Apple Isn't Your Friend
gizmodo.com
gizmodo.com
Re: company's soul, companies are made of individuals, and if those individuals are opposed to the companies practices, the company can lose those people. Apple has a particularly well-defined and long lasting culture, and it'd be a huge change to who they are and who works there. Talent+brand risk the kind of risk a business wouldn't take unless it was a last resort. Sure it could happen, but there's a lot of more realistic hypotheticals to ponder in the world.
For those not clicking: the article writer did a (I think, not entirely certain) legally binding request for the data Google, Facebook and Apple have on him. Google delivered a 243Mb zip, Facebook a staggering 881Mb and Apple just 9Mb.
I just got a brand new iPhone running iOS 11 - as opposed to the prior phone that I had that was upgraded to iOS 11. I didn’t realize that all of Apple’s iWork and iLife apps were installed by default. They are full featured apps so I wouldn’t consider them “crapware”. I did delete them though.
Agreed. Anyone who thinks of corporations (or nations) as their personal "friend" is most likely a tad confused. However, corporations are still entities with which you can interact in the real world. This means the level of trust with which you interact with said corporations is up to you. I am personally far more comfortable sending messages on iMessage w/ an iPhone, than with say Skype or Facebook Messenger.
I assume they are competitively positioning themselves against Google, Facebook, etc. and will hopefully be rewarded by the market as more people wake up to the importance of privacy and security being designed into their hardware and software.
Apple is simply betting that privacy and security is great for business. No more. No less.
When someone takes an altruistic stance, it's easy for them to change their mind later if they decide $$$ is more important.
But when I see that an organization's actions align with their profit motive... then I find it much easier to rely on them, at least as long as I expect their position relative to the market/competition to remain qualitatively the same.
Can only speak for myself but I much prefer Linux and even if I had to pay for it that would be my preferred choice.
As for why I'm a heavy multitasker and a keyboard addict and in my three years with a Mac I realised it wasn't for me. (If anyone is interested, feel free to ask.)
Do I say Mac is bad? No. I guess more people should use Macs.
Is Linux a serious competitor? For some of us: definitely.
On Mac I had three big problems and one small:
- ctrl and fn was swapped on the laptoo and I configured a lot of non Mac machines as part of my job so I could never relearn that part permanently. Also their own full size keyboard had ctrl in the usual spot
- cmd-tab made me think way to often. I might be a bit impatient yes, but there is something good about being able to go back to any window with just one keyboard combo instead of alt-tabbing to the correct group then alt-| to the correct window.
- the "jumping a word at a time" shortcut was inconsistent between apps. IIRC some used alt-arrow, some fn-arrow, some cmd-arrow, some ctrl-arrow. Also the lack of home and end keys broke my workflow. (I think some of these are fixed now and I also hear rumors that fn and ctrl can be swapped with some tool now)
- inside applications I'd struggle to access settings etc without reaching for the touchpad.
Apple could have refused, and gotten banned from the domestic Chinese market, but they made a decision to damage the liberties and privacy of their customers there, because the market is worth a lot to them.
Cook even IIRC, humiliated himself by praising the CP management of the internet in China at a conference there.
Edit, QUOTE: "During his speech, Cook declared that China’s vision “is a vision we at Apple share.”
“The theme of this conference — developing a digital economy for openness and shared benefits — is a vision we at Apple share,” he proclaimed. “We are proud to have worked alongside many of our partners in China to help build a community that will join a common future in cyberspace.”"
I'm not saying it has. I'm not saying it will immediately begin doing so. But there's clearly a limit where they will, and all America has to do is push it to that limit. American governments and American intelligence agencies have shown repeatedly (via gag orders and secret courts) that they're not above making companies spy on their users (domestic and foreign) and forcing them to stay mum about it.
Why not just opt out of that market? Well, obviously it’s a huge market and that would be stupid, but also you can’t make changes if you don’t have a seat at the table. It’s a better strategy to maintain a presence there, be able to at least have a chance at influence, and already have a foothold if things change.
If Apple gets free chit because they said they didn't know about the program, then so does Google & Facebook.
IMO, any multi-billion $ company with cash balance higher than several countries put together; does have bones under their rug.
?
You are. PRISM is a lawful program that Google agreed to be a part of in 2009. Google's data centers were hacked (or the link through the dark fiber was) by the NSA and that's when they started encrypting that link.
But they didn't know that their data was also accessed via other means & they took action to prevent it.
This is, at the very least, debatable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)#A...
& I say this as a Linux user, I am no fan of Apples closed system ideology
Sp, the author don't know what apple want, just a conspiracy theorist? But under the same argument or deduction, any company isn't my friend, this author is not my friend, too.
Another sterling example of millennial clickbait “journalism”