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> "I trust Apple..." I'm actually a little gobsmacked anyone on this forum can type those words without physically convulsing. The even more terrible part is

• deleted 2y ago
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• dyauspitr 2y ago
  What government needs you to have a smartphone from Apple or Google?
  • jay_kyburz 2y ago
    The Australian Government required you to have an app called MyGovID to do you business taxes and other administrative tasks. This app is only Apple or Android, there is no web interface.
    • kolinko 2y ago
      That’s crazy. Why no web interface? In Poland for taxes we have a web interface that is mobile and stationary, and for many other things it’s a choice between an app and web and paper.
      • jay_kyburz 2y ago
        The tax part is all web, it just mandatory 2 factor authentication to login that requires the app.
        • kolinko 2y ago
          Ahl. In our case, we have mobile app 2fa, but also an sms 2fa, and authentication through bank login - it’s quite neat that the government struck deal with a bunch of banks, and they serve as identity providers too.
  • kolinko 2y ago
    Not a requirement, but in Poland a ton of administration things can be done from a dedicated iphone/android app - including using your official ID. It is optional though, and you can alway do the same stuff (ID aside) from the web, or using paper and going places in person.
• derefr 2y ago
  I don't think the GP meant "trust" as in "I think Apple has my best interests at heart." Rather, I think they meant "trust" as in "Apple is observably predictable and rational in how they work toward their own self-interest, rarely doing things for stupid reasons. And they have chosen to center their business on a long-term revenue strategy involving selling high-margin short-lifetime hardware — a strategy that only continues to work because of an extremely high level of brand-image they've built up; and which would be ruined instantly if they broke any of the fundamental brand promises they make. These two factors together mean that Apple have every reason to be incentivized to only say things if they're going to mean them and follow through on them." There's also the much simpler kind of "trust" in the sense of "I trust them because they don't put me in situations where I need to trust them. They actively recuse themselves from opportunities to steal my data, designing architectures to not have places where that can happen." (Of course, the ideal version of this kind of trust would be a fully-open-source-hardware-and-software, work-in-the-open, signed-public-supply-chain-ledger kind of company. You don't get that from Apple, nor from any other bigcorp. Apple's software is proprietary... but at least it's in your hand where you can reverse-engineer it! Google's software is off in a cloud somewhere where nobody can audit changes to it.)
  • rekoil 2y ago
    For me it's more "I think Apples business interests more closely align with my wishes as a customer" as opposed to any other megacorp.
    • WorldMaker 2y ago
      At the heart of it: I feel like I'm Apple's customer in a way that I never feel like Google's customer (in everything they do it always seems like their real customers are Ad Buyers, even when you are ostensibly paying for services). (And Microsoft is in the middle and all over the map where some divisions treat you like a customer and others don't depending on the prevailing winds and the phase of the moon.)
      • dfxm12 2y ago
• wraptile 2y ago
  Apple's marketing and branding is truly impressive when even Hackernews crowd, who'd you assume are very tech savvy, are eating it up all of the propaganda.
  • kstrauser 2y ago
    “Wow, so many of these people neck deep into tech, privacy, and law disagree with me. It must be because they’re all suckers.”
    • wraptile 2y ago
      Despite your snark - you'll never win an argument where trusting a for profit corporation is some sort of win over transparent secure system. Yes Apple might be better of the lesser evils but is this really where us as a privileged class of people who actually understand all this give up and give in? This is sad.
      • kstrauser 2y ago
        You’ll also never win an argument when assuming that the people you disagree with haven’t thought this through and come up with a different conclusion. The snark is from the implication that we’re either clueless or blind to it. The more likely explanation is that we have different priorities, and that we’re viewing the question from a different angle. That doesn’t make us ignorant or unprincipled, any more than you disagreeing with me makes you naive or unserious. We have different ideas. That’s all. There’s no need to look down on each other for it.
      • School-Cotton 2y ago
        There’s not really any transparent secure system that competes with Apple.
        • vundercind 2y ago
          Yeah, at this point, for me, it’s “use Apple stuff” or “barely use computers in my personal life”. I did the Linux and (later) Android tinkering thing for a good long while, and I’m over it. Losing all the features and automation and integration I get with no time lost, for a bunch of time consuming and janky DIY that still wouldn’t get me all of it, isn’t something I’ll do these days. I’d just avoid computers.
• nozzlegear 2y ago
  > Because this utter insanity isn't being loudly called out, spat upon, and generally treated with the withering contempt that these companies have so richly and roundly earned this decision is being made for all society by the most naive among us. Ah yes, blame the simple-minded plebes who foolishly cast their noses up at Windows Phone. If only Ballmer were still in charge, surely he'd have saved us from this horrible future of personal, privacy-respecting AI at the edge...
• sho 2y ago
  > all of them, time and again, have shown themselves to be totally untrustworthy in all possible ways Sorry, but this seems like a very vague claim to me. Can you specifically point out a time where Apple proved itself untrustworthy in a way that impacts personal privacy? When Apple says they treat my data in a specific way, then yes I do trust them. This promise is pretty central to my usage of them as a company. I'd change my mind if there was evidence to suggest they're lying, or have betrayed that trust, but I haven't seen any, and your post doesn't provide any either.
  • fragmede 2y ago
    The fact that Advanced Data Protection on iCloud wasn't forced is sus.
    • sho 2y ago
      Not when you understand the tradeoffs being made. If you enable Advanced Data Protection and lose or forget your password, Apple cannot help you recover it. It makes sense that it's opt-in and users make a conscious choice to make that trade-off.
    • matwood 2y ago
      Have you ever done tech support?
    • ZaoLahma 2y ago
      As someone who has to help my father with his personal tech as his mental health deteriorates (several brain tumors), I'm thrilled every time I find something that ISN'T locked down behind pin codes, passwords or other authentication methods that he no longer remembers or can communicate. His current state really has made me think about my own tech, about what should be locked down and what really should not be - things that we lock down out of habit (or by force) rather than out of necessity.
      • dclowd9901 2y ago
        Given the rate at which the elderly find themselves swindled out of money due to scams, hacks or any other method of invasion, I really don’t think loosening controls makes the most sense. Might be interesting if companies offered the ability for someone to be a “steward” over another when it came to sensitive choices (like allowing new logins, sending money, etc). Of course that itself is a minefield of issues with family members themselves taking advantage of their elderly members. But maybe power of attorney would have to be granted?
• caycep 2y ago
  it's not that I blindly trust apple; it's more that they're the one FAANG company where I am the actual customer and their incentives align/depend on keeping me happy. Google/MS could care less how I feel; and I am well aware that I am most certainly not their customer.
  • NBJack 2y ago
    > it's more that they're the one FAANG company where I am the actual customer and their incentives align/depend on keeping me happier Do they though? Battery performance that 'lies' to you intentionally, planned obsolescence, locked in ecosystems, overtly undercutting the alternatives, marketing that hypes up rather bland features...I admit I don't see your point. Apple, if anything, seem about as user hostile as Microsoft is these days.
    • skydhash 2y ago
      Apple is tinker-hostile, but they’re great at getting-things-done for the majority of people. It’s frustrating when you have the knowledge to build custom workflows, but the happy path and the guardrails work great for many. Microsoft have no consistency and Google wants you to pray at the altar of advertising.
    • audunw 2y ago
      > Battery performance that 'lies' to you intentionally, planned obsolescence ... Everything is relative. Apple generally supports their devices with OS updates for longer than most Android phone makers. Their incentives here are well aligned: they get a decent profit from Apple Store no matter how long you use their phone. I think a lot of the reporting on Apples actions is very click-baity and lack nuance. Take the case when Apple throttled CPU performance of their phones when the battery got old and degraded. It was reported as a case of planned obsolescence, but it was in fact the exact opposite: by limiting the power consumption of the CPU they avoided unexpected phone shutdown due to battery voltage going too low during bursts of high power consumption. A phone that randomly shuts down is borderline use-less. A phone that is slower can at least be used for a while longer. Apple didn't have to do this. They would have spent less R&D money, and had a much lower chance of bad PR backlash, if they just simply did nothing. Yet they did something to keep old phones useful for longer. > locked in ecosystems That's a fine balance. Creating a good ecosystem is part of what makes Apple so user friendly. And it's a lot harder to create open ecosystems than having closed ones. Especially when you factor in security and reliability. If Apple diverted resources to making their ecosystems more open I think their ecosystem integration would have been significantly worse, which would have made them lose the thing most users considers Apples primary advantage. Apple is a mixed bag. They were one of the first to go all-in on USB-C. Sometimes they push aggressively for new open standards that improve user experience. Yet they held on to Lightning for far too long on their phones. But here you get back to the planned obsolescence factor: there's a HUGE amount of perfectly fine Lightning accessories out there that people/companies are using with iPhones. If they killed Lightning too fast I can guarantee you they would have gotten a lot of hate from people who couldn't use their Lightning accessory anymore. With laptops that wasn't a big issue. Adapters are significantly less convenient to use with phone accessories.
• suneater921 2y ago
  Yeah, you’re right. Apple’s approach to privacy is like one of those fairytale genies. On paper, and in many technical aspects, class-leading, but useless because anyone powerful and/or determined enough to hurt you will be able to use the backdoors that they willingly provide. End to end encryption? Sure, but we’re sending your location and metadata in unencrypted packets. Don’t want governments to surveil your images? Sure, they can’t see the images - but they’ll send us hashes of illegal images, and we’ll turn your images into hashes, check them against each other, and report you to them if we find enough. Apple essentially sells unbreakable locked doors while being very careful to keep a few windows open. They are a key PRISM member and have obligations under U.S. law that they will fulfil. Encryption backdoors aren’t needed when the systems that they work within can be designed to provide backdoors. I fully expect that Apple Intelligence will have similar system defects that won’t be covered properly, and will go forgotten until some dissident gets killed and we wonder why. For a look at their PR finesse in tricking media, see this, over the CSAM fiasco that has been resolved, in Apple’s favour. https://sneak.berlin/20230115/macos-scans-your-local-files-now/ https://sneak.berlin/20230115/macos-scans-your-local-files-n...
  • ladzoppelin 2y ago
    Yeah but Google and MS have the same problems.. What your talking about is the reality of using a computer connected to the internet since 2003.
    • NBJack 2y ago
      This is true, but your examples aren't directly trying to pretend they are the better alternatives for that. Apple is doing its best to paint itself as some golden company when reality dictates they are no better (if honestly worse in some categories).
    • seec 2y ago
      But they don't bullshit about it as much and their offerings are much cheaper and it's easier to not have to pay as much (either with data or money). There is just a general hypocrisy about Apple that is hilarious.
• jajko 2y ago
  Don't expect balanced objective opinions on Apple on HN, that was never ever the case. Some of it are tech enthusiasts, some are maybe employees or investors, some is paid PR. Nothing wrong there per se, its just good to realize it.
• School-Cotton 2y ago
  Do you have any examples of Apple being untrustworthy to back up your rather extreme reaction?
  • adrian_b 2y ago
    You should remember that in December 2023 it was revealed that the "Apple Silicon" CPUs have some undocumented testing features, which have unbelievably remained enabled in the Apple devices for many years until being notified by the bug finders, instead of being disabled at the end of production. Using the undocumented but accessible control registers, all the memory protections of the Apple devices could be bypassed. Using this hardware backdoor, together with some software bugs in the Apple system libraries and applications, for many years, until the end of 2023, it has been possible to remotely take complete control of any iPhone, with access to its storage and control of the camera and microphone, in such a way that it was almost impossible for the owner to discover this (the backdoor bugs have been discovered only as a consequence of analyzing some suspicious Internet traffic of some iPhones that were monitored by external firewalls). It is hard to explain such a trivial security error as not disabling a testing backdoor after production, for a company that has claimed publicly for so long that they take the security of their customers very seriously and that has provided a lot of security theater features, like a separate undocumented security processor, while failing to observe the most elementary security rules. It is possible that the backdoor was intentional, either inserted with the knowledge of the management at the request of some TLA, or by a rogue Apple employee who was a mole of such a TLA, but these alternative explanations are even worse for Apple than the explanation based on negligence.
    • saagarjha 2y ago
      I don't think this demonstrates untrustworthiness.
      • talldayo 2y ago
        Sure. Next you'll say that POPCOUNT and the Intel Management Engine are actually perfectly trustworthy too.
• PaulRobinson 2y ago
  Could you provide an alternative model where you get what you want, that is economically viable for vendors and manufacturers to invest in, and that does not require me to teach my parents how to sysadmin their phones to keep them safe? I trust Apple more than I trust Google to not share my data with a large group of corporate entities who want to sell me things I do not wish to buy. I believe both - and if required, organizations like Mozilla, Ubuntu, Redhat/Oracle, whoever - to comply with law enforcement requests made of them to hand over any data relating to me that they might hold. I'm OK with that. I think Apple has less of that data than Google, and works actively to have less of it. Google works actively to increase the amount of data they have about me. I think even if you had a functional device using entirely open software, that any organisation you share that data with or use to communicate with using that device - including cloud service providers, network providers, and so on - would also comply with law enforcement. "Ah!", you say, "But I get to choose which crypto to use! I know it won't have backdoors!". To which I will reply you are unlikely to have read and truly understood the source code to the crypto software you're using, and that such software is regularly shown to have security issues. It's just not true that open source means that all bugs become shallow, and the "many eyes" you're hoping for to surface these issues are likely employed at, err, Apple, Google, Redhat, Ubuntu, Mozilla... I look at the landscape and I conclude that true open source environments have a ton of issues, Google/Android have far more (for my taste), and that I am more confident in Apple than I am in either myself (even as an experienced tech expert), or Google, or Microsoft, to keep my data private to me to the greatest extent legally permissible. Do I think "legally permissible" should be extended? Sure. Do I wish a multi-billionaire would throw 50% of the net worth at making open source compete on the same level? Yeah, cool. Do I think any of that is realistic in the next 5 years? No. So, I make my bets accordingly, eyes wide open, balancing the risks...
• tl 2y ago
  > I'm actually a little gobsmacked anyone on this forum can type those words without physically convulsing. Apple tells a pretty compelling lie here. Rather than execute logic on a server whose behavior can change moment to moment, it executes on a device you "own" with a "knowable" version of its software. And you can absolutely determine no network traffic occurs during the execution of the features from things announced this week and going back a decade. The part that Apple also uploads your personal information to their servers on separate intervals both powering their internal analytics and providing training data is also known, and for the most part, completely lost on people.
  • ducadveritatem 2y ago
    Are you claiming Apple uses personal user data (e.g someone’s photos or texts) as training data for their server-side models? That’s a massive claim and there are some journalists you should definitely shoot a message to on signal if you have proof of that and aren’t just blowing smoke.
    • tl 2y ago
      Apple's claim (per public statements) is: - They upload your data to their servers. This is a requirement of iCloud and several non-iCloud systems like Maps. - Where analytics is concerned, data is anonymized. They give examples of how they do this like by adding noise to the start and end of map routes. - Where training is concerned, data is limited to purchased data (photos) and opted-in parties (health research). My point is that Apple's code executing on device can be verified to execute on device. That concept does not require trust. Where servers are involved and Apple does admit their use in some cases, you trust them (as much as you trust Google) their statements are both perfectly true and ageless. Apple transitions seamlessly between two true concepts with wildly different implications.
• adrian_b 2y ago
  I would give multiple upvotes to this, were it possible. I do not have either Google or Apple accounts and I do not intend to ever open such accounts (despite owning some Android smartphones and having owned Apple laptops). Because of this, I am frequently harassed by various companies or agencies, which change their interaction metods into smartphone apps and then deprecate the alternatives. Moreover, I actually would be willing to install such apps, but only if there would be some means to download them, but most of them insist on providing the app only in the official store, from which I cannot install it, because I have no Google account. I have been forced to close my accounts in one of the banks that I use, because after using their online banking system in the browser for more than a decade, including from my smartphone, they have decided to have a custom app. In the beginning that did not matter, but then they have terminated their Web server for online banking and they have refused to provide directly their app, leaving the Google store as the only source of it. I have been too busy to try to fight this legally, but I cannot believe that their methods do not break any law. I am not an US citizen, I live in the European Union, and when an European bank (a Societe Generale subsidiary) refuses to provide its services to anyone who does not enter in a contractual relationship with a foreign US company, such discrimination cannot be legal.
  • LamaOfRuin 2y ago
    I sympathize with the plight, as I have also occasionally tried to fight this fight. However, to quibble with your last analysis, you're almost certainly entering an agreement with the EU registered legal entity of a multinational company, and you almost certainly already had to do that to obtain the hardware, run the OS, use the browser, etc. The degree to which any of those contracts are enforceable is another matter.
    • adrian_b 2y ago
      Even if Google were treated as a local company, that does not change anything. I find unbelievable that a bank has the arrogance of conditioning their services on whether their customers accept to do business or not with some third party. I see no difference between the condition of having a Google account and for instance a condition that I should buy my car from Audi or from any other designated company, instead of from wherever I want. It is none of my bank's business what products or services I choose to buy or use (outside of special circumstances like when receiving bank credits).