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Boy did Apple skate to where the puck was headed or what? I remember reading all those hot takes years ago insisting it was a mistake and thinking how short sighted that was [1][2]. It was also weird because even before the Apple Watch was announced there was plenty of evidence of their health ambitions, so it obviously made sense to be strong on privacy and security. Since then multiple high profile hacks have happened (and are bound to keep happening), the FBI fought Apple and lost (at least in lower courts), GDPR is being implemented in the EU, and antitrust regulators are taking a look at internet business models [3].

[1] https://dcurt.is/privacy-vs-user-experience

[2] https://stratechery.com/2015/tim-cooks-unfair-and-unrealisti...

[3] https://www.ft.com/content/9376eece-00e4-11e8-9650-9c0ad2d7c...

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From [1]: The truth is that collecting information about people allows you to make significantly better products, and the more information you collect, the better products you can build

That is a hilariously absurd statement. Collecting data has never been about making better products.

And apple being pro-privacy is equally absurd, they just haven't gone full retard and started collecting everything they can. Which I guess is noteworthy of a company its size today, but don't confuse that with pro-privacy. It is just what everyone would expect of any sane entity. The climate of today just means we've set the bar so low that some confuse it for "pro-privacy" to care the slightest of it's consumers.

> Collecting data has never been about making better products.

I’d argue that Google Maps is a much better product BECAUSE it collects a whole lot of information from its users. The most visible one is the traffic information, you literally cannot provide that information world wide without collecting data from your users (unless you want to burn all your money on installing sensors on every street corner in the world)

I don’t think that’s objectively true. Apple has been making deliberate tradeoffs that favour privacy where it would be easier and possibly better UX not to do so. Siri is a pretty classic example of these tradeoffs in action.

Saying a company is "pro" anything is probably a bit of a stretch. But Apple have made a number of public statements, and fought against the US government taking a stand on for the privacy of their users. Given the option available, they seem to take the one of stronger stands on privacy (for a company developing their own phones/operating systems).

> Collecting data has never been about making better products.

That's a strong statement. Especially given that I know for sure data that is collected exactly for that purpose within my company.

Maybe you'd consider an alternate statement: "Collecting data is no longer solely about making better products."

That doesn't mean much for the Chinese, though:

https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2018/01/16/icloud-i...

My only problem is that to use an Apple device, you have to give them your name and physical address to sign up for an Apple ID.

I understand that privacy != anonymity, but I prefer the Google way, where they don't ask for all that information (of course I bet they already know with their all powerful location tracking).

What? You can give them a fake name and address to sign up for an Apple ID. And as a bonus, they won't even randomly freeze your account and demand your phone number. The fact is that with Google, even if you don't tell them who you are, they will figure it out anyway and use that data is all kinds of ways that won't necessarily benefit you.

In terms of privacy, Apple has got my back whereas Google would feed me to the hounds for extra advertising revenue. This is why I changed from Android to iPhone after being a hardcore Android fan for years.

But Google decided to leave China instead of giving in while Apple has turned iCloud over to the China government and removed VPN software.

http://dailycaller.com/2017/08/06/while-trashing-trump-apple... Apple Is Selling Its Soul To China | The Daily Caller

> My only problem is that to use an Apple device, you have to give them your name and physical address to sign up for an Apple ID.

Umm, no: an icloud/appleid can simply be generated (here, make yourself a few: https://appleid.apple.com/account#!&page=create ).

For an itunes ID sure, as a side effect of it being a billing ID, but your itunes account doesn't have to have the same email address or even be connected in any way with your appleid. Mine are like that.

Is there any possibility that China could try to limit Apple product's availability to citizens there?

Why do that, they can coerce apple to do whatever they want. Apple showed no resistance whatsoever about that.

Apple is a more of a high status fashion company that happens to use a lot of tech, like Rolex in the early 20th century. Tech specs aside, I don't feel that there are equivalent products so it would be hard to do to itself, like going on a diet.

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