iOS 13 now shows you a map of where apps have been tracking you
9to5mac.com
9to5mac.com
We need more of this sunlight in order to make good decisions about how we generate and share information about our lives.
That said, we should be able to say NO - and this includes apple. For instance, why should we have to identify ourselves to apple?
I've set up several testing iDevices for work with no Apple accounts.
The only thing you can't do without an Apple account is to use the Apple services like the App Store and iCloud and other paid services.
I think even software updates can be done without an account, but I'm not sure since I haven't tried this.
I think that you should be able to install your own app store like fdroid which doesn't require a sign in.
In a few years: You want to play a game? Fine, let's bing it in Safari and play right there.
"there's an app for that" soon will become "there's a web app for that".
Android has problems of its own though. Yes, you could install apps easily without access to the Play Store. But most Android apps rely upon Google's Play Services one way or another, so those apps wouldn't work properly, if at all.
Only when I download I paid app do I want to identify myself so that I can download it again.
It's my device, not Apple's or Google's, so I should be able to download a third-party app without identifying myself to the app store owner.
In my last comment, I did not ask for iDevices to be able to install apps from outside the iOS app store.
Quite a lot really.
Does your comment apply to non-phone iOS devices, or does it include iPhones?
With the latest OS, do you have to identify yourself or create an apple id to start using an iPhone?
Also, is this in the US or outside of the US?
(thanks!)
Because on android you can.
The data centers and CPUs are able to process magnitude more "information" than a single human, the market cannot be a free flow of information between humans and machines.
We have to define what the quantity of information an human can reasonably receive and give attention to, and put some limit into the market to not overhelm people.
I would love to be able to fuzz my location within a certain (randomized?) radius of my home for certain apps. Strava has a ‘privacy circle’ that essentially accomplishes this when sharing GPX tracks of runs around one’s home. An OS-level feature would be fantastic in many cases.
What google tracks if you disable location services, I don't know.
I'd also bet that Google's other apps transmit your location anyway―if only because other apps use it too―and that it's not necessarily reflected in the timeline in the web profile.
Are you sure about this? If an app is terminated, can it still run itself without you running it?
Flicking an app in the recent apps list doesn't close its background processes. And you won't see it there when such a process runs again. See e.g. the ‘OS Monitor’ app for the actual list of processes (for Android ≤6).
Google's apps are likely even more privileged. Play Store hogs the processor and network every time I enable wifi. On a past phone, Google Maps also ran conspicuously on boot and, iirc, when wifi was turned on.
Something might've changed in newer versions of Android, dunno. But I doubt it that Google would limit its own abilities.
I'm not sure about the details of the implementation but with location you still want something reasonably accurate. So the random radius can't vary too wildly. After you collect enough data points couldn't you infer the real location from that circle?
[1] http://www.shivakasiviswanathan.com/ICDE16b.pdf
[2] https://machinelearning.apple.com/docs/learning-with-privacy...
Would this be possible with todays phone and hardware etc?
I discovered this when I was scrolling through the DTEK app on my BlackBerry, which shows every time an app requests sensitive data access, and saw that a bunch of apps that I hadn't opened in a while (like GasBuddy) were accessing my location every 5 minutes.
There's an app called Bouncer [1] that can auto-remove permissions as soon as an app is closed.
[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.samruston....
But ye, there should be a "grant location this once" option.
The ones i am aware are all useless (battery saver, space cleaner etc), and at some point one or two was requesting screenshot access (forgot the name) under the false pretense of "accesibility".
- The devices I owned were generally pretty slow, or got slow over time
- iMessage lock-in
- Hundreds of dollars invested in Apple purchases
- The app ecosystem, while giant, always seemed to be junky to me
- a few iOS-only apps
- I never found a decent SMS from desktop solution, although I'm sure they are out there
- Vaguely superior hardware
- Animojis is probably the biggest one
Every so often I am reminded people still use SMS, and by extension, iMessage. I think a combination of being in South East Asia for a long time, and also moving around so much, and both me (and almost everyone I know) uses various messaging apps not tied to a phone number (WhatsApp, Messenger, LINE). I have a British VOIP number where SMS goes through to my email.
I wonder how much longer phone numbers, and, by association, SMS have to live.
I'm in favour of that, I wish it will democratize this concept to other companies, although it's unlikely Google will since it's in competition with their core business model.
What if someone at Apple was smart enough to figure out that the rampant abuses perpetrated by privacy-monetizing Silicon Valley et al. were ultimately time-limited and would blow up eventually?
What if Apple’s privacy-focused marketing was aimed at regulators?
You’re right. If Apple can show people you can have security and it can be easy, people will demand that.
The more aggressive governments get (for example actively asking social network ids on the border), the more people start caring about their privacy.
I assume, next is banners at the Apple Stores and at Best Buys.
Apple pushing privacy might actually make people care.
Additionally, the 'share always' option goes away. Your app has to earn it, or petition Apple directly for that permission. The 'share while using' is also now temporary, as iOS will periodically ask the user to confirm that this is what they want. iOS does this when the user is not using the app (on the home screen), which is why you must now check to see if you have permission every single time.
On top of that, I think it's strangely telling that most of the anti-Apple stories when it comes to the "right to repair" movement all have to misrepresent what Apple is doing or why they're taking the action they are in order to make the story interesting and fit the anti-consumer narrative. We live in a really strange time.
However, there is quite a bit of misrepresentation as you mention: often “right to repair” people forget that this compromise exists. In particularly egregious examples (YouTubers in particular) they willfully neglect to discuss this. Off the top of my head, Louis Rossmann has literally lied to people to stir up controversy: see the media outrage about “Apple confiscating batteries”, which was completely orchestrated.
But in every city there will be hundreds of shops which will repair it for you.
Unless the device is brand new it is almost never a cost effective idea to repair an apple device even if the actual part broken is very cheap.
This is the kind of misrepresentation that I'm talking about and it hurts both the "right to repair" movement and the tech industry.
Safari as the only browser choice for handling web links, too. Even Microsoft in their days always allowed users change the defaults.
The answer seems to be that Apple doesn't have a monolithic pro/anti consumer opinion, but just whatever is better for their business profits.
- Do whatever they can to push people to buy more devices and more expensive ones.
- Do whatever they can to make their iOS devices seem preferable to Android.
Apple is not a special snowflake, as far as large corporations go.
And the repairability and replacement are also 2 things that I understand because it forces users to ensure that they're using genuine Apple components that won't detract from the device or the experience of using it. When so much of your business stems from the reputation of having quality products, third-party repairability seems like a terrible trade-off if there's no quality control.
Strictly compared to the alternative of letting people's phone shut off, throttling seems like the right decision, but I would also argue that Apple produced a defective product, where the battery wore out much quicker than consumers expected (because even if it had sufficient capacity, it couldn't provide the peak power necessary). As a result, Apple's decision seems more like a way to cover up their design flaws, rather than to actually be helpful to consumers.
[1] - https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/10/26/the-new-iphone-come...
Your statement is verifiable misinformation.
I am a customer who was actually experiencing unexpected shutdowns due to voltage spikes on a naturally degraded Li-Ion battery on my iPhone 6s. This is something that happens to all Li-Ion batteries. I had experienced this on my previous Android phones too when they got old.
The change Apple made was throttling the voltage from spiking to a point that it can shut down a degraded battery when your phone estimates that it has 50% charge left. Yes, this means older phones with degraded battery health (due to normal wear/tear) would run a bit slower. This is the right thing to do because otherwise it means customers would have phones shutting down unexpectedly when they needed them the most (e.g. calling an Uber, or some other critical function). It's a serious issue that absolutely needed addressing, and I'm glad Apple addressed it (and I hope other manufacturers do too).
The mistake Apple made was not communicating this change more widely or explaining in more detail from the start. But they did communicate it in the change notes of the original update they delivered. They weren't trying to intentionally hide it like you're trying to imply.
edit - Apple did not communicate this information to users from the start...that is not misinformation. When I replied to your comment, your comment originally consisted of just your first sentence.
Every single person that upgraded their phone saw this change-log.
There's a line there that clearly says: "It also improves power management during peak workloads to avoid unexpected shutdowns on iPhone."
If your argument is that it's lacking detail, then fine. But that's an entirely different implication. A much less interesting one.
I don't recall this being proven. I recall Apple stating the power consumption was limited to prevent the devices over drawing power from the battery and self-resetting. They subsequently added a battery status overview so users could judge if they could simply replace the battery.
I won't argue that they couldn't have done this sooner or handled it better, but it's quite different from software degrading old devices.
They never did this.
[1] - https://slashdot.org/story/347559
[2] - https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/10/26/the-new-iphone-come...
They were very practical (especially when video playback autonomy was limited to 2h and word processing to around 5h) but clunky. We could discuss for ages if, now a common choice across multiple manufacturers, moving for internal non-moving battery was clever or odious. But the verifiable facts remains that Apple once sold replaceable batteries out there.
Beside you can also imagine than two decade experience with replaceable batteries might also have come to play when they decided that they’re phones will never have one because of constraint on this form factor...
Not only have many apple devices had replaceable batteries, I actually own an apple battery charger (model MC500LL/A)
"Provide fake location" is not necessary, because apps which fail to work when you deny location access are rejected during App Store review.
As far as I know. Apps can’t tell the difference between the user denied location access and the users location can’t be determined right now. There are iOS devices that don’t have GPS chips - some iPads and the iPod Touch. If the user isn’t near a mapped WiFi hotspot, they won’t have anyway of finding a location.
Yes, the core gameplay doesn't work, but the app still allows you to log in, manage your account mess with your existing Pokémon and items, move those Pokémon into Pokémon Let's Go's Go Park on the Nintendo Switch.
If you try to play the core game with location permission permanently disabled, the game will alert the user that the game needs the location permission enabled but it will NOT lock the user out of those other functions.
there are some pokemon go features (adventure sync) gated behind always-on location access, but it isnt required.
As for fake location, well, give it time. They seem to be willing to provide fake emails for the new Sign In With Apple service. So they might start actually obfuscating location in the future.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207056
"By enabling Location Services for your devices, you agree and consent to the transmission, collection, maintenance, processing, and use of your location data and location search queries by Apple and its partners and licensees to provide and improve location-based and road traffic-based products and services."
Apple’s policy is in no way unique and iOS settings cannot be implicitly overridden by app settings. The global settings are app-specific. I have location settings on and disabled for every app except Apple Maps, other apps still need explicit permission when they try to use my location.
Nonsense. Sending location data back to Google is opt in. Apple doesn't even let you opt out. It's amazing how many people Apple has fooled with their marketing.
Your own examples are for apps that send the same data on iOS and are subject to the same OS permissions on Android and iOS.
Please don't spread dishonest misinformation, there's no need for that.
> Google itself offers at least three support pages on location: Manage or delete your Location History, Turn location on or off for your Android device, and Manage location settings for Android apps. None of these makes any mention of Web & App Activity. [1]
1. https://www.wired.com/story/google-location-tracking-turn-of...
Your article is misleading. The same apps that build a history of your location with Android Location History turned off will build a history of your location on iOS and other platforms. It is not unique to Android. The user is well aware of it — if they search, they get local results, and they know that if they have search history enabled, Google will store everything about their query and interactions with it, including where they performed it. This happens on Android and iOS, regardless of whether the user wants full Location History.
Again though, you're getting off track. We're discussing privacy provided (or in this case, not provided) by the OS, not by the apps the user installs, which are governed by OS permissions exactly the same on both platforms anyway.
> Unlike every other phone platform, iOS does not allow a user to get their GPS location without telling Apple what it was.
> apps that build a history of your location with Android Location History turned off will build a history of your location on iOS and other platforms. It is not unique to Android.
The article that I quoted was to provide background to the comment that you claimed was spreading misinformation. I don't think that anyone in this thread has acted in bad faith and I don't see any benefit to the quality of the conversation in accusing commenters of dishonesty, being sinister or otherwise attacking the individual rather than the issue. I am happy to provide the information that has informed my opinions and I am happy to hear disagreements but a flame war is neither healthy nor helpful. Mobile devices are just tools and neither platform is worthy of this level of personal investment.
No, it doesn't. Android lets you get your GPS location without telling anybody, including Google. This is the default behavior, even on Google-flavored Android devices. It is impossible to get your GPS location on iOS without telling Apple.
You're confusing Google apps that send location to Google on any platform when the app is configured to send location to Google (like search), with what the OS does regardless of which app is asking for location or whether the app itself sends location data anywhere.
> I don't think that anyone in this thread has acted in bad faith and I don't see any benefit to the quality of the conversation in accusing commenters of dishonesty, being sinister or otherwise attacking the individual rather than the issue.
You're confusing me with sbuk and izacus, who are the only people in this thread who have engaged in the behavior you describe. Please direct your scolding appropriately.