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Comment by uabstraction | Hacker News Reader

Beyond their occasional public stands such as the San Bernardino case, I don't think Apple does enough to market how this is useful to the average end user. In fact, as a free software enthusiast who has never even considered getting an iPhone, the privacy issue has me seriously considering getting one (though not the 7!) when my Nexus 5x succumbs to entropy.

There are a few technical issues I need to work out before I make the change though. First, I need to get macOS running natively on my workstation so I can install my own software on the phone, as I'm not running out to get a MacBook for this single need. Second, I need a root shell.

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Apple has _always_ pushed the privacy angle in their marketing. That's why they make pages like this one: http://www.apple.com/privacy/approach-to-privacy/

Secure enclave. App sandboxing. Fine-grained revocable permissions. TouchID. Differential privacy. iMessage encryption. Find My iPhone. On-device models for photo recognition.

The question is how to spin it in a positive way.

The developer looks at the app sandbox and fine-grained permissions and thinks "I can't run my code on my own device," and walks away.

The police officer looks at TouchID and the secure enclave and thinks "I can't gather evidence," and walks away.

The marketeer looks at on-device models and differential privacy and thinks "I can't understand what my users want if the device doesn't report it," and walks away.

But the user (arguably) benefits from each of these things. App sandboxing, permissions, and a lack of background tasks remove the ability to run malicious code without my consent, in theory. Secure enclave and encryption remove a malicious third party's ability to intercept my communication, in theory. On-device recognition models allow me to benefit from better organization without sending my photos to some cloud vision service, in theory.

Perhaps I've been ignoring much of it because I've always ruled out iOS due to the walled garden. On the other hand, most of these features are available on the Nexus (and other Android phones) as well. The only catch is it conveniently doesn't do anything to isolate your private info from Google (or your OEM if you screwed up and didn't get a Nexus/OnePlus). I think it would be extremely powerful marketing if Apple did a case study of the kinds and amounts of data being betrayed by competitor's phones compared to iPhones. A nice bar graph illustrating the data minded from each phone, next to a much shorter bar for the iPhone would create many converts. Demonstrating what kinds of creepy things can be extrapolated from each data set would drive the nail home even harder.

I agree that this would piss off developers who value this kind of data robbery - but Apple is in a much better position to double down on selling quality apps that treat their users as customers instead of products than Google (based on the statistic that iPhone users purchase more apps).

I'm in a similar position, I considered changing to an iPhone but in the end it's just half-measure.

There's Ubuntu Phone, KDE Plasma, Copperhead and others but they don't feel like a good solution. The problem is always the same: no apps. It doesn't matter if I can install 99/100 apps I need but the one I can't is a messenger one of my clients requires me to use. Or if I can't really rely on a compatibility layer like MicroG, since Android is not that open anymore.

Hell, I'd take a solid foundation with no apps (aside from a media player, browser, SMS, and dialer) in a heartbeat. What makes the alternatives so problematic is the complete lack of support from OEMs.

These OSes exist today, and I'd like to use them, but they're typically limited to a very small handful of (typically obsolete) devices. As long as this is the case, they'll have a lot of trouble finding enough developers and users.

If we could simply link our own kernels against these drivers the way we do with the nvidia driver and DKMS on desktops, it would be a revolutionary step forward for alt smartphone OSes. We could start working on userland instead of spending so much time devising hacks to simply get graphics and radio working one handset at a time. Unfortunately, the OEMs couldn't care less and would much rather our phones become e-waste than eat into next year's sales figures. Until then, we're pretty much at the mercy of Apple and Google :(

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