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Comment by dkonofalski | Hacker News Reader

I agree with you entirely, except in the case of Apple. I don't like closed systems either, especially when it comes to security, but, for some reason, I trust that when Apple closes a system, it's for security reasons. Their history with the Secure Enclave on iOS devices has given me a track record of security that I trust and, although it's still a closed system, the fact that they release white papers on every secure system gives me far more confidence than closed systems distributed by other companies.

I won't trust the industry when this becomes the norm but, until Apple does something to violate my trust, they've made it a point to earn trust when it comes to privacy and security.

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They have deliberately hobbled Apple maps, Safari, Siri, and anything else that would be enhanced by big data for the sole fact for a secure experience .

They created Identificaton systems that are easy to use and deployed them to all iPhones .

If there is any company that actually cares about not monitoring your behavior it is Apple. They have the best track record comparing it to other big players .

Or, more pessimistically, they couldn't get Apple Maps, Safari, Siri working well with big data so they hobbled them and claimed it was for a secure experience.

This comment only makes sense if you accept the premise that the working well with big data is more valuable than a secure experience.

I would take the bet that something that provides direct revenue incentives is worth more than something that only an admittedly vocal minority of users even care about, let alone might spend more for.

Isn't Apple's entire business model selling to a minority of users who are willing to spend more for their products?

It's not self-evident that the minority of users who care about privacy is related to the minority of users who prefer Apple products.

I see, so the pessimistic view you suggested above is that Apple has had such remarkable success selling to its subset of the market in spite of its inability to integrate big data into its products. This could be true, though it seems a bit less likely than a more direct explanation that Apple is selling its customers what they prefer.

I mostly only own Apple stuff because of the privacy reasons (and that their are the only company which got scrolling animations/feel right)

Well, are they orthogonal, or aren't they?

When the standard of “well” is Google, who has very much data indeed, that’s not a farfetched premise.

I think I should have used a different word than secure exprerienc. Maybe sacrifice for security.

Although, I don't disagree with your statement. Considering how they seem to be attempting to catch up with ML projects and maybe it wasn't as emphasized in Apple's culture that could be it.

It seems like the AI so far has been powered by acquisitions and they are playing catch up.

I know and that's why I still buy their stuff but as soon as that trust is broken it's a firesale on hardware over at gigatexal's. I mean they are a corporation with a lot of people depending on them for their fortunes, should the era of excess market returns fail or slow what avenues of revenue might they turn to next? I think perhaps it was a huge deposit in terms of trust when they left Google's mapping service for maps to roll their own now that i think about it.

What do you mean by "huge deposit in terms of trust" re rolling their own maps? Am I interpreting correctly that that was a good thing?

My guess is that the GP meant “huge deficit in trust” and autocorrect or fast typing made that into “huge deposit in trust”. So GP is saying that Apple ditching Google Maps to roll out its own wasn’t a good idea at that time and eroded trust (on that topic, Apple Maps is still pathetic and comical outside of the U.S. and a few other countries).

Nope I meant what I wrote. Ditching Google for mapping was probably for two reasons: quit giving google data from iOS users using maps, and corollary to that, garner more support from those more security minded.

I value Apple’s stance on privacy, and I agree that Apple balking at Google’s terms to get user information from maps was the right decision. But I don’t believe it added any deposit of trust from Maps — on the contrary, its own implementation was so poor to get trashed in the press and was the main reason Scott Forstall was fired. I’ll say it again, based on personal experience (even recently), Apple Maps is still pathetic to be completely useless in many Asian countries. It didn’t and doesn’t garner any trust in those places.

I think it's gotten better but if I want to get to a place and trust that I can get to a really hard to find place I use google maps. From a user's perspective I agree. But if Apple could or did, I'd use Apple's search engine over Google's (a la the use case for duckduckgo), just so I wasn't funding Google. But I make compromises like anyone else.

Imagine you are now the only person who has to be satisfied with the confidence you feel in map products.

Otherwise you equally weight everything giving nobody any preference other than no data and no location.

Now you realize that everyone has disabled maps until you switch them on because you rely on API location information.

However the five years since you began enforcing privacy has allowed everyone to reach parity.. partly because nobody is piggy backing the others.

I can't think of the way I could trade off the what next situation I just described: get everyone using power hungry chips to get you a chance at the bad guy .. how does it work if you balance the players?

All Maps apps have issues, it's not the easiest problem in the world to solve. I have no doubt Google Maps is better. But I also have no doubt that Apple should get megakudos for Apple Maps, even in countries where it works worst at least it's an option that doesn't require you being tracked.

I really, really wish they would have bought Waze. It was a big coup for Google to buy them up. Had Apple bought Waze, Apple maps would be much better today.

I’m pretty sure Waze never had their own maps, so that wouldn’t have helped Apple at all. And it would have only been a small aquihire since the Waze UI is too opinionated and non-Appley to be the default maps app anyway.

Waze started out as a community-based map building startup. They had their own maps.

I believe you’re still misunderstanding the deposit of trust thing. It’s not about app quality at all or any of that.

Imagine “trust” is a currency, and each user had a “trust account” into which more trust could be deposited (or withdrawn). Apple made a large deposit of trust-as-currency into each user’s account when they axed the Google Maps relationship. Google was demanding a large tax/withdrawal from each user’s trust account. Apple stopped that, effectively making a large deposit of trust back into each user’s account.

Yes, Apple’s Maps has suffered and been inferior. But it isn’t taxing/withdrawing from each user’s trust balance.

I'd say it represented both a deposit in terms of security trust, and a withdrawal in terms of functionality-quality trust.

Apple took a huge hit business-wise by rolling their own (adequate but inferior to Google's) maps. One of the reasons they made the split was that Google wanted user and usage data that Apple was unwilling to share. Google was offering vector map data (as opposed to tile-based) in exchange for that user data, and Apple refused. So, Apple bought user information protection (or, at least soloing) in exchange for loss of map quality. I believe that's the "deposit of trust"

I remember to have read that they shut down the G maps because Google expected them to force users to sign in for the full experience (eg turn-by-turn navigation, which at that time was only featured on android). That was the point at which Apple had to walk away from the deal

I think Apple uses 'security reasons' as a cover to advance their monopolistic business models, in a way to keep their platforms locked down, and a way to extract a minimum 30% transaction osst and yearly fee for access to their walled gardens.

My hypothesis is that Apple uses 'security reasons' as an excuse for their lack of dominance in voice assistants + machine learning. Siri's suggestions are virtually nonexistent compared to Google, Amazon, or even Microsoft's offerings. Siri's extensibility is entirely local, meaning that all new functions you want to develop for Siri need to be packed inside an iOS app for the user to install rather than a cloud function. Siri's 'app suggestions' to the user are also inferior, usually defaulting to the apps you used most recently.

monopolistic business models

Apple are far from a monopoly, they don't even have a majority of the phone market, their PC share is still in single digits.

Monopoly isn't defined by share of whatever market description you find convenient, it's defined by pricing power: whether the seller can raise prices over some range without losing sales to competitors. There's lots of times when things in what intuitively descriptively are the same market by some product description are different markets in practice because people don't, in practice, substitute between them in response to price movement.

From Wikipedia:

A monopoly (from Greek μόνος mónos ["alone" or "single"] and πωλεῖν pōleîn ["to sell"]) exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity.

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