person objecting to the concept of HN, with always the same air of revelatory smartitude. But it's not contrarian insider knowledge. It's simply the inability/unwillingness to understand basic symbolic speech.

jariel 7y ago

"because of its privacy-marketing" No, it's because they can't effectively leverage your data to sell you stuff, they don't need it. Thus follows the privacy marketing. If Apple did find your data useful, they wouldn't be able to leverage that marketing angle. Companies are made up of people, who care about people, and also, corporate objectives are not evil, generally. Working with the FBI might raise your eyebrow, but it may not for others, and it's an ambiguous question to most. In the end, the balance of power has not fundamentally shifted. Most people have little to worry about, some criminals may have more to worry about. Of course the problem arises when innocents are needlessly entangled - hopefully this can be minimised. It's not like the FBI has instant and easy access to your phone, thankfully.

frozenlettuce 7y ago

Agreed. Once a company goes public, it is obliged to maximize its profits. The investors can literally sue you if you don't. So, anything considered legal is on the table.

rayhendricks 7y ago

Apple cares about me paying $999 for another iPhone in a couple years, along with trying to sell me iCloud storage (that sweet, sweet reoccurring revenue). Now I’m never going to purchase iCloud storage because the feds could snoop in it. If there is a more secure alternative available then I’ll go with that. Also iCloud backup is now turned off, no need to enable the surveillance state.

dang 7y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22108429 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22108429.