2021 - Apple collects more types of data than Google https://www.tomsguide.com/news/android-ios-data-collection
2021 - Apple Do Not Track basically a placebo button https://www.techdirt.com/2021/12/10/apples-do-not-track-button-is-privacy-theater/
2022 - Apple tracking you despite your privacy settings https://gizmodo.com/apple-iphone-analytics-tracking-even-when-off-app-store-1849757558
2023 - All the Data Apple Tracks on You (Privacy guides amount to roughly 70,000 words of legalese) https://www.wired.com/story/apple-privacy-data-collection/
2023 - MAC address “filtering” has basically been broken since launch https://www.zdnet.com/article/iphone-users-who-dont-want-to-be-tracked-need-apples-ios-17-1-privacy-patch/
Apple still links services like device bricking to the Find My network. If your iphone is stolen, and you don’t want someone to reset it to use or sell, you HAVE to submit your location data to be a part of the tracker network. Disabling that, Apple sends users a scary nag email that their device is no longer protected.
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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.
And that’s just the last three years!
Juan, YOU are the man! 💪
Plus people forget that if they use iCloud Apple can also see all your data in the same way Google can if you use a Google account
They can see your encrypted data. What’s the issue with that?
Only to say it’s the same with Google. The data is also encrypted. So they want to point the finger and say how much Google collects, but so do they.
Not exactly true. If you enable “Advanced Data Protection” not even apple can look at your data (with the exception of data which has to be interoperable like calendars and mail)
I’m sure the Google is also encrypting the data with the exception of the interoperable data. So there’s no difference. Why point fingers when Apple do the same?
Apple also know your browsing history. They also know your app usage. They also store your contacts, calendar, photos - just like Google. I don’t see the difference.
Apple already can’t look at most of your data. Advanced Data Protection makes it so they can’t see any of it.
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.
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…
When the pot calls the kettle black, it is technically correct.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
A list from elsewhere in the thread: https://lemdro.id/comment/3314038
Yeah yeah, wake me up when you can unlock the bootloader on apple phones.
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What do you mean by get pretty close?
Having to log into a Google account that uniquely identifies you across all your devices and milks you of every single data it can put its filthy hands on?
I am an android user but honestly between the two I think Apple is the lesser evil
(If you buy a suitable device) You don’t have to use the preloaded OS (see Graphrne, Lineage etc).
Yes I know but that’s clearly not what the previous guy was talking about
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Yup, the logic people use to call Apple phones secure would put Fisher Price toy phones at the S-Tier of security.
Is Apple trying to convince me that the Health app, Apple maps or Siri doesn’t track me?
Is Apple trying to convince me that the Health app, Apple maps or Siri doesn’t track me?
No, they are trying to convince themselves. It’s an internal brainwashing presentation after all, not for external PR.
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.
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
I’ll stand corrected on my original comment then. I hope that with Google being dragged through the courts at the moment, perhaps it may inspire more interest and conversation about how our data is handled and how it pertains to the implications around privacy.
Health app has encrypted data that doesn’t go to Apple without explicit permission
Huh I wonder how is that different from Samsung Health or Google Fit.
Google doesn’t make money off of those so its OK.
TL;DR: the slide is from 2013, everybody calm your pants.
One damn iPhone in my home network makes most calls home out of anything in my home network. I cn see it in AdGuard Home log.
I also can see this on router with Gargoyle firmware
Buying or updating an app requires system-wide sign in
Only if one uses the official play store. Which apple does not understand, ofc.
does not understandDoes not want to understand
Oh irony, thy name is Apple.
Pot, meet kettle
Lol. Best comment.
Google, the famous advertising company is using its hardware,software and infrastructure to watch everything we are doing?
I’m shocked.
The funny part is its coming from Apple
“only when it provides a better customer service” Hahaha. That’s so vague that it is completely meaningless.
Yes, but if you put graphene on a pixel it’s miles beyond an iphone
Congratulations to you and the other 0.000000001% of Android users then.
0.000000001%
This implies the existence of 100 billion Android users, that is roughly 13 times the number of people alive.
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.
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.
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.
Clearly this was before Apple became one of the largest advertising companies.
They’re not wrong. Its just they aren’t the perfect solution
I don’t think they want to be. I just think they want to fragment Android. I agree with them.
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.
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.
was this old (the google logo is the old one so i’m not sure) or was apple just uninformed?
you can have all sorts of multiple accounts in the control panel, mail and calendar all have on device log ons, you can update apps outside of the app store or use the google play store with your google account the same way you do with your apple account.
Five words into the article says
Apple’s internal presentation from 2013
Literally at the top under TL;DR
Dang you’re so helpful :)
Given how they operate internally at the engineering level, probably just Apple being uninformed. The internal culture is total brainwash. Apple tech is the only tech. It is partly why they genuinely think they created technologies. They never stick their head out of the fruit to see what the world around them has, and they have a habit of buy, cheat, or steal to ensure their monopoly continues.
Maybe an interesting sociological experiment? How technology evolves in a cult versus outside the cult back in the real world?
