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That that didn't generate more of a hubbub back then and seemingly didn't stay in people's memories for long is a real mystery to me (and a great boon to Apple!

by tpush 5y ago

That that didn't generate more of a hubbub back then and seemingly didn't stay in people's memories for long is a real mystery to me (and a great boon to Apple!).

andrepd 5y ago
Well you can see people in HN are very keen to defend Apple as being the world's most privacy friendly tech company, despite no evidence in that direction :)
- josephg 5y ago
  Their record isn't perfect, but there's plenty of evidence Apple cares about privacy. For example, Apple added E2E encryption of iMessages long before signal and whatsapp made E2E popular. They also E2E encrypt the location of AirTags - which they absolutely did not need to do. Or the recent opt-in iOS data sharing rules - much to Facebook's frustration. But companies, like governments, countries and people are not wholly good or bad. Companies don't think with a single mind, or act with a single voice by default. They're a flag waved by thousands of different people who each have a different background, different capabilities and who each make slightly different ethical and financial tradeoffs. Google is a massive contributor to opensource. And they harvest vast amounts of user data. And they use far less of it for advertising targetting than they could, out of respect for their users. Google makes some of their most valuable IP - Android and Chrome - (mostly) opensource and open platforms. They suspend users' accounts for silly reasons, and have a bad habit of shuttering services people care about, to the point where I generally avoid new google products to prevent heartache. Apple makes beautiful devices. And they do a good job caring about user privacy. And the iOS app store is a rent-seeking monopoly designed to maximise profit, where they pull crap like this. They have given the world llvm. And their design leadership invented the modern smartphone. Without them android might still be trying to emulate the blackberry. Apple deserves praise for their privacy friendly technology. And they deserve criticism for how they run the app store. I see no contradiction there.
  - pydry 5y ago
    >Google makes some of their most valuable IP - Android and Chrome - (mostly) opensource and open platforms. This was out of market necessity. They likely wouldn't have open sourced either if they thought they could have dominated the market without it. Moreover, with both of these products they're drip feeding more and more functionality into closed source appendages (e.g. google play services). Their end goal is likely to ensure that if they did de-open source the whole lot, it wouldn't be possible to just fork it.
    - scarface74 5y ago
      What most people consider “Android” - open source + all of Google’s proprietary add ons is not open source. A true AOSP only phone would not sell in any kind of volume in the US. Google yields a lot of power over Android based on its add ons. Every major tech company open sources software that doesn’t impact its compatibility and encourages adoption of its platform.
  - matwood 5y ago
    I was going to say tech people, but I think more generally people like to view the world in black or white or 0 or 1 when in reality there are few issues that clear. As you stated very well, most of the world exists in the gray. Apple can care about privacy while not being perfect. Privacy can also be good for their bottom line at the same time. Even the App Store policies are not wholly bad or good for users, just a different set of tradeoffs, some of which as you say deserve criticism.
    - ksec 5y ago
      I need some time to come up with an augment against that. But the tone and message with privacy differs a lot between Steve Jobs's Apple and Time Cook's Apple. I cant quite figure out precisely what is wrong but I just smell lots hypocrisy. For example Apple tracks its user within App Store. Which is perfectly fine except their PR make its sounds like they dont.
  - grishka 5y ago
- BoorishBears 5y ago
  > despite no evidence in that direction :) Is this a joke? Anyways, the entitlement Uber had was one thing, it'd be another if they had passed approval while using the entitlement. Afaik it was used for an Apple Watch demo. No one ever found evidence of its use in the main app. It wasn't an entitlement for recording a screen, it was an entitlement for low level graphics access that could then be abused to do so. Had they actually used the entitlement to record screens it'd be one thing, and I take exception with unfair treatment of devs like this, but please. Actually implying Apple has taken 100x the steps of their nearest competitor to maintain privacy on the most used computing devices...
- ASalazarMX 5y ago
  It's like voting politicians: you don't vote for who you think is the best, you vote for the least worse. More so, you don't vote for the candidates you'd want, but for the candidates other groups picked for you. Apple is not doing the best for us, but compared to the alternative (Google), it's less worse.

by tpush 5y ago

That that didn't generate more of a hubbub back then and seemingly didn't stay in people's memories for long is a real mystery to me (and a great boon to Apple!).

andrepd 5y ago

Well you can see people in HN are very keen to defend Apple as being the world's most privacy friendly tech company, despite no evidence in that direction :)

josephg 5y ago
Their record isn't perfect, but there's plenty of evidence Apple cares about privacy. For example, Apple added E2E encryption of iMessages long before signal and whatsapp made E2E popular. They also E2E encrypt the location of AirTags - which they absolutely did not need to do. Or the recent opt-in iOS data sharing rules - much to Facebook's frustration. But companies, like governments, countries and people are not wholly good or bad. Companies don't think with a single mind, or act with a single voice by default. They're a flag waved by thousands of different people who each have a different background, different capabilities and who each make slightly different ethical and financial tradeoffs. Google is a massive contributor to opensource. And they harvest vast amounts of user data. And they use far less of it for advertising targetting than they could, out of respect for their users. Google makes some of their most valuable IP - Android and Chrome - (mostly) opensource and open platforms. They suspend users' accounts for silly reasons, and have a bad habit of shuttering services people care about, to the point where I generally avoid new google products to prevent heartache. Apple makes beautiful devices. And they do a good job caring about user privacy. And the iOS app store is a rent-seeking monopoly designed to maximise profit, where they pull crap like this. They have given the world llvm. And their design leadership invented the modern smartphone. Without them android might still be trying to emulate the blackberry. Apple deserves praise for their privacy friendly technology. And they deserve criticism for how they run the app store. I see no contradiction there.
- pydry 5y ago
  >Google makes some of their most valuable IP - Android and Chrome - (mostly) opensource and open platforms. This was out of market necessity. They likely wouldn't have open sourced either if they thought they could have dominated the market without it. Moreover, with both of these products they're drip feeding more and more functionality into closed source appendages (e.g. google play services). Their end goal is likely to ensure that if they did de-open source the whole lot, it wouldn't be possible to just fork it.
  - scarface74 5y ago
    What most people consider “Android” - open source + all of Google’s proprietary add ons is not open source. A true AOSP only phone would not sell in any kind of volume in the US. Google yields a lot of power over Android based on its add ons. Every major tech company open sources software that doesn’t impact its compatibility and encourages adoption of its platform.
- matwood 5y ago
  I was going to say tech people, but I think more generally people like to view the world in black or white or 0 or 1 when in reality there are few issues that clear. As you stated very well, most of the world exists in the gray. Apple can care about privacy while not being perfect. Privacy can also be good for their bottom line at the same time. Even the App Store policies are not wholly bad or good for users, just a different set of tradeoffs, some of which as you say deserve criticism.
  - ksec 5y ago
    I need some time to come up with an augment against that. But the tone and message with privacy differs a lot between Steve Jobs's Apple and Time Cook's Apple. I cant quite figure out precisely what is wrong but I just smell lots hypocrisy. For example Apple tracks its user within App Store. Which is perfectly fine except their PR make its sounds like they dont.
- grishka 5y ago
BoorishBears 5y ago
> despite no evidence in that direction :) Is this a joke? Anyways, the entitlement Uber had was one thing, it'd be another if they had passed approval while using the entitlement. Afaik it was used for an Apple Watch demo. No one ever found evidence of its use in the main app. It wasn't an entitlement for recording a screen, it was an entitlement for low level graphics access that could then be abused to do so. Had they actually used the entitlement to record screens it'd be one thing, and I take exception with unfair treatment of devs like this, but please. Actually implying Apple has taken 100x the steps of their nearest competitor to maintain privacy on the most used computing devices...
ASalazarMX 5y ago
It's like voting politicians: you don't vote for who you think is the best, you vote for the least worse. More so, you don't vote for the candidates you'd want, but for the candidates other groups picked for you. Apple is not doing the best for us, but compared to the alternative (Google), it's less worse.