• flipht@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        21
        ·
        11 months ago

        100%. Most business is just advanced sophistry at this point. Marketing and advertising serves a useful purpose for new products, when the market isn’t aware that it exists.

        But by quantity and cost, most advertising is just social manipulation and is effectively an extra drain on the economy.

  • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    122
    arrow-down
    16
    ·
    11 months ago

    Apple is 100% correct. It’s the entire reason Android exists.

    Then again, Apple also does a fair bit of data collection. I hate that Apple has been able to market themselves as some kind of bastion of privacy. They aren’t.

    • woelkchen@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      65
      arrow-down
      12
      ·
      11 months ago

      Apple is 100% correct. It’s the entire reason Android exists.

      Then again, Apple also does a fair bit of data collection. I hate that Apple has been able to market themselves as some kind of bastion of privacy. They aren’t.

      So Apple is not 100% correct. They are 50% correct because the second half of their claim is that Apple is somehow different and not tracking its users…

    • skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      18
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      11 months ago

      Actually, the reason Android exists isn’t so one-dimensional.

      • The company Android was initially concerned more with Microsoft dominating phones like they did computers at the time, before being bought by Google
      • They created two prototype chains initially, one touch, one that was more akin to BlackBerry
      • iPhone came out, they ditched the BlackBerry-esque one and focused on what became now Android

      Google was mostly just doing what all tech companies were doing at the time, trying to compete in a mobile arms race for dominance. The data tracking was just a bonus. Appeasing shareholders is paramount. Look at how Apple created an Alexa speaker just because they had to as another example of this type of behavior.

      Also, Apple actually has a long history of tracking user behavior that predates both Android and the iPhone.

      Apple apps since some time shortly after the inception of OS X would (and likely still do) phone home to configuration.apple.com to send apple metrics on usage. Earlier variations of LittleSnitch could actually block this collection behavior.

      Apple has since reconfigured the network stack to guarantee that direct encrypted connections to Apple are always possible above any VPN, or other type of network filter connection. So there’s no way to prevent communication with Apple on an Apple product at all now short of keeping it off the Internet or blocking DNS to 17.* IP addresses, which would only work on a network one has control over.

    • GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      11 months ago

      I believe the reason Google acquired Android was to make sure that Apple didn’t dominate the mobile device landscape, which would be a threat to their ad business. The data collection was just a nice side-effect, from their perspective.

      • Nath@aussie.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        11 months ago

        I think you underestimate how early Google acquired Android. In 2005, Apple wasn’t even in the mobile device market. Nokia were the dominant handset in those days.

        • folkrav@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          11 months ago

          This. If anything, they wanted to claw back some of that Blackberry market. Apple wasn’t even on anybody’s mind yet on the mobile side of things.

    • ribboo@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      11 months ago

      Genuine question: in what ways do Apple track iOS users (that cannot be turned off)?

      I’m of the viewpoint that most tracking can be rather easily be turned off, and that android plays in a totally other ballpark here. But I might very well be wrong.

      • Nath@aussie.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        11 months ago

        They both track you fairly closely. There are no winners if you are primarily concerned about privacy. Google is simply more open about it, and provides more access to that data to you (like timeline and takeout).

    • brax@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      11 months ago

      Yup, the logic people use to call Apple phones secure would put Fisher Price toy phones at the S-Tier of security.

  • Substance_P@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    54
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    11 months ago

    Is Apple trying to convince me that the Health app, Apple maps or Siri doesn’t track me?

    • ijeff@lemdro.idOPM
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      15
      ·
      11 months ago

      Their slide seems to list Siri, Maps, and iAd not being tied to the user’s Apple ID as a pro. I didn’t realize this was the case.

      • Uprise42@artemis.camp
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        15
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        11 months ago

        Apple has very explicitly stated in very clear terms that the health app does not share data with other apps or devices unless you give permission. And as someone who has given that permission (twice, once to give a meal tracker write permission and once to link to my doctors office’s application for read and write) it’s for every application. It’s not a “hey you need to let everyone have access or no one”. You can get fairly granular.

        There’s always the possibility of lying but usually when a company goes that hard on saying the same thing is so many different ways it’s legit. They don’t commit like that unless they know they won’t get in trouble. Those kinds of statements could open them to false advertising claims if it got out they were taking your health data.

        Here’s a link to their privacy document which reviewed a good bit of info: https://www.apple.com/privacy/docs/Health_Privacy_White_Paper_May_2023.pdf

    • SulaymanF@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      11 months ago

      Health app has encrypted data that doesn’t go to Apple without explicit permission

  • 30p87@feddit.de
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    35
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    11 months ago

    Buying or updating an app requires system-wide sign in

    Only if one uses the official play store. Which apple does not understand, ofc.

  • Auzy@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    19
    ·
    11 months ago

    I used to sell apple gear at a reseller. They literally used to send messages to our customers for applecare.

    The difference is that Apple simply uses the data for it’s own benefit and competes against everyone (including people developing for their system)

      • Auzy@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        11 months ago

        Definitely not saying Google is any better.

        But don’t forget, Apple gets billions of dollars from Google too, to be default webpage… So they’re totally complicit, and in practice, they’re effectively selling your user data to google.

        The biggest issue with Apple has always been their dodgy marketing. 20 years ago, they were living off the incorrect claim that “MacOS can’t get Viruses”, and now, seems to be just as dodgy with privacy.

        • miss_brainfart@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          11 months ago

          At the end of the day, being as big as they are makes both of them malicious, manipulative and exploitative per default, otherwise they wouldn’t be multi-billion or even trillion dollar companies in the first place.

    • mindlight@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      arrow-down
      7
      ·
      11 months ago

      Congratulations to you and the other 0.000000001% of Android users then.

      • /home/pineapplelover@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        11 months ago

        I would like to think that the percentage of users who have grapheneOS is maybe 5% of the pixel population. I’m just pulling a number out of my ass right now but basically a lot of people who want the very best privacy and security go for graphene which is limited to only Pixels even though there are more cool phones like the fp5.

        • Avero@feddit.de
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          11 months ago

          Lineage is by far the most popular custom ROM and it has about 3.2 million active devices. Which is about nothing in comparison to 1.22 billion smartphones sold alone in 2022. Barely anyone uses third party ROMs.

        • Gunpachi@lemmings.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          11 months ago

          There are some people who use other roms like Lineage without the google apps. It’s not as good as Graphene but it’s better than the OEM version that comes with the phones.

  • books@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    16
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    11 months ago

    Google, the famous advertising company is using its hardware,software and infrastructure to watch everything we are doing?

    I’m shocked.

  • NessD@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    11 months ago

    “only when it provides a better customer service” Hahaha. That’s so vague that it is completely meaningless.

    • roguetrick@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      11 months ago

      I don’t think they want to be. I just think they want to fragment Android. I agree with them.

      • krimsonbun@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        11 months ago

        The fall of android would be the fall of the only reliable open os for phones. I’m not seeing many custom roms for privacy based on iOS.

        • roguetrick@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          11 months ago

          Opening a space for an OS fork led by a consortium of mobile phone manufacturers that don’t have a vested interest in supporting their ad and tracking business would be an overall benefit. Google sees value in android only for that, and that’s a major problem.