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Comment by trashtester | Hacker News Reader

First response: This sounds good, maybe I should consider Apple for my next device?

Second response: Was undermining Google the reason he held the speech in the first place?

Also my first response, 'is this just marketing?'.

'Buy apple products, we care about your data. We will help protect it. Encrypt it. Not share it. And block others form trying to get your data'

But are Apple as benevolent as they say? Do you trust such a gigantic corporation? Are they colluding with governments instead of just advertisers?

You can assume they have to cooperate with the US government at least, that's what Snowden risked his life for to share with us. The question you have to ask yourself is whether you care about that. I can see a near future internal conflict / civil war happening in the US though, in which case having the government - potentially your adversary - know everything about you is a bad thing.

Let's put it this way:

Apples' core business is not to violate your privacy left and right, which probably gives them an edge about the likes of Facebook and Google (at least in my book) in this sphere.

Apple makes their money by selling expensive premium devices. They don't earn anything from selling your personal information or data about your usage patterns.

Google on the other hand, is an advertising company that also makes software and a smartphone OS among others.

I hope Google will at least analyze the idea of privacy, analyze what data they collect and if all of it needs to be collected or kept, when someone suggests let's collect everything there(and in other companies) should be some debate there before is implemented.

This ^. There are plenty of ways to build products that don’t require you to prey on your users just so you can have a lot more analytical profiling.

We now know the cost of mobile privacy from Google's EU pricing. They should just add it as a feature: "Privacy - $40".

Or we could get asked

Do you want the google store(40$), the amazon store(x$), other free store(0$) ?

Google sets a pretty good standard over at https://myactivity.google.com/ IMO. But yeah the whole passive data collection e.g Wifi networks done the Street View cars, as one example, bears scrutiny. Likewise Android

How do you know that that's actually all data Google holds on you? Facebook has a shadow profile for every one of its users, one whose contents you cannot access. There's no technical reason Google can't build one, and they have been deceptive in how they collect your information in the past https://apnews.com/ef95c6a91eeb4d8e9dda9cad887bf211

I don't disagree with you, that was deceptive, but man, I could so see myself making that blunder; the developer meant they won't be stored by the Location History tool, whereas the users reasonably read it as meaning by Google.

Before you consider Apple as your next device provider, remember that they right now are completely shutting down third party repairs of their devices.

Also Apple's own "repair method" is to tell you that it's broken, without so much as opening the case and just replacing any component that seems to act up, costing you up to the device's original price in repair fees.

What's this got to do with privacy?

If I want to purchase a device, I'm going to take more into consideration than just the privacy policy of the company.. One of the important factors is, what happens with my device, when it's broken?

It is either fully repaired/remanufactured and resold/used in a swap out, stripped for parts for repair/remanufacturing or totally recycled by Apple.

The "It's broke, here is a new one" IMHO is convenient for the consumer having their mobile device repaired. They're not having to wait around for hours/days while the repair is done. IME, Apple only really swap for total hardware failure or screen replacement on the X series iPhone.

If the "It's broke here is a new one" is accompanied by a bill for another $1500 I'm not so sure, I as a customer will be happy...

Having to go to an Apple certified retailer prevents one from privately modifying or repairing ones device.

Apple gets to know about every repair / modification done to your device.

So long as there is no PII, what is the problem with that? If you mod something that's in warranty and you knowingly void it, that is your problem; same is true for every single manufacturer out there.

> If you mod something that's in warranty and you knowingly void it, that is your problem

The ability to fix your own phone isn't just your problem. It is also a problem for the person who you sell your "fixed" phone to. It is a problem for the second hand phone market (edit: the market clearing price for lemons). Allowing parts interchange is a problem for theft (if expensive parts from parted out stolen iPhones can be used to fix other iPhones then stolen phones have high value.)

Edit: that said, I do want to be able to fix my own phone. I just don't agree that I am the only person affected by that ability.

Sure, but also keep in mind that Apple has literally no way of knowing what a third-party repair shop might do. Apple does not want to end up on the hook if a third party shop uses a fake exploding battery, the wrong adhesive (causing e.g. antenna issues, excess heat, or flaky phone), a fraudulent or fake part, etc. If that phone blows up/dies/erases everything afterwards, an irate customer or the media might well pin the blame on Apple.

I don't blame them for not wanting random third parties doing repairs.

I would be fine with Apple doing the repairs themselves. But the fact is, right now, they're not repairing anything. They're swapping out parts without search for cause and charge you a massive amount for the hardware they've swapped.

If Apple started doing "Certified Repairs" and actually repair or fix the issue instead of swapping parts every time (there are a lot of problems that can be fixed by cleaning out gunk, swapping a wire etc.), I'd be completely okay with going to an Apple store (or certified partner) to do the repair.

The time cost for diagnosing the cause of an issue can be quite high, especially with these tightly integrated devices that have to be laboriously disassembled for repair and reassembled for test. That's a high cost of high-skilled human labor, when there's a much lower cost in just getting you a new part. It also means they don't need as many employees to execute repairs, nor do they need as much detailed training on repair procedures.

Apparently that's not the case, since a lot of skilled third party repair shops can charge you less by disassembling and fixing the issue instead of swapping out parts.

I do. Or rather, I don't care if they want third parties doing repairs or not but it should be the user's choice. All this is cheap talk to increase their profits.

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