I was having lunch with several lawyers at my company a few weeks ago. One of them was talking strongly about quality devices and Apple’s strong privacy stance. He literally said that we as a society should be grateful for having Apple.
Of course, it's very nice that Apple made the decision to pick this edge, but they did it because they could not compete with Google on web services. So now they're publicly speaking to try and take the sting out of Google's edge. And that's healthy competition, the direct result will be that the consumer benefits, and I can agree we can be grateful to have these powerhouses fighting for our satisfaction.
You do understand that Google’s Pixel 3 was built by the same Foxconn that built Apple devices right?
I personally believe that Apple complied to Chinese government's demands is because their bread and butter is in that country (the entire manufacturing of hardware devices).
Edit: Would you go and visit North Korea on a vacation with your family?
So? Failing to adhere to ad-tech needs would mean exiting the ad-tech market. Did I miss the other company CEOs' blistering attacks on the "Chinese anti-privacy cooperation complex"? Can we at least admit, since violation of privacy by chosen market is a choice, that Tim Cook is a hypocrite?
Additionally, Apple's participation in the market (or lack thereof) would have no impact on Chinese data privacy laws, but participation has positive global effects through economies of scale and R&D revenue.
A real hypocrite would actually have to enable oppressive behavior... selling data mining technology, surveillance cameras, etc.
They have a say in whether they are complicit. That they choose to operate in that anti-privacy market while demeaning others choosing to operate in their anti-privacy market is hypocritical. Could be considered worse if you factor in the consequences of that data.
> A real hypocrite would actually have to enable oppressive behavior
We disagree on whether providing technology for oppressive behavior is "enabling" it.
However, a hypocrite's stated beliefs directly contradicts their autonomous actions, often with intent to deceive. China's state coercion voids any claims of hypocrisy.
Furthermore, from a privacy perspective I'd argue it is more ethical for Apple to participate than withdraw. Apple does try to provide as much privacy as possible within Chinese law, following the letter of the law and no more. Withdrawing forces people to use their competitors, which happily go beyond the law to appease state authorities.
Apple can't legally protect Chinese users from their government the way it can in this country--for now at, least. But Apple can protect Chinese users from other malicious actors.
From Apple's point of view, it was either refuse to follow the law and leave all Chinese users to the general security and privacy shitshow that is what every other phonemaker has to offer, or, play by the rules and give them something that's better in every use case except for the one where their government wants to hurt them.
Your argument is that locking your door can't stop a SWAT team from breaking into your house, therefore people selling locks don't care about keeping your house locked. It's a weirdly simplistic and uninformed argument coming from someone who claims to be tech-literate.
Of course. This is how all companies work. I just really like that this competitive edge exists in the first place. If this competitive edge exists and works, it might actually be stronger as Apple can continue maintaining this stance in the future.
Although I'm not a big Apple user myself (I think/hope I can defend myself enough on other platforms that have a lower cost of entry), it's nice that you can point to iPhones if people are asking for on which they can take reasonable ownership of their privacy without needing to be very tech savvy.
So Apple is the one big technology player whose interests are most closely aligned with the consumer in terms of supporting data privacy.
[1] https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/09/23/amazon-is-now-the-...
That's assuming that "the user" (whatever that means) is valuing their privacy more than the free services they receive. I don't think such a statement can generally be applied to the public at large. It's great to have options (ways to pay for services/phones/etc) that don't mean you have to give up your privacy and then let users decide what's best for them, but I wouldn't make generalizations that most users would definitely prefer one other over the other.
I don't get this. FAANG have every interest in protecting user data as their moat is products users want to keep using, which would not be the case if they started sharing user data widely.
Cambridge Analytica didn't steal all of their data. It was obtained legally and with consent from Facebook.
That's my favorite thing about it: I trust their motives. If Cook were saying this but we knew that the board was getting pissed off about it, I would worry that it was just a matter of time. But Apple is making billions by protecting its users' privacy, investors are raking in cash, and I'd bet the board is thrilled with this. That makes it much, much less likely that they're going to announce one morning that they're abandoning privacy and going all Facebook.
One other thing that I'm trusting to keep them from "going all Facebook" is that privacy is the only thing making them something other than "me, too". The day they jump in with the rest is the day I clean out a house full of Apple gear, and I'm pretty sure they know that (or likely more accurate, the day I quit buying more Apple gear).
Apple's virtual assistants, mapping, and other services are arguably inferior to other offerings. I trust they won't bail on their one distinguishing feature.
EDIT: To see the equivalent from the "other side", timagine adtech companies starting a PR war against Apple's closed garden system, arbitrary app store decisions, labor conditions (I'm sure we can find some dirt somewhere in their vast business) to get laws enacted to regulate them on what they can do and not do.
That sounds nice though.
Don't believe for a second that privacy isn't personal to him.
I admit they are better than Google on the privacy issue, but should we be grateful for having an alternative that abuses us in different ways?
PS: I own zero Apple devices (partly because of the reasons you have, not for the way you are misrepresenting those reasons).
Slowing down old phones without notice or permission wasn't the best response to aging batteries. Even Apple didn't deny it was wrong. They apologized, once they were caught.
And the MagSafe connector was not a common failure point.
Another reason: the multiplicity of ports and bunches of things that all use USB-A.
I don't know what criteria they actually use, but this is at best incredibly inconsistent. There's heaps of competing mail apps, calendars, camera apps, photo apps, weather apps, notes apps, reminders app, messaging apps on iOS, including a Google one in most of those categories.
https://techcrunch.com/2009/07/27/apple-is-growing-rotten-to...
Calling that "a bit too soon to forget" seems...problematic on several levels.
I think your clocks are just broken.
> Slowing down old phones without notice or permission wasn't the best response to aging batteries.
Sure, it wasn't handled well, but you said that they did it to force upgrades... That is patently incorrect in my opinion. Apple are far superior at keeping old devices updated than most actors in the Android world (as a comparison point).
> And the MagSafe connector was not a common failure point.
And your original post complained that "and sells more dongles by eliminating features and changing ports". What does replacing a proprietary magsafe connector with USB C have to do with Apple selling more dongles? There are now plenty of compatible third party options available in more than one category.
Regards app store policies: see sibling reply.
MagSafe was at once an example of a port changed (MagSafe 1 to 2) and a feature removed (replaced with USB) that didn't fit your explanation "removing a common failure point". Even Apple didn't try to claim that slowing down old phones was a well-designed compromise; instead, they apologized. And there are many examples of Apple removing apps for reasons other than "app quality/safety", for one such example, see my response to sibling reply.
These are not "other different issues", these are counterexamples. They may not be the issues you thought of when you read my first post but they were some of the issues I was thinking of.
Unexpected shutdowns vs. longer app launch times and other reductions in performance. a compromise.
But it's hard to trust that statement anyway. I'd be more likely to trust them if they'd reported that on their own, instead of hiding it for a year then issuing a PR statement when users proved it was happening.
And if that statement wasn't contradicted by their behavior in shutting down phones after the screen was replaced.
"First and foremost, we have never — and would never — do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades."
...
They forgot to mention the "unless the user tries to repair it" exception.
And if it was such a good, but misunderstood feature, why wasn't it touted as such in the first place, but denied initially, and then only acknowledged apologetically with the removal of such?
With the new Macook, however, I believe it was much lighter to the point that it would have pulled the laptop down with it upon someone tripping on the cord. It wasn't doing anything to benefit the user at that point. Because of this, they probably opted for a slimmer charging port (USB-C), and it went well with the growing use of USB-C in the industry.
I do wish they included more USB-C ports, however.
I do not know exactly the reason they opted for USB-C in the new MacBook Pro, however. I believe it would still be heavy enough for MagSafe to be effective. However at this point, USB-C is saturating the market and consolidation in their products may be a more important issue for Apple at this point.
What? This is not true at all. Source: I released an iOS app that used a non-apple third party to serve ads.
You should add "making more money" to the factors that went into this "well designed" approach. For example I don't see how not adding a MicroSD slot is nothing other than a method of forcing people into buying phones with larger internal storage (and making more money for Apple).
Your point about money would be better made if you just complained about the cost of larger internal storage, except then it would be obvious - Apple is profit motivated.
I can see your argument re profit in the past, but it is becoming less valid as the minimum flash memory size is increasing. I have just bought an ZTE with 32GB because that is all I need (32GB is the minimum you can get in a new iPhone.)
All these arguments that Apple is trying to "nickel and dime" their users is just tiring. Sure, they charge a lot, and they love profits, but that doesn't mean they are shitting on their users (like say cellular network providers do!) Edit: ironically it is probably because they charge so much for the device and it is so profitable that they don't need to chase every cent they could e.g. they don't provide payday loans to buy their phones!
To roughly quote another HN user who I don't recall, "Not everybody wants to sysadmin their phone".
Your functionality though, will be severely compromised. So the choices are:
1. Apple - hurts your wallet and your choice of apps (only the walled garden and nothing else). 2. Google - you're the product. not the phone. 3. Something else like the open source solution. You'll spend a lot of time here and will be restricted to the limited choice of apps on the the f-droid store.
So take your pic. I'm mostly in #2, with a billion or so others. I'm fully aware that me and my data are the product here, and whenever I start feeling that I made a deal with the devil, I simply tell myself that they can't know what's happening in my head. I then quickly shift focus and start thinking about something else. :P
Don't assume moral disposition when a CEO is talking his book.
Maybe Tim is really a good person, who knows?
But if Tim were the CEO of Facebook he'd be singing a different tune.
Don't underestimate the ability of CEO's to align their personal views with that of he company.
Apple is sensing blood in the water on Google and Facebook, and this is a smart, basic PR move to go on the offensive against those companies.
Now - I do think it's likely that Cook does actually believe what he is saying - so I'm not fully calling him a hypocrite or anything. But he is a business guy, and were he to be the head of a company for whom this angle would not apply, I suggest strongly he'd have a different story to tell.
When businessmen speak, it's mostly 'just business'. I don't mean that cynically, just pragmatically.
The two can overlap, surely, and in 'good capitalism' they mostly do.
But let's not talk about Cooks 'heart' being in the 'right place'. His 'current product strategy' is in 'the right place' :)
Which is utterly cringeworthy.
iPhone user thinks iPhone is best thing since sliced bread. News at 11.
It's an utterly laughable statement. Not surprised it upset a few worshipers of the Tech Overlords. Apple, the billionaires it produced and the people it employs should be grateful to the rest of society.
I feel like people get these rose-tinted glasses when they look back on past Apple products, like they were all 100% perfect or something. Truth is - they all had little issues, but they were still often miles ahead of their competition.
One place Apple has disrupted/built an industry is with the smart watch. I was skeptical, but got a Series 2 on sale to try it out and recently got a Series 4. When I got the Series 2 I wasn't sure what I would use it for, but it's something I would miss not having now.
It's not something Apple did twice a week like clockwork while Jobs was alive, then just suddenly stopped when he died.
This is exactly the kind of rose-colored glasses nneonneo was talking about.
- Created the personal computer industry (Apple Inc)
- Revolutionized the personal computer industry (Macintosh)
- Revolutionized film animation (Pixar)
- Shifted the electronic device industry to minimalist industrial design (iPod)
- Changed the entire music industry's distribution model (iTunes)
- Completely shifted the paradigm of a cellular phone and arguably began the adoption of the mobile internet (iPhone)
There are several other things people may consider visionary (candy colored iMac, getting rid of floppy drives, OSX, Newton, stuff at NeXT, tech advertising with the 1984 & Think Different campaigns, etc). I'm not even including things like the iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, health metrics, etc which Jobs may have been working on before his death. Clearly Jobs had lots of help along the way and is not singularly responsible for each of these things - but he's the one who oversaw and, in many cases, drove the vision.
I'm no Apple fanboy and Jobs had a very dark side to his particular brand of genius, but I find it incredibly disingenuous to dismiss the impact that Jobs had on Apple and the industry in general. Tim Cook is a very solid Tech CEO, maybe even a great operational leader, but he is not a visionary leader and my concern is that Apple lost a fundamental element with the passing of Jobs.
Come on. "We changed the color. Visionary!"
> - Revolutionized film animation (Pixar)
Pixar was doing lots of work before Jobs was on the scene (after seven years, when Lucasfilm decided it was successful / profitable enough on its own to spin it off) - he was an investor.
Another possibility is that they don't have to take advantage of their users' data because their business is largely a hardware business, with the software a loss-leader.
It might seem like a distinction without a difference but one has to consider intent when scoring individuals and companies' moral high ground.
It doesn't need to be Apple specifically, but I'm glad we have competition. If either of Apple or Google were the only real option, we'd be much worse off than we are now.
It's a shame it's come down to a duopoly, but at least they both have something to compete on.