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I don’t ever want to hear again how Apple is some champion of privacy and ethics. I’ve lost count of how many scandals have come out of their relationship with

by mhoad 4y ago

I don’t ever want to hear again how Apple is some champion of privacy and ethics. I’ve lost count of how many scandals have come out of their relationship with China from the suicide nets to the repeated investigations showing their supply chain was riddled with slave labor that they would later campaign against protections that would prevent it. Now this. They are fucked as a company, I can’t get out of their ecosystem fast enough.

Tijdreiziger 4y ago
The problem is that the alternative (Google) is worse.
- alphabetting 4y ago
  Pretty sure Google has been mostly out of China since Operation Aurora.
  - falcolas 4y ago
    They're still trying to get back in. See project Dragonfly for example.
    - DashAnimal 4y ago
      Dragonfly was discontinued in 2018, MAYBE mid 2019. That is 3-4 years ago.
      - falcolas 4y ago
        And? They were booted out of China over 12 years ago. 3 years ago isn't that long, in that timeline. Given their known attempts to get back in, it's likely there are other such secret initiatives we don't know about. China represents a huge potential market for Google that their investors won't let leadership forget about.
        sidibe 4y ago
        3 years ago some team was probing reopening search in China and when more employees found out about it they leaked and protested the project, shutting it down. Hardly seems like a point against Google. > China represents a huge potential market for Google that their investors won't let leadership forget about. China represents a huge potential market that Google investors have already given up on because no one is expecting that market to reopen to Google any time soon
    - onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
      Strawman. A large chunk of Apple's revenue comes from China. The majority of assembly occurs in China. Google does a rounding error of business in China - assembly for Nest devices.
      - falcolas 4y ago
        All I've been able to find on "Google moves pixel manufacturing out of China" is rumors. Rumors they were moving some of them to Vietnam. Rumors that they were moving some to India. But no official notification that they've been moved. No notes on their storefront on where the pixel phones are being manufactured. The most convincing article I found was an un-sourced piece from "hothardware" (and nothing shouts legitimacy in a source than a name like that) which says that only the budget pixel phones were actually moved to Vietnam, the high end versions are still in China. As such, I have to assume that their production is still largely occurring in China. I wouldn't mind being proven wrong though. As a side note about the strawman accusation; pointing out Google's attempts to re-enter the lucrative Chinese market when the parent is using their absence to justify the position of "Google's Better" is absolutely relevant.
        jsnell 4y ago
        The fact is that Google left China 12 years ago and never returned. They gave up on the search ad revenue in the world's second largest economy. They gave up on the app store revenue in the world's largest smartphone market. That's a hell of a thing for a big company to do as a matter of principle. Some exec tried to run a project to re-enter China with search, and the project was axed the moment it became widely known in the company. All through that time Tim Cook hasn't just been betting on China for manufacturing, but are addicted to the Chinese revenue. Apple is being held over the barrel by the CCP, both sides know it, and Apple are not doing anything to wean themselves off. As a result, Apple gives user data to Chinese authorities on requests thousands of times per year, and accept the vast majority of data requests [0]. In comparison, Google has given data on 2 accounts in the last decade. [1] Isn't it pretty obvious that we'd like more companies to behave like Google in this situation, and no companies to act like Apple? Why are you trying to tear down the company that's done the right thing in this situation? [0] https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/cn.html https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/cn.html [1] https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/overview?hl=en&user_requests_report_period=series:requests,accounts;authority:CN;time:&lu=user_requests_report_period https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/overview?hl=...
- mhoad 4y ago
  It’s not even a little bit close. Go on… tell me about how Google spent millions lobbying against human rights or worked with authoritarian regimes or had workers killing themselves in such high numbers that they had to reconfigure their workplaces. Google did what Apple should have ten years ago and pulled out of China when faced with similar problems.
  - falcolas 4y ago
    Google builds phones at Foxconn too. Google has also worked on many projects in order to appeal to China's government as well.
    - xvector 4y ago
      Google doesn’t position themselves as some savior of mankind and human rights. They don’t market grandiose claims about privacy and ethics like Apple does. I’m a bit more okay with Google because at least they aren’t lying through their teeth and hoping their customers are dumb enough to believe them.
      - falcolas 4y ago
        > Before Google China's establishment, Google.com itself was accessible, even though much of its content was not accessible because of censorship. > Because of its self-imposed censorship, whenever people searched for prohibited Chinese keywords on a blocked list maintained by the PRC government, google.cn displayed at the bottom of the page (translated): In accordance with local laws, regulations and policies, part of the search result is not shown. Some searches, such as (as of June 2009) "Tank Man" were blocked entirely, with only the message, "Search results may not comply with the relevant laws, regulations and policy, and cannot be displayed" appearing. > Do no evil. (still a part of their public motto) > In their first letter to shareholders, our founders highlighted Google’s goal to “develop services that significantly improve the lives of as many people as possible.” This vision continues to guide all of us at Google. We believe in technology’s power and potential to have a profoundly positive impact across the world. Google has capitulated to the Chinese government, taken "moral high ground" via their doodles (but only when it won't offend the censors), and absolutely sees itself as a savior of mankind.
- foepys 4y ago
  Is it? With the Android Open Source Project you can create your own completely Google-free Android distribution that you can install on quite a lot of devices. Not that I like Google, I actually actively dislike it and hate all the anti-competitive things they did (with Android, too), but let's stay with the facts here.
  - lancesells 4y ago
    > Project you can create your own completely Google-free Android distribution that you can install on quite a lot of devices This is like saying you can eat for free for the rest of your life by just starting a farm. Sure, it's possible but it's out of the reach of most the population.
    - foepys 4y ago
      You can download one right now, for free at lineageos.org. So I don't get your point
  - esskay 4y ago
    The problem is you're still using Android. You can paint it up however you like, it's still Android, and for many iOS users thats still an instant nope.
  - bentcorner 4y ago
    Even with an AOSP rom, can't the same thing happen here? "Nearby Share" seem to require Google Play store functionality: https://support.google.com/files/answer/10514188?hl=en#zippy=%2Chow-nearby-share-handles-your-data https://support.google.com/files/answer/10514188?hl=en#zippy... I suppose the alternative AOSP rom wouldn't even have "Nearby Share" as a feature? I suppose in that case you could use some other protocol/service that wasn't bound to Google (maybe Briar?).
- PartiallyTyped 4y ago
  Is this true even if say you use GrapheneOS?
  - pshirshov 4y ago
    GrapheneOS and its GApps sandbox are awesome, highly recommend. At this point everything just works there, including network location provider, with only one exception - google pay won't allow you to add a card for contactless payments in most of the cases. But GrapheneOS is not at fault here.
- ricardobayes 4y ago
  I'm genuinely curious, how so?
- lern_too_spel 4y ago
  Aside from avoiding China, Google gives users control of their phones. That makes Google leagues better. Not that Google is good — Apple just sets a particularly low bar.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  In general the problem is that there are very few players in even the same general space as Apple, and practically none of them seem to really be chasing the same market as Apple, so for many Apple users there's basically no suitable substitute. It lets them have entire dud releases (several models in a row of macbooks, for instance) but if you start looking around for alternatives it quickly becomes clear you'll gain two or three problems for every one you avoid, even when Apple releases an unusually-bad version of one of their products. It's like that with everything. "Apple spies on you more than you might think"—OK, that's bad and I'd rather they didn't, but who's better? Hell, who's not worse? And god no, not Linux, I did that for over a decade and I mean a product that you can pay for to solve problems for you, like computers and tools generally are supposed to do, not one you can spend a bunch of time manually tuning and working around various limitations and problems and still not have something as useful as Apple's stuff in actual day-to-day real-world life. I want to solve problems, I don't want another hobby of maintaining my problem-solving machine, that crap's why people hate computers so much. No surprise it's like this, really—there are two smartphone operating systems and three viable desktop operating systems (I'm being generous and counting ChromeOS) controlled by three total vendors. Of course the market's totally fucked up.
walrus01 4y ago
I mean, to be real here, it's continuing the principles of being run for a very long time by a world class, top tier, grade A asshole. Steve Jobs was well known for screaming at people and throwing fits of rage and such. Petulantly demanding that he get his way as the only possible method something could be done. Does anyone seriously think that Jobs cared even the slightest about the Foxconn/Hon Hai Precision Industry factory workers? Or anything else other than the bottom line? Hundreds of such anecodotes from hundreds of people. What do you expect from the corporate culture established by such a person?
- karaterobot 4y ago
  No fan of Jobs here, but there's no logical connection between him being an asshole and Apple's decision to change AirDrop behavior more than a decade after his death.
  - walrus01 4y ago
    I would posit that a hyper-aggressive corporate culture established by such a person, and continued in a not-very-modified form up until the present day, is more likely to make "accommodations" to things like the CCP and government of China for their local Apple cloud services subsidiary, provide crypto keys/copies of data on request, etc. Because obviously it serves the global revenue and china-source-revenue figure to sell more Apple devices in China no matter the human rights and privacy consequences.
curiousgal 4y ago
> I can’t get out of their ecosystem fast enough. I don't know if you mean this literally but to me it was very simple. Just stopped buying their products. I am still alive, productive and with a clearer consciousness.
- api 4y ago
  Is there anyone who isn't dependent on Chinese labor or the Chinese market? How are the Android vendors in this respect? From what I can see the entire world is completely addicted to China as a cheap source of medium to high skill labor and as a place where manufacturing can be done with little environmental regulation.
  - falcolas 4y ago
    > From what I can see the entire world is completely addicted to China as a cheap source of medium to high skill labor and as a place where manufacturing can be done with little environmental regulation. Your view matches what I can see from here too. And there's so many things you simply can't buy if you want manufacturing done in an ethical manner, no matter the price you're willing to pay.
  - Symbiote 4y ago
    Samsung Galaxy S23 -- Vietnam, South Korea Possibly some Google Pixel 7 -- Vietnam ASUS -- Taiwan Sony -- Japan (Sometimes it's only specific models.) https://notochina.org/best-cell-phones-not-made-in-china/ https://notochina.org/best-cell-phones-not-made-in-china/ https://chinanever.com/categories/phones-not-made-in-china https://chinanever.com/categories/phones-not-made-in-china
    - selsta 4y ago
      Pixel 7 is made in China according to this tweet: https://twitter.com/vvaiibhav/status/1580454957580681216 https://twitter.com/vvaiibhav/status/1580454957580681216
- boringg 4y ago
tananaev 4y ago
On one hand, yes, it's not ideal. On the other hand it's still probably a better alternative to a Chinese phone that spies on you. What is the alternative? If they take a stance, they will be banned from China completely. You need to pick your battles instead of being idealist. Look at Russia. There was an opposition back in the day, but they couldn't agree between each other because of smaller differences. And now we have a complete dictatorship.
- HardlyCurious 4y ago
  Getting banned from China shouldn't be looked at as something a business can't consider. If so, it gives tremendous leverage to China to control western corporations. What we need is govt sanctions against china before this goes any further. Take china off the table so companies don't have to make these hard choices that impact their competitiveness.
  - Spivak 4y ago
    Well yes, that's the privilege of being a world power and all. If "the west" could just sanction China leaders would have done so already but "we really do need them as a trading partner" makes it infeasible.
    - xpe 4y ago
      There are many steps in between. Warning about TikTok. Discouraging Chinese drone purchases. Changing priorities around chip sourcing. And so on.
  - esskay 4y ago
    > Getting banned from China shouldn't be looked at as something a business can't consider. It shouldn't but the fact is that if China decided right now that they were done with Apple the company immediatly loses all ability to make every single one of its products. Even the ones that arent given final assembly in China still rely on chinese produced components. It would obviously be a very foolish move for the CCP as it would be an instant red flag to the worlds tech companies who would all start the ball rolling on moving out. Meanwhile Apple would be all but dead in the water for a good few years, with no ability to manufacture anything at all for a fairly signficant amount of time.
jibbers 4y ago
> suicide nets I assume this is about Foxconn. Does that mean you'll be boycotting other companies that also work with them, like Amazon, Dell, Google, HP, Intel, Microsoft, Vizio, Acer, Lenovo, Nintendo, and Sony? I'm genuinely asking. It's a tough pill to swallow to learn all our tech stuff we all enjoy is built on the backs of poor people on the other side of the planet.
- s0rce 4y ago
  The raw materials have a pretty bad track record as well.
  - esskay 4y ago
    As they do for every tech supplier, Apple is just the very large and easy target to pin it all on. Your Lenovo, Dell or Samsung products are no cleaner.
- walrus01 4y ago
  > It's a tough pill to swallow to learn all our tech stuff we all enjoy is built on the backs of poor people on the other side of the planet. Watching some in depth documentaries on the global low-cost-fashion trade in textiles and garments is also a real eye opener. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Rana_Plaza_factory_collapse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Rana_Plaza_factory_collap... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Dhaka_garment_factory_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Dhaka_garment_factory_fir...
- nicolas_t 4y ago
  I remember reading some reports that actually looked at suicide rate based on the number of people working there and didn't find it that elevated compared to the average. Fact is, anytime you have a big concentration of people in a small place you will have some suicides just by virtue of statistics, so I'm not sure if there's really a much higher number of suicides or if the few that did happen were sensationalised because it sells. That's not to say that working in a company like Foxconn is the nicest possible job (it's not but it seems to be better than a lot of places) or that China is great and can do no wrong (I'm generally very critical of the CCP) but I do think that sometimes it's easy to just spin up a story to shock people because that sells.
jackmott42 4y ago
Their ethics are terrible. You pay $1000 for a computer, and you are only allowed to install software on it that Apple says you are allowed to. You can only pay for software on their own store. Complete bullshit, and it makes me sad that so many here on HN and elsehwere, tech people who learned to program because their 8088 was completely open and free to let you actually create things and learn about computing, so many of you will defend this terrible situation.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  > You pay $1000 for a computer, and you are only allowed to install software on it that Apple says you are allowed to. For i-devices, yeah, true. > You can only pay for software on their own store. As nice as exposing the App store to more market effects might be, the app store monopoly enables them to force other companies to be less shitty on the platform (or else abandon it—but it's lucrative, so most don't), so it's a feature to me. I'd rather some of the behaviors they ban were simply illegal everywhere, but until then I like having the option to live the libertarian dream of paying for a private regulatory agency (Apple, that is). Beats having no option of that sort.
  - ASalazarMX 4y ago
    That also enables unreasonable monopolistic behavior, like not allowing ANY browser besides Safari. Why not allow alternative browser engines that follow strict privacy practices? What about native ad blockers? Why not encourage privacy-friendly apps that don't collect data by lowering/waiving their fees?
    - vbezhenar 4y ago
      Because everyone will use Chrome and websites will not support Safari. It happened with IE.
    - lemonberry 4y ago
      "like not allowing ANY browser besides Safari" are you saying this is potentially an issue? Because I have Chrome and Firefox installed on my iPhone and MacBook Air. I also have DuckDuckGo's browser on my iPhone.
TheCoelacanth 4y ago
They look like they are good at privacy simply because they are so possessive and controlling of their users. Of course they stop other companies from getting your data, your data belongs to Apple, not to the other companies.
- petmon 4y ago
  Apple in many cases goes out of their way to avoid collecting your data. See Maps for example. Users' usage of Maps is associated with a random rotating identifier not tied to their accounts. This is quite different from Google Maps. https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-maps/ https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-maps/
acdha 4y ago
I think it's fair to point out these inconsistencies but what do we expect them to do? China is a sovereign country _and_ it's the one where they make most of their hardware. It is unclear to me what options they have other than expanding manufacturing in other countries, which seems to be in progress.
deleted 4y ago
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rhacker 4y ago
its like 5 post down in twitter, it was a planned update from a while ago
ralfd 4y ago
> I don’t ever want to hear again how Apple is some champion of privacy and ethics. Counterpoint: They could have just rolled out the feature change globally. Instead Apple makes it clear with singling out China, that this change was demanded by the CCP.
- colordrops 4y ago
  They've had years to pull manufacturing out of China to avoid having to make these compromises, but they chose not to. They could forgo the Chinese market, as many other companies have, in order to avoid needing to make unsavory choices, but they chose not to. And don't blame the shareholders for pushing Apple to stay in China. By that logic, no company is guilty of anything.
  - rsj_hn 4y ago
    It's very hard to pull manufacturing out of China. No other nation has the combination of infrastructure, production networks, human capital, affordable energy, investment financing. I've long been fascinated by productive eco-systems -- how do they arise, what can destroy them, but suffice it to say that they are magical things. They often spring up out of nowhere, as a result of historical accidents, and then many try to duplicate them, usually without success. Lots of municipalities think they can create a new silicon valley in their dilapidated downtown areas if they throw in a few bike lanes, smoothie bars, and lofts -- and what happens is similar to Polynesian cargo cults, where you have bamboo air traffic control towers erected hoping that planes would arrive. Apple's failed attempts to move production to India should be an object lesson in how irreplaceable Chinese manufacturing is. Many Americans, which prize IP and design, yet are confused about manufacturing and insist it's just grunt work anyone can do, can't really fathom how uniquely productive Chinese manufacturing is compared to the rest of the world, and how difficult it is to matching even a fraction of that productivity. New productive ecosystems will need to arise to replace it -- and it will eventually happen somewhere, but it's not going to happen on a corporate schedule and in locations you control. Similarly, attempts to "reshore" production to the U.S. are also doomed to failure. We do not have those manufacturing ecosystems anymore. The productive ecosystems that sprung up in China are truly unique and stand along side the Ruhr valley, Silicon Valley, Detroit in its heyday, as world class ecosystems. You can't just move to another place and hope to get anywhere near the same productivity.
onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
The problem is expecting companies to "do the right thing" and not "make money". If there was ever a time companies were good stewards to the world - that time ended before I was born. Yes, Apple is not doing the right thing. Show me any fortune 100 company in the world that would do the right thing... What's frustrating - I think - in this case, is the amount of Apple fanboys who insist that Apple is literally the incarnation of God as a company, existing solely to bring about harmony and make the world better through the iPhone, not to take your money and put it in their shareholders' pockets.
- randomdata 4y ago
  > Show me any fortune 100 company in the world that would do the right thing... Companies don't do anything. People do. The individuals who make up any Fortune 100 company most likely do want to do the right thing individually, but communication at scale is really hard which leads to all kinds of unintended consequences.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
    > Companies don't do anything. People do. The individuals who make up any Fortune 100 company most likely do want to do the right thing individually, but communication at scale is really hard which leads to all kinds of unintended consequences. Maybe the majority of the worker bees. The people who make decisions have a fiduciary obligation to maximize shareholder profits.
    - randomdata 4y ago
      > The people who make decisions have a fiduciary obligation to maximize shareholder profits. This is a myth. There is an obligation to serve the share holders' "best interests", but that doesn't necessarily mean profitability. It probably doesn't mean maximizing profitability a lot of the time as shareholders are not single dimensional characters. Often shareholders of public companies are just plain old people with a retirement fund, who live regular lives like you and I. The choices made within the business, especially a Fortune 100, are bound to impact them in other ways. But communication at scale is hard. Shareholders may not always accurately communicate to their nominated trustees what is in their best interest. Profit is an easy one to communicate, but "do the right thing", which likely requires a lot of nuance to understand, is definitely not.
snoot 4y ago
1. The suicide nets is misinformation. 2. The supply chain is not riddled with slave labor. 3. The chance to airdrop was made weeks before the protest. You might not be basing your evaluation of Apple’s behavior on reality.
- mhoad 4y ago
  7 Apple suppliers in China have links to forced labor programs, including the use of Uyghur Muslims from Xinjiang, according to a new report https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/apple-china-suppliers-uyghur-muslims-forced-labor-report-2021-5%3Famp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/apple-c... Apple is lobbying against a bill aimed at stopping forced labor in China https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/11/20/apple-uighur/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/11/20/apple-u... Chairs Issue Statement about Forced Labor in Apple’s Supply Chain https://www.cecc.gov/media-center/press-releases/chairs-issue-statement-about-forced-labor-in-apple%E2%80%99s-supply-chain-in https://www.cecc.gov/media-center/press-releases/chairs-issu... I’m not the one here who isn’t basing their evaluation on reality.
baxtr 4y ago
This is a comment filled with sheer hate. No facts, no nuances. Just emotions.
MisterTea 4y ago
> I don’t ever want to hear again how Apple is some champion of privacy and ethics. They champion them here in the USA where saying so is good for business. They champion censorship in China because it's good for business. They'll champion whatever it takes for them to break into a lucrative market.
jacksnipe 4y ago
Best not to conflate ethics and privacy. The most private digital world — one in which everything is e2e encrypted — is arguably totally ethical (impossible for anybody to infringe on your personal rights) or the least ethical state of affairs imaginable (free for all for criminals, terrorists, etc…).
- anon400232 4y ago
  > Best not to conflate ethics and privacy. Indeed. I'd suggest everyone in our industry study ethics, particularly with an eye towards its (i) philosophical foundations and (ii) cultural differences. If one of those underpinnings doesn't grab your interest, try the other. There is a rich body of ethical writing around individual behavior. When that discussion starts to involve groups of people, ... yikes ... it becomes even more complex.
treeman79 4y ago
Also threatening to ban twitter for allowing freedom of speech.
gtvwill 4y ago
Lol the presence of apple hardware is literally a litmus test for how much an individual gives a shit about ethics particularly in tech and employment ethics. They aren't graded well if they buy apple. Applies 10x if they actually work in tech. Use it to your advantage.
kosherhurricane 4y ago
Capitalism giveth, and capitalism taketh it away. -KosherHurticane
duxup 4y ago
I still like them for privacy for my use case. Beyond that is there a better company that operates in China that is doing better?
rosnd 4y ago
> suicide nets Like the ones installed all over Europe and the US? Netherlands for example also does suicide nets, here's one in a small town city hall https://www.tubantia.nl/almelo/anti-zelfmoordnetten-geplaatst-in-nieuwe-stadhuis-almelo~ad2e8ff2/ https://www.tubantia.nl/almelo/anti-zelfmoordnetten-geplaats...
xwdv 4y ago
If you think they’re fucked, you don’t know what a fucked company is. Twitter is fucked. Apple is thriving, selling massive amounts of products and sitting on a huge cash horde. Get a grip.
deleted 4y ago
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esskay 4y ago
> They are fucked as a company Their profit margin would suggest otherwise.
ben_w 4y ago
I don't trust any mega-corporation very far these days. That said: > the suicide nets I know this was painted as a scandal, but was it actually? First, at the time Foxconn — or rather more specifically, Longhua Science and Technology Park, which was the site of the suicides that got in the news — was employing approximately 50-80% the population of Wyoming at the time depending on who you ask. For reference, there were 170 deaths by suicide in Wyoming in 2019. Second, I've seen anti-fall nets on the inside of the Galeria department store in Alexanderplatz Berlin, which has no relevant reputation I've ever heard of, and therefore seems like a straightforward health and safety measure.
- sneak 4y ago
  The per-capita suicide rate at the building with the suicide nets (before the nets went up) was half the per-capita suicide rate in the entire province in which the building is situated. It's agenda-based narrative pushing.
anon400232 4y ago
> I don’t ever want to hear again how Apple is some champion of privacy and ethics. It is easy to criticize an organizations' behavior. It is easy to criticize someone else's ethics. What are your ethics? What would you do if you were in Tim Cook's position? Why? I'd like to see how you perceive the options available. As for me, the following is an open question: can organizations have something analogous to a conscience? How does it work?

by mhoad 4y ago

Tijdreiziger 4y ago

The problem is that the alternative (Google) is worse.

alphabetting 4y ago
Pretty sure Google has been mostly out of China since Operation Aurora.
- falcolas 4y ago
  They're still trying to get back in. See project Dragonfly for example.
  - DashAnimal 4y ago
    Dragonfly was discontinued in 2018, MAYBE mid 2019. That is 3-4 years ago.
    - falcolas 4y ago
      And? They were booted out of China over 12 years ago. 3 years ago isn't that long, in that timeline. Given their known attempts to get back in, it's likely there are other such secret initiatives we don't know about. China represents a huge potential market for Google that their investors won't let leadership forget about.
      - sidibe 4y ago
        3 years ago some team was probing reopening search in China and when more employees found out about it they leaked and protested the project, shutting it down. Hardly seems like a point against Google. > China represents a huge potential market for Google that their investors won't let leadership forget about. China represents a huge potential market that Google investors have already given up on because no one is expecting that market to reopen to Google any time soon
  - onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
    Strawman. A large chunk of Apple's revenue comes from China. The majority of assembly occurs in China. Google does a rounding error of business in China - assembly for Nest devices.
    - falcolas 4y ago
      All I've been able to find on "Google moves pixel manufacturing out of China" is rumors. Rumors they were moving some of them to Vietnam. Rumors that they were moving some to India. But no official notification that they've been moved. No notes on their storefront on where the pixel phones are being manufactured. The most convincing article I found was an un-sourced piece from "hothardware" (and nothing shouts legitimacy in a source than a name like that) which says that only the budget pixel phones were actually moved to Vietnam, the high end versions are still in China. As such, I have to assume that their production is still largely occurring in China. I wouldn't mind being proven wrong though. As a side note about the strawman accusation; pointing out Google's attempts to re-enter the lucrative Chinese market when the parent is using their absence to justify the position of "Google's Better" is absolutely relevant.
      - jsnell 4y ago
        The fact is that Google left China 12 years ago and never returned. They gave up on the search ad revenue in the world's second largest economy. They gave up on the app store revenue in the world's largest smartphone market. That's a hell of a thing for a big company to do as a matter of principle. Some exec tried to run a project to re-enter China with search, and the project was axed the moment it became widely known in the company. All through that time Tim Cook hasn't just been betting on China for manufacturing, but are addicted to the Chinese revenue. Apple is being held over the barrel by the CCP, both sides know it, and Apple are not doing anything to wean themselves off. As a result, Apple gives user data to Chinese authorities on requests thousands of times per year, and accept the vast majority of data requests [0]. In comparison, Google has given data on 2 accounts in the last decade. [1] Isn't it pretty obvious that we'd like more companies to behave like Google in this situation, and no companies to act like Apple? Why are you trying to tear down the company that's done the right thing in this situation? [0] https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/cn.html https://www.apple.com/legal/transparency/cn.html [1] https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/overview?hl=en&user_requests_report_period=series:requests,accounts;authority:CN;time:&lu=user_requests_report_period https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/overview?hl=...
mhoad 4y ago
It’s not even a little bit close. Go on… tell me about how Google spent millions lobbying against human rights or worked with authoritarian regimes or had workers killing themselves in such high numbers that they had to reconfigure their workplaces. Google did what Apple should have ten years ago and pulled out of China when faced with similar problems.
- falcolas 4y ago
  Google builds phones at Foxconn too. Google has also worked on many projects in order to appeal to China's government as well.
  - xvector 4y ago
    Google doesn’t position themselves as some savior of mankind and human rights. They don’t market grandiose claims about privacy and ethics like Apple does. I’m a bit more okay with Google because at least they aren’t lying through their teeth and hoping their customers are dumb enough to believe them.
    - falcolas 4y ago
      > Before Google China's establishment, Google.com itself was accessible, even though much of its content was not accessible because of censorship. > Because of its self-imposed censorship, whenever people searched for prohibited Chinese keywords on a blocked list maintained by the PRC government, google.cn displayed at the bottom of the page (translated): In accordance with local laws, regulations and policies, part of the search result is not shown. Some searches, such as (as of June 2009) "Tank Man" were blocked entirely, with only the message, "Search results may not comply with the relevant laws, regulations and policy, and cannot be displayed" appearing. > Do no evil. (still a part of their public motto) > In their first letter to shareholders, our founders highlighted Google’s goal to “develop services that significantly improve the lives of as many people as possible.” This vision continues to guide all of us at Google. We believe in technology’s power and potential to have a profoundly positive impact across the world. Google has capitulated to the Chinese government, taken "moral high ground" via their doodles (but only when it won't offend the censors), and absolutely sees itself as a savior of mankind.
foepys 4y ago
Is it? With the Android Open Source Project you can create your own completely Google-free Android distribution that you can install on quite a lot of devices. Not that I like Google, I actually actively dislike it and hate all the anti-competitive things they did (with Android, too), but let's stay with the facts here.
- lancesells 4y ago
  > Project you can create your own completely Google-free Android distribution that you can install on quite a lot of devices This is like saying you can eat for free for the rest of your life by just starting a farm. Sure, it's possible but it's out of the reach of most the population.
  - foepys 4y ago
    You can download one right now, for free at lineageos.org. So I don't get your point
- esskay 4y ago
  The problem is you're still using Android. You can paint it up however you like, it's still Android, and for many iOS users thats still an instant nope.
- bentcorner 4y ago
  Even with an AOSP rom, can't the same thing happen here? "Nearby Share" seem to require Google Play store functionality: https://support.google.com/files/answer/10514188?hl=en#zippy=%2Chow-nearby-share-handles-your-data https://support.google.com/files/answer/10514188?hl=en#zippy... I suppose the alternative AOSP rom wouldn't even have "Nearby Share" as a feature? I suppose in that case you could use some other protocol/service that wasn't bound to Google (maybe Briar?).
PartiallyTyped 4y ago
Is this true even if say you use GrapheneOS?
- pshirshov 4y ago
  GrapheneOS and its GApps sandbox are awesome, highly recommend. At this point everything just works there, including network location provider, with only one exception - google pay won't allow you to add a card for contactless payments in most of the cases. But GrapheneOS is not at fault here.
ricardobayes 4y ago
I'm genuinely curious, how so?
lern_too_spel 4y ago
Aside from avoiding China, Google gives users control of their phones. That makes Google leagues better. Not that Google is good — Apple just sets a particularly low bar.
yamtaddle 4y ago
In general the problem is that there are very few players in even the same general space as Apple, and practically none of them seem to really be chasing the same market as Apple, so for many Apple users there's basically no suitable substitute. It lets them have entire dud releases (several models in a row of macbooks, for instance) but if you start looking around for alternatives it quickly becomes clear you'll gain two or three problems for every one you avoid, even when Apple releases an unusually-bad version of one of their products. It's like that with everything. "Apple spies on you more than you might think"—OK, that's bad and I'd rather they didn't, but who's better? Hell, who's not worse? And god no, not Linux, I did that for over a decade and I mean a product that you can pay for to solve problems for you, like computers and tools generally are supposed to do, not one you can spend a bunch of time manually tuning and working around various limitations and problems and still not have something as useful as Apple's stuff in actual day-to-day real-world life. I want to solve problems, I don't want another hobby of maintaining my problem-solving machine, that crap's why people hate computers so much. No surprise it's like this, really—there are two smartphone operating systems and three viable desktop operating systems (I'm being generous and counting ChromeOS) controlled by three total vendors. Of course the market's totally fucked up.

walrus01 4y ago

I mean, to be real here, it's continuing the principles of being run for a very long time by a world class, top tier, grade A asshole. Steve Jobs was well known for screaming at people and throwing fits of rage and such. Petulantly demanding that he get his way as the only possible method something could be done. Does anyone seriously think that Jobs cared even the slightest about the Foxconn/Hon Hai Precision Industry factory workers? Or anything else other than the bottom line? Hundreds of such anecodotes from hundreds of people. What do you expect from the corporate culture established by such a person?

karaterobot 4y ago
No fan of Jobs here, but there's no logical connection between him being an asshole and Apple's decision to change AirDrop behavior more than a decade after his death.
- walrus01 4y ago
  I would posit that a hyper-aggressive corporate culture established by such a person, and continued in a not-very-modified form up until the present day, is more likely to make "accommodations" to things like the CCP and government of China for their local Apple cloud services subsidiary, provide crypto keys/copies of data on request, etc. Because obviously it serves the global revenue and china-source-revenue figure to sell more Apple devices in China no matter the human rights and privacy consequences.

curiousgal 4y ago

> I can’t get out of their ecosystem fast enough. I don't know if you mean this literally but to me it was very simple. Just stopped buying their products. I am still alive, productive and with a clearer consciousness.

api 4y ago
Is there anyone who isn't dependent on Chinese labor or the Chinese market? How are the Android vendors in this respect? From what I can see the entire world is completely addicted to China as a cheap source of medium to high skill labor and as a place where manufacturing can be done with little environmental regulation.
- falcolas 4y ago
  > From what I can see the entire world is completely addicted to China as a cheap source of medium to high skill labor and as a place where manufacturing can be done with little environmental regulation. Your view matches what I can see from here too. And there's so many things you simply can't buy if you want manufacturing done in an ethical manner, no matter the price you're willing to pay.
- Symbiote 4y ago
  Samsung Galaxy S23 -- Vietnam, South Korea Possibly some Google Pixel 7 -- Vietnam ASUS -- Taiwan Sony -- Japan (Sometimes it's only specific models.) https://notochina.org/best-cell-phones-not-made-in-china/ https://notochina.org/best-cell-phones-not-made-in-china/ https://chinanever.com/categories/phones-not-made-in-china https://chinanever.com/categories/phones-not-made-in-china
  - selsta 4y ago
    Pixel 7 is made in China according to this tweet: https://twitter.com/vvaiibhav/status/1580454957580681216 https://twitter.com/vvaiibhav/status/1580454957580681216
boringg 4y ago

tananaev 4y ago

On one hand, yes, it's not ideal. On the other hand it's still probably a better alternative to a Chinese phone that spies on you. What is the alternative? If they take a stance, they will be banned from China completely. You need to pick your battles instead of being idealist. Look at Russia. There was an opposition back in the day, but they couldn't agree between each other because of smaller differences. And now we have a complete dictatorship.

HardlyCurious 4y ago
Getting banned from China shouldn't be looked at as something a business can't consider. If so, it gives tremendous leverage to China to control western corporations. What we need is govt sanctions against china before this goes any further. Take china off the table so companies don't have to make these hard choices that impact their competitiveness.
- Spivak 4y ago
  Well yes, that's the privilege of being a world power and all. If "the west" could just sanction China leaders would have done so already but "we really do need them as a trading partner" makes it infeasible.
  - xpe 4y ago
    There are many steps in between. Warning about TikTok. Discouraging Chinese drone purchases. Changing priorities around chip sourcing. And so on.
- esskay 4y ago
  > Getting banned from China shouldn't be looked at as something a business can't consider. It shouldn't but the fact is that if China decided right now that they were done with Apple the company immediatly loses all ability to make every single one of its products. Even the ones that arent given final assembly in China still rely on chinese produced components. It would obviously be a very foolish move for the CCP as it would be an instant red flag to the worlds tech companies who would all start the ball rolling on moving out. Meanwhile Apple would be all but dead in the water for a good few years, with no ability to manufacture anything at all for a fairly signficant amount of time.

jibbers 4y ago

> suicide nets I assume this is about Foxconn. Does that mean you'll be boycotting other companies that also work with them, like Amazon, Dell, Google, HP, Intel, Microsoft, Vizio, Acer, Lenovo, Nintendo, and Sony? I'm genuinely asking. It's a tough pill to swallow to learn all our tech stuff we all enjoy is built on the backs of poor people on the other side of the planet.

s0rce 4y ago
The raw materials have a pretty bad track record as well.
- esskay 4y ago
  As they do for every tech supplier, Apple is just the very large and easy target to pin it all on. Your Lenovo, Dell or Samsung products are no cleaner.
walrus01 4y ago
> It's a tough pill to swallow to learn all our tech stuff we all enjoy is built on the backs of poor people on the other side of the planet. Watching some in depth documentaries on the global low-cost-fashion trade in textiles and garments is also a real eye opener. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Rana_Plaza_factory_collapse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Rana_Plaza_factory_collap... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Dhaka_garment_factory_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Dhaka_garment_factory_fir...
nicolas_t 4y ago
I remember reading some reports that actually looked at suicide rate based on the number of people working there and didn't find it that elevated compared to the average. Fact is, anytime you have a big concentration of people in a small place you will have some suicides just by virtue of statistics, so I'm not sure if there's really a much higher number of suicides or if the few that did happen were sensationalised because it sells. That's not to say that working in a company like Foxconn is the nicest possible job (it's not but it seems to be better than a lot of places) or that China is great and can do no wrong (I'm generally very critical of the CCP) but I do think that sometimes it's easy to just spin up a story to shock people because that sells.

jackmott42 4y ago

Their ethics are terrible. You pay $1000 for a computer, and you are only allowed to install software on it that Apple says you are allowed to. You can only pay for software on their own store. Complete bullshit, and it makes me sad that so many here on HN and elsehwere, tech people who learned to program because their 8088 was completely open and free to let you actually create things and learn about computing, so many of you will defend this terrible situation.

yamtaddle 4y ago
> You pay $1000 for a computer, and you are only allowed to install software on it that Apple says you are allowed to. For i-devices, yeah, true. > You can only pay for software on their own store. As nice as exposing the App store to more market effects might be, the app store monopoly enables them to force other companies to be less shitty on the platform (or else abandon it—but it's lucrative, so most don't), so it's a feature to me. I'd rather some of the behaviors they ban were simply illegal everywhere, but until then I like having the option to live the libertarian dream of paying for a private regulatory agency (Apple, that is). Beats having no option of that sort.
- ASalazarMX 4y ago
  That also enables unreasonable monopolistic behavior, like not allowing ANY browser besides Safari. Why not allow alternative browser engines that follow strict privacy practices? What about native ad blockers? Why not encourage privacy-friendly apps that don't collect data by lowering/waiving their fees?
  - vbezhenar 4y ago
    Because everyone will use Chrome and websites will not support Safari. It happened with IE.
  - lemonberry 4y ago
    "like not allowing ANY browser besides Safari" are you saying this is potentially an issue? Because I have Chrome and Firefox installed on my iPhone and MacBook Air. I also have DuckDuckGo's browser on my iPhone.

TheCoelacanth 4y ago

They look like they are good at privacy simply because they are so possessive and controlling of their users. Of course they stop other companies from getting your data, your data belongs to Apple, not to the other companies.

petmon 4y ago
Apple in many cases goes out of their way to avoid collecting your data. See Maps for example. Users' usage of Maps is associated with a random rotating identifier not tied to their accounts. This is quite different from Google Maps. https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-maps/ https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-maps/

acdha 4y ago

I think it's fair to point out these inconsistencies but what do we expect them to do? China is a sovereign country _and_ it's the one where they make most of their hardware. It is unclear to me what options they have other than expanding manufacturing in other countries, which seems to be in progress.

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rhacker 4y ago

its like 5 post down in twitter, it was a planned update from a while ago

ralfd 4y ago

> I don’t ever want to hear again how Apple is some champion of privacy and ethics. Counterpoint: They could have just rolled out the feature change globally. Instead Apple makes it clear with singling out China, that this change was demanded by the CCP.

colordrops 4y ago
They've had years to pull manufacturing out of China to avoid having to make these compromises, but they chose not to. They could forgo the Chinese market, as many other companies have, in order to avoid needing to make unsavory choices, but they chose not to. And don't blame the shareholders for pushing Apple to stay in China. By that logic, no company is guilty of anything.
- rsj_hn 4y ago
  It's very hard to pull manufacturing out of China. No other nation has the combination of infrastructure, production networks, human capital, affordable energy, investment financing. I've long been fascinated by productive eco-systems -- how do they arise, what can destroy them, but suffice it to say that they are magical things. They often spring up out of nowhere, as a result of historical accidents, and then many try to duplicate them, usually without success. Lots of municipalities think they can create a new silicon valley in their dilapidated downtown areas if they throw in a few bike lanes, smoothie bars, and lofts -- and what happens is similar to Polynesian cargo cults, where you have bamboo air traffic control towers erected hoping that planes would arrive. Apple's failed attempts to move production to India should be an object lesson in how irreplaceable Chinese manufacturing is. Many Americans, which prize IP and design, yet are confused about manufacturing and insist it's just grunt work anyone can do, can't really fathom how uniquely productive Chinese manufacturing is compared to the rest of the world, and how difficult it is to matching even a fraction of that productivity. New productive ecosystems will need to arise to replace it -- and it will eventually happen somewhere, but it's not going to happen on a corporate schedule and in locations you control. Similarly, attempts to "reshore" production to the U.S. are also doomed to failure. We do not have those manufacturing ecosystems anymore. The productive ecosystems that sprung up in China are truly unique and stand along side the Ruhr valley, Silicon Valley, Detroit in its heyday, as world class ecosystems. You can't just move to another place and hope to get anywhere near the same productivity.

onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago

The problem is expecting companies to "do the right thing" and not "make money". If there was ever a time companies were good stewards to the world - that time ended before I was born. Yes, Apple is not doing the right thing. Show me any fortune 100 company in the world that would do the right thing... What's frustrating - I think - in this case, is the amount of Apple fanboys who insist that Apple is literally the incarnation of God as a company, existing solely to bring about harmony and make the world better through the iPhone, not to take your money and put it in their shareholders' pockets.

randomdata 4y ago
> Show me any fortune 100 company in the world that would do the right thing... Companies don't do anything. People do. The individuals who make up any Fortune 100 company most likely do want to do the right thing individually, but communication at scale is really hard which leads to all kinds of unintended consequences.
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
  > Companies don't do anything. People do. The individuals who make up any Fortune 100 company most likely do want to do the right thing individually, but communication at scale is really hard which leads to all kinds of unintended consequences. Maybe the majority of the worker bees. The people who make decisions have a fiduciary obligation to maximize shareholder profits.
  - randomdata 4y ago
    > The people who make decisions have a fiduciary obligation to maximize shareholder profits. This is a myth. There is an obligation to serve the share holders' "best interests", but that doesn't necessarily mean profitability. It probably doesn't mean maximizing profitability a lot of the time as shareholders are not single dimensional characters. Often shareholders of public companies are just plain old people with a retirement fund, who live regular lives like you and I. The choices made within the business, especially a Fortune 100, are bound to impact them in other ways. But communication at scale is hard. Shareholders may not always accurately communicate to their nominated trustees what is in their best interest. Profit is an easy one to communicate, but "do the right thing", which likely requires a lot of nuance to understand, is definitely not.

snoot 4y ago

1. The suicide nets is misinformation. 2. The supply chain is not riddled with slave labor. 3. The chance to airdrop was made weeks before the protest. You might not be basing your evaluation of Apple’s behavior on reality.

mhoad 4y ago
7 Apple suppliers in China have links to forced labor programs, including the use of Uyghur Muslims from Xinjiang, according to a new report https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/apple-china-suppliers-uyghur-muslims-forced-labor-report-2021-5%3Famp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/apple-c... Apple is lobbying against a bill aimed at stopping forced labor in China https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/11/20/apple-uighur/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/11/20/apple-u... Chairs Issue Statement about Forced Labor in Apple’s Supply Chain https://www.cecc.gov/media-center/press-releases/chairs-issue-statement-about-forced-labor-in-apple%E2%80%99s-supply-chain-in https://www.cecc.gov/media-center/press-releases/chairs-issu... I’m not the one here who isn’t basing their evaluation on reality.

baxtr 4y ago

This is a comment filled with sheer hate. No facts, no nuances. Just emotions.

MisterTea 4y ago

> I don’t ever want to hear again how Apple is some champion of privacy and ethics. They champion them here in the USA where saying so is good for business. They champion censorship in China because it's good for business. They'll champion whatever it takes for them to break into a lucrative market.

jacksnipe 4y ago

Best not to conflate ethics and privacy. The most private digital world — one in which everything is e2e encrypted — is arguably totally ethical (impossible for anybody to infringe on your personal rights) or the least ethical state of affairs imaginable (free for all for criminals, terrorists, etc…).

anon400232 4y ago
> Best not to conflate ethics and privacy. Indeed. I'd suggest everyone in our industry study ethics, particularly with an eye towards its (i) philosophical foundations and (ii) cultural differences. If one of those underpinnings doesn't grab your interest, try the other. There is a rich body of ethical writing around individual behavior. When that discussion starts to involve groups of people, ... yikes ... it becomes even more complex.

treeman79 4y ago

Also threatening to ban twitter for allowing freedom of speech.

gtvwill 4y ago

Lol the presence of apple hardware is literally a litmus test for how much an individual gives a shit about ethics particularly in tech and employment ethics. They aren't graded well if they buy apple. Applies 10x if they actually work in tech. Use it to your advantage.

kosherhurricane 4y ago

Capitalism giveth, and capitalism taketh it away. -KosherHurticane

duxup 4y ago

I still like them for privacy for my use case. Beyond that is there a better company that operates in China that is doing better?

rosnd 4y ago

> suicide nets Like the ones installed all over Europe and the US? Netherlands for example also does suicide nets, here's one in a small town city hall https://www.tubantia.nl/almelo/anti-zelfmoordnetten-geplaatst-in-nieuwe-stadhuis-almelo~ad2e8ff2/ https://www.tubantia.nl/almelo/anti-zelfmoordnetten-geplaats...

xwdv 4y ago

If you think they’re fucked, you don’t know what a fucked company is. Twitter is fucked. Apple is thriving, selling massive amounts of products and sitting on a huge cash horde. Get a grip.

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esskay 4y ago

> They are fucked as a company Their profit margin would suggest otherwise.

ben_w 4y ago

I don't trust any mega-corporation very far these days. That said: > the suicide nets I know this was painted as a scandal, but was it actually? First, at the time Foxconn — or rather more specifically, Longhua Science and Technology Park, which was the site of the suicides that got in the news — was employing approximately 50-80% the population of Wyoming at the time depending on who you ask. For reference, there were 170 deaths by suicide in Wyoming in 2019. Second, I've seen anti-fall nets on the inside of the Galeria department store in Alexanderplatz Berlin, which has no relevant reputation I've ever heard of, and therefore seems like a straightforward health and safety measure.

sneak 4y ago
The per-capita suicide rate at the building with the suicide nets (before the nets went up) was half the per-capita suicide rate in the entire province in which the building is situated. It's agenda-based narrative pushing.

anon400232 4y ago

> I don’t ever want to hear again how Apple is some champion of privacy and ethics. It is easy to criticize an organizations' behavior. It is easy to criticize someone else's ethics. What are your ethics? What would you do if you were in Tim Cook's position? Why? I'd like to see how you perceive the options available. As for me, the following is an open question: can organizations have something analogous to a conscience? How does it work?