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Comment by bushbaba | Hacker News Reader

This is why Apple is going to continue to crush it. They can build a subpar equivalent to google services and a large portion of the tech world will adopt it for its privacy benefits. The 'tech world' is a large influencer to the general public, leading to further penetration.

It's a great strategy as Google makes 80%+ of it's revenue from Ads, and their ad model does not work well with a privacy first mindset.

Apple designs with privacy in mind. Google designs with invasiveness.

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> Apple designs with privacy in mind.

I find that hard to believe when so many of their devices' functionality depends on you sending data over to them. Unless you go out of your way to make sure you're blocking all your devices from phoning home or sending any data over to Apple, then any supposed privacy benefit becomes a lie.

Either you're the only owner of your data or your data is not, by definition, private to you.

I think this dogmatic take is pretty useless. For the vast majority of people icloud is a QoL increase that is worth not “owning” our data. All Apple does with our data is keep it safe (CSAM not included), but I would love to be proven wrong.

I don't think using the correct terms to avoid ambiguity is "dogma". It would be "pedantic" except the concern regards pretty much the essence of the issue, so that doesn't apply either.

I think your being pedantic. Dogma is fine usage. They argued that Apple isn’t a privacy-focused company because they store our data on their servers, while the bar for companies to protect our data is so low it’s a tripping hazard.

I think the larger problem is that Apple treats privacy as a double standard. They assist China's government in mass-surveillance of their citizens, while simultaneously airing "Privacy is a human right" ads in the United States. Once you factor in the horrific irony of Uighur slave labor building iPhones, I think it's pretty easy to understand how people can call their efforts 'security theater'.

> Abstract — We investigate what data iOS on an iPhone shares with Apple and what data Google Android on a Pixel phone shares with Google. We find that even when minimally configured and the handset is idle both iOS and Google Android share data with Apple/Google on average every 4.5 mins. The phone IMEI, hardware serial number, SIM serial number and IMSI, handset phone number etc are shared with Apple and Google. Both iOS and Google Android transmit telemetry, despite the user explicitly opting out of this. When a SIM is inserted both iOS and Google Android send details to Apple/Google. iOS sends the MAC addresses of nearby devices, e.g. other handsets and the home gateway, to Apple together with their GPS location. Users have no opt out from this and currently there are few, if any, realistic options for preventing this data sharing.

Leith, D. J. (2021). Mobile Handset Privacy: Measuring The Data iOS and Android Send to Apple And Google. URL: https://www.scss.tcd.ie/doug.leith/apple_google.pdf

Apple is the only one of the "big tech" to actually operate a datacenter in China, whose contents are entirely subjected to the whims of the regime.

I'm afraid your conviction in Apple is the product of a well-crafted fantasy by their marketing department, instead of based on some deep rooted philosophical belief regarding the rights and privacy of their users.

It should be noted that Apple also has an ad wing that brought in $4 billion in 2021 [0].

0: https://www.barrons.com/articles/apple-revenue-ads-516478777...

The ad revenue is mostly on App Store searches, where the intent is provided during the request.

That Ads devision can operate in a privacy first mindset while still seeing huge growth YoY. Where-as if Google operated in a don't be evil/privacy first mindset, they'd loose substantial revenue and likely no longer be profitable.

Apple would "crush it" if they would combine their privacy focus with a commitment to individual ownership instead of Apple Ownership of the product they "sell"

i.e Right to repair, Side Load Apps, no draconian app store policy, etc etc etc

Embrace both privacy and user freedom. that would be great

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