3 ms·
Sadly I think the enthusiasm with which the market embraced this behaviour in mobile, console and IoT makes it legally difficult for Microsoft to be punished.
by spacebanana7 2y ago
Sadly I think the enthusiasm with which the market embraced this behaviour in mobile, console and IoT makes it legally difficult for Microsoft to be punished.
How can you penalise Microsoft for pushing OneDrive by default but not penalise Apple for iCloud? Should multiple backup providers be suggested at startup for economic fairness? Or should backups be disabled by default (potentially annoying consumers of mobile devices)?
Not saying it’s impossible for a skilled regulator to build a PC specific theory of harm but it’s hard. Potentially might need entirely new legislation.
- djxfade 2y agoiCloud Drive, and actually the entire iCloud ecosystem is opt-in
- amelius 2y agoYes, but the question is how they implemented it. Are there dark patterns, is it all-or-nothing, etc.? Also, with iCloud being at the heart of Apple's ecosystem, a simple bug may very well cause accidental sharing of sensitive data. Even if that never happens, it does not make me sleep better.
- amluto 2y agoApple’s apps make it pretty clear when something is local and when something is in iCloud. Even for iCloud users, it’s usually an explicit choice per file or object. Photos is the notable exception.
- amelius 2y agoI don't want to worry about exceptions.
- amluto 2y agoI’m pretty sure there’s also a very-much-not-fine-print notice about iCloud Photos when you set up a device, and you can easily turn iCloud Photos off. The only part missing is that you can’t enable iCloud Photos but choose, per photo, whether to sync the photo.
- kentm 2y agoIt also doesn’t nag if you decide not to use it.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoIt does - there’s a message with a red dot badging in your settings that you can’t dismiss. Clicking it takes you to a nag message to log into iCloud. Still, nowhere near the blatantly insecure and anticompetitive dark patterns that Microsoft uses
- nicoburns 2y agoIMO While Apple are pushing iCloud harder than they really should be allowed to, but it's nowhere near as bad as what Microsoft are doing. With Apple there's a simple opt-out in the setup wizard, and if you opt-out you stay opted-out (and are only prompted to opt-in once a year with the major OS update).
- smartbit 2y agoOn a new device iCloud is not opt-out. Yesterday I installed a new iPad and had to go to iCloud settings and turn off syncing for some 30 services. Quite annoying.
- nicoburns 2y agoHowever, you can (or least could last time I setup an iOS device) choose not to sign into iCloud in the first place in the setup UI. Which requires knowing a key combination and then running a command in a terminal on windows. I wish I could use parts of iCloud without all the crap that entails. But at least I can choose not to use it all.
- kirenida 2y agoI set up 3 new Mac laptops in the last month. All of them had an option to skip iCloud login during setup. Of course, you have to log in to iCloud to use the app store to get OS updates. Since I'm not an Apple user, I don't know if there are offline options available.
- nicoburns 2y agoIt is luckily possible to sign in for the App Store and OS updates without enabling things like backups or syncing.
- temac 2y agoIt seems completely illegal for MS to do that on EU computers, esp. with Schrems (but probably even completely illegal with just GDPR)
- number6 2y agoBut it will take month to prepare a case and get it to the right courts. Maybe years.