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Comment by woadwarrior01 | Hacker News Reader

I switched from a Bose QC35 to a Sony WH-1000XM3 about half a year ago, and the Sony app on iOS was egregiously requesting permission for location access, even while the app is in background. The cited reason for location access sounded rather flimsy and suspicious. Luckily, everything that can be done with the app can also be done with the physical buttons on the headphones. I guess their design philosophy is that if you want the convenience of using an app with the product that you’ve already paid a lot of money for, you’ll need to pay for it with your location info.

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I own the WH-1000XM2 (same app for both models) and the reason the app requests location is for a singular feature called 'Adaptive Sound Control'. This feature lets the app change sound profiles based on where you are, so yes - location access is required.

Stating that this is "their design philosophy" is a stretch here. I realize Sony doesn't have a stellar track record but in their defense if you don't use 'Adaptive Sound Control' the app does not and will not try to enable Location access unless you turn said feature on and the app doesn't already have access.

So, no - you don't need to pay for the convenience of Sony's app by allowing Location access as it's not required but for a singular feature that is fundamentally based around setting profiles based on your location.

> So, no - you don't need to pay for the convenience of Sony's app by allowing Location access as it's not required but for a singular feature that is fundamentally based around setting profiles based on your location.

I reinstalled the app to see if I was misremembering it. The app requests for always on location information upon installation and pairing with the headphones. The garden path in the UX of the app is to allow location access. If the user chooses to not allow location access by tapping the tiny "Later" button, the main screen prominently features a Switch control (which is off) for Adaptive Sound Control, tempting the user to toggle it on, which requests always on location access. Given all of this, it's very difficult to interpret this "feature" in a favorable light.

Fortunately, the app's privacy policy[1] does not seem to mention anything about them collecting location information (but they do claim to collect "country or region"). On the other hand, the manual for the app[2] also has no mention of it requesting always on location access either, which doesn't inspire much confidence. Not to mention the 27 month data retention policy and the policy of sharing with their "affiliates".

After having read the privacy policy, I'm glad I chose not to use the app and will continue to do so.

[1]: https://musiccenter-cdn.meta.ndmdhs.com/headphones/pp/201903... [2]: https://helpguide.sony.net/mdr/hpc/v1/en/index.html

> Given all of this, it's very difficult to interpret this "feature" in a favorable light.

What would you rather they do? They ask for permission for a specific feature and when denied, the feature is turned off. When you try to turn on the feature, it requests access for that feature. It sounds like it works exactly as it should.

Agreed. I feel like the argument against in this thread is a poor strawman. I've never allowed any permissions for this app and have yet to have any functionality diminished. The app doesn't require any registration (which is not oft the case these days) and as others have pointed out most all functionality can be had via direct controls on the headphones. You can get away with not using this app for most everything except firmware updates and location specific features.

> What would you rather they do?

I would rather that they document why they need background location access and not try to hoodwink their users into granting them carte blanche access to the users' location data. There's a fairly established pattern in mobile apps where they show a screen informing the user of the reasons why an app needs location access before requesting it from the OS. And that isn't the case with the app in question. Nowhere in their product documentation (for both the app and the headphones) do they mention that their product needs background location access.

Also, let's not forget the context of the post here. The Bose Connect app (at least on iOS) does not demand access to the user's location. They got sued for lesser privacy violation (in my subjective opinion) and rightly so. Any app demanding background location access, especially an app for a pair of headphones is a serious concern, IMO.

The other commenter in this thread seems to be insinuating that I have a bias against Sony. But that's certainly not the case. I've spent a lot of money on Sony's mirrorless cameras and lenses and continue to do so. Sony undoubtedly makes great hardware, but on the other hand, privacy is also very important to many of us. One could argue that privacy is far more important than the fancy hardware.

Finally, coming back to the "feature" in question, "Adaptive Sound Control". The feature seems to be built around classifying whether the wearer of the headphones is standing still, or walking or running or using a mode of transport and applying the user selected profile based on the activity. Couldn't this be implemented in a much more efficient manner in hardware with an accelerometer in the headphones? I understand that this would mean a slightly reduced battery life on the headphones for people using the feature, but would be a better trade off, IMO. And yes, decisions like this are a product of a company's design philosophy.

> Also, let's not forget the context of the post here. The Bose Connect app (at least on iOS) does not demand access to the user's location. They got sued for lesser privacy violation (in my subjective opinion) and rightly so. Any app demanding background location access, especially an app for a pair of headphones is a serious concern, IMO.

I'm not sure you are understanding the feature. It allows you to set profiles for your location automatically. Like if you're at home maybe you care more about ambient noise while cancelling is enabled. Maybe while you're at work you want to dial it down. Yes, you can switch between profiles in other ways but this allows your phone to do it automatically for you. The app does not "demand" access, I wish you'd stop saying this because it is not true. Again if you do not use the feature it, literally, will never ask you for location permissions until you try to turn the feature that requires it on.

> Finally, coming back to the "feature" in question, "Adaptive Sound Control". The feature seems to be built around classifying whether the wearer of the headphones is standing still, or walking or running or using a mode of transport and applying the user selected profile based on the activity. Couldn't this be implemented in a much more efficient manner in hardware with an accelerometer in the headphones? I understand that this would mean a slightly reduced battery life on the headphones for people using the feature, but would be a better trade off, IMO. And yes, decisions like this are a product of a company's design philosophy.

You're wrong here. Maybe try to understand the feature before making a bunch of incorrect assumptions. You think an accelerometer is going to be able to differentiate your work and home location? No. It's a pair of headphones and a feature that has been blown way out of proportion with your strawman. Finally, a feature does not a company's design philosophy make as, again, you assume here with absolutely zero basis to back up your argument. Not only have you failed to show how this feature is ill used by Sony you've also failed to comprehend what it actually is or how it's used.

> You're wrong here. Maybe try to understand the feature before making a bunch of incorrect assumptions. You think an accelerometer is going to be able to differentiate your work and home location? No. It's a pair of headphones and a feature that has been blown way out of proportion with your strawman. Finally, a feature does not a company's design philosophy make as, again, you assume here with absolutely zero basis to back up your argument. Not only have you failed to show how this feature is ill used by Sony you've also failed to comprehend what it actually is or how it's used.

Perhaps I am. This seems like right occasion to pull out my trusty old iPhone 6S Plus from my drawer that I keep around for testing dodgy apps.

I installed the latest version of the "Sony | Headphones Connect" from the iOS App Store on the aforementioned phone with a throwaway app store account. Also, I allowed it the full location access that it had been asking for, to enable the "feature". I took screenshots of every screen along the way. I've uploaded them here[1]. You'll only need to see the first 4 screenshots there to see what I'm talking about. The screenshots are in reverse chronological order and have been cropped to remove the iOS status bar.

As evidenced by the screenshots, the only modes the "Ambient Sound Control" "feature" is able to differentiate in between are "Transport", "Running", "Walking", and "Staying". Now, it's amply evident that you're either lying or using some special version of the app that isn't publicly available and allows your pair of headphones to distinguish between when you're using them at home and when you're using them at work.

Also, to cite from another contradictory comment[2] of yours on this thread: > I've never allowed any permissions for this app and have yet to have any functionality diminished.

If you've never allowed permissions for this app, then how did jump to the false conclusion about the app being able to differentiate your work and home location? It looks like the only way to ascertain that would be to allow location access to the app.

The certitude with which you state your opinions on this thread and the extent to which you're willing to ignore the facts, makes me suspicious of your motives here.

[1]: https://imgur.com/a/dtUTYZU

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20016409

A company should exist that simply takes wonderful products, removes the offending bits, and resells them, perhaps at a premium. Both headphones are really good, and I certainly would pay a $100 premium if the maker was "one of the good ones" and provided, e.g., an optional, open-source app with minimal permissions.

I'm 100% right there with you. But the inner pessimist in me isn't holding my breath. Said new company would perhaps start with an excellent and wholesome mission statement, make some great products and then take on funding, need to experience exponential growth, maybe have an IPO, and eventually betray it's users in the quest for "maximizing shareholder value" and providing a "better user experience". If it can happen to Google it can happen to anyone...

Also, can I even buy a sound bar for my TV that doesn't listen to me and need an internet connection these days... It's unreal the unneeded complexity and bullshit they put in some electronics.

The real heroes the world needs are just independent founders that use slow growth over several generations and never sell the business, thus minimizing incentives other than having a lifestyle business and making great stuff. But the money is just too tempting eventually, or the business just isn't feasible at that scale.

Google was never “wholesome”. Their business model from day one was to collect user information and sell ads.

For the first few years of its life, Google (nee BackRub) was a business-model-less company that just ran a search indexer. They looked like they were heading toward the Inktomi model of selling their compiled search-index (or access to their index data warehouse) to companies to use. Google Ads came later, and was honestly quite a shock to everyone who was telling their friends that Google is an unalloyed good as the new AltaVista.

Google was incorporated in September 1998. AdWords was introduced in October 2000. They were an ad company from almost day one as a business.

Sure, but Google was a search engine since 1996. They only incorporated once they figured out a potential business model. Until then they were “a company” in the sense of being founders working together on an idea with the goal of monetizing it; but, since they had nothing to sell yet, no brand, and no salaries to pay, they didn’t bother to wrap a legal company around the “company in their hearts.”

2 years is Day 1? AdWords itself didn't even collect user data.

If they introduced ads 2 years after their incorporation. How long were they working on it?

But there's still a difference I think.

IIRC, and I'm quite confident about this particular one, ads used to be served based on the site you were visiting or the search had typed.

Some people hate all ads.

For me I felt old google ads were OK.

Some people will say this isn't a good enough business model and to that I'll point out that google was widely profitable back then as well, again IIRC.

Google ads on desktops on Google’s site aren’t that bad. But, because of limited real estate, almost all ads on mobile devices are bad. Web page ads on other sites have gotten so annoying that the web is horrible without an ad blocker.

Strangely enough, ads in feeds like Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter don’t annoy me as much.

I also think the ads in the iOS App Store are horrible.

You are describing the Rick and Morty episode with the Devil to a t. “Let’s just pay at this store, you don’t pay with money evil laugh.” “You pay with curses right?... I’ll just get them remove at Curse Purge Plus!”

We need that for user-hostile businesses, except run by someone who won't abandon it when it gets boring.

The main obstacle will be the convoluted IP mess user-hostile companies create, through laws preventing you from reversing and replacing the firmware, and through tying the hardware to an Internet service.

You would. But most people wouldn't.

People have done studies on how much people will pay for minimally permissioned apps. It's basically nothing.

On iOS location access is a workaround for being able to kinda stay awake in the background. Some photo sync apps do that so they can (near) constantly sync your photos.

On that subject, I really wish Apple would allow me to use photos app to sync with a network share.

https://www.photosync-app.com/home.html

From the link:

Note: Autotransfer on iOS is "location based transfer" only.

I won’t use it because of that. But thanks.

I only saw one instance of the word “location” on the entire page.

Transfers original files and preserves EXIF metadata including location data in all directions.

What is “location based transfer”?

In the autotransfer section. Click learn more.

Ok. What’s wrong with that? Wouldn’t you want a file transfer to your own server happen when you are at home?

If you are worried about the privacy implications, when an app tells iOS that it wants to be notified when it is in a certain location. It doesn’t get your location until you are there. It doesn’t have the ability to continuously track you.

Same, WH-900N. I just used the app to flash updated firmware on the headphones (!) and then deleted the app. It has zero value.

Pre-GDPR Sony’s terms claimed a very wide scope of data collection (“content” of the device the headphones were connected to) without opt-out UI. It appears that the terms have been narrowed now to cover only the technical attributes of content, such as codec. Is there now a way to opt out of data collection?

> I switched from a Bose QC35 to a Sony WH-1000XM3 about half a year ago, and the Sony app on iOS was egregiously requesting permission for location access

I did too, and I stopped using them largely because of the amount of information the app collects. If this lawsuit gets a class certified, an analog for Sony might be something I look into.

What was the "cited reason"?

It uses your movement and location to determine what noise-cancelling mode to put the headphones in. It is awful at picking though, not worth the privacy implications or battery life drain.

It's more likely just that BLE access in Android requires location permissions.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33045581/location-needs-...

Which, IIRC, is because having BLE access equates to having location permissions, in the sense that you can reconstruct someone’s location from the BLE tags (Bluetooth MAC addresses) you sense, using location correlates of those tags in a separate database you’ve purchased. (This is equivalent to how phones reconstruct their location—in absence of GPS signal—using a wi-fi SSID triangulation database.)

Due to the bad layering of the BLE model it’s next to impossible to actually hide from the app the data of what peers are around the device, while still allowing the app to communicate over BLE. This isn’t true of regular Bluetooth, but BLE is solving a harder problem, sort of like how WebRTC is solving a harder problem than HTTP.

Still, you’d hope they’d come up with some way to obscure the peer BT MAC addresses or something. Maybe an approach like Apple used with device IDs, where each app sees the device ID hashed with a per-app salt—each app would see a separate list of virtual BT MACs that, when it sent messages to, the OS would translate back to the real MACs. Like BT “file handles”, almost.

My info was from the iOS version of the app which does not need Location Services for BLE.

How do the two compare, which do you like better?

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