Yeah, but what are the reasonable alternatives? Android, with its freewheeling stance on privacy and app permissions? Do they even let you disable location tracking any more?
If you're willing to root your device, you can have the best of both the functionality and privacy worlds.
That only applies to motivated and reasonably tech savvy users of course, out of the box iOS is still the better privacy option.
I mean if they started tracking your behavour and location, and mining it to better sell ads, maybe that would.
You're confusing iOS with Android. On iOS, every time you get your location, that location is also sent to Apple, and there is no way to disable this. Android's collection of this data is gated by a checkbox that is shown to every user on device setup.
Citation needed.
> I am working with androids even before 1.0, but does this really matter?
It matters if I am claiming that there is no point at which GGP's statement was true, which I am. If I am not, GGP could say that the version of Android he used "last time [he] used Android" did not allow him to disable location collection and that it predates my experience with Android's location settings.
The best you can do if you're technically inclined is to use open source as much as possible (AOSP, postmarketOS, PureOS, etc.), minimize use of untrusted software and services (from all major corporations, no social media, no proprietary software in general), use network-level ad blockers, Tor if you think it helps, VPNs, encrypt everything, etc. And you'd still be tracked and profiled.
If you're not technically savvy, forget about it.
In either case if privacy is really a concern vote to elect politicians that are willing to enact laws that regulate the way companies can use personal data. Though considering both companies and governments benefit from the status quo, I don't foresee things improving in the near future, barring some kind of revolution where the majority wakes up, which is also unlikely. If the Snowden revelations didn't do it, I doubt anything will.
So much for fighting 1984, Apple.