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Comment by onlyrealcuzzo | Hacker News Reader

More importantly, don't iOS and Android track every app you open also?

An operating system needs to be aware of every application running on it. (It doesn't need to be reporting that back to the mothership, though)

I'm not sure what that has to do with a third party peripheral. You may be confusing a Wacom tablet for something like an iPad or Nexus 7?

EDIT: For others who may be confused, a Wacom tablet is used to provide a pen/stylus interface to a computer. It's an additional peripheral, similar to your keyboard or mouse, for your computer. It is not a standalone independent computing platform.

Maybe I’m confusing it too. I searched “Wacom tablet” and it seems to be a... tablet.

You could think of it as more like a touchscreen computer monitor. They don't run standalone.

Wacom produces multiple devices, the simplest are basically a pen based touchpad. No display and no real computing power, needs to be plugged into a computer to function in any way. The more high end ones are a pen touchpad+display but still requires a computer (ie: they're a monitor). There are also standalone tablets that use Wacom technology although I'm not sure offhand if Wacom makes any directly.

You can buy tablet computers from Wacom, I have a “Wacom Mobile Studio” gathering dust that I really should get rid of someday. Just didn’t fit into my art workflow better than a laptop and an old Wacom Intuos 4 stuffed into the bag next to it.

They do mostly make external pen input devices, with or without screens. Which people have been calling “drawing tablets” since loooong before “tablet computer” was a phrase anyone used outside of maybe science fiction.

A Wacom tablet is what used to be called a digitizer tablet, ie, a HID that uses a pen and a surface to allow for easier and better drawing. Essentially an odd-shaped mouse with some extra pressure sensitivity.

GP must have confused with the currently better known use of tablet, which is a full-blown computer with touch screen and no keyboard.

So why is the operating system providing peripherals this information? What's provided will be used for tracking...

I think the egregious thing with Wacom is that 1) no one expects a drawing pad to have any need for remote connectivity and 2) use said remote connectivity to share usage information with third parties.

More broadly, we need to get away from this whole "but don't other people do the same thing?" dialogue when it comes to privacy. Yes, these issues are prevalent. That doesn't mean it's trivial---quite the opposite, in fact.

This is getting voted down, but is this not true? My iPhone knows all my top apps and shows them on whatever that screen is called, with the search, and adjusts them over time as usage changes. Maybe it’s not “more important,” but why vote this down? How do I know that data doesn’t go back to Apple with “telemetry”?

Because it’s like saying “well iOS/Android knows your contacts, so what’s the issue with Wacom siphoning your contacts?”

> How do I know that data doesn’t go back to Apple with “telemetry”?

By checking the privacy policy. Also, you can opt out of telemetry on iOS.

Is OP saying that? The question I interpreted was “how is this different, such that I’m seeing this on the homepage of HN?”

A Wacom tablet is not the same as a phone, it is a peripheral. This is like your Dell keyboard tracking your keystrokes and what application they go into.

A specialized keyboard using different button layouts and settings per app. Also, not tracking keystrokes at all but rather "used special keyboard with app foo".

As a better example, suppose it were a game controller. Then the question "what games are people using this controller with?" seems quite reasonable. Filter to games only and anonymize the data and that would be fine.

Oh okay. Makes sense. Thanks for explaining.

Which is a thing that has already happened with Razer[1]. They back-pedalled (a little) after pressure from customers[2].

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/8klf7a/razer_synap...

[2] https://www.techradar.com/news/razer-synapse-3-app-delivers-...

It's a bit late for them <pats SteelSeries mouse>.

It's downvoted mostly because bringing up iOS and Android in a discussion about Wacom tablets seems pretty off-topic and whataboutist.

I didn’t understand what a Wacom tablet is. Now I do!

I learned something in this thread as well from the question asked, wish a few commenters would drop the "whattaboutism" attitude, some of us are actually trying to learn something here.

It's an attempt at technical whataboutism (alternately it's just confused and thinks a wacom tablet is comparable to an iPad or something). The operating system obvious has to know what apps you're running, and can store metrics to the same -- locally -- to improve your experience. There is no reason Wacom needs to know, much less share it externally. It adds zero value for the end user.

Yep. Sorry, was confused about what Wacom tablet was.

When you set up an iPhone, you get this screen:

> Help Apple improve its products and services by allowing analytics of usage and data from your iPhone.

It’s enabled by default, but when you set up a new iPhone, it prompts you and gives you a button to turn it off (it’s not just buried in settings).

Being actual operating systems, I can understand why. I mean, it's pretty convenient to know what's installed on my phone. However, a writing/drawing tablet doesn't need to. At all. Ever.

Wacom tablet drivers have application specific settings for compatibility. We should scrutinize all data collection, and this may be too far, but "[no need for tablet data collection] at all. Ever" is simply not true.

I strongly disagree. The driver does not have to collect an event log in order to react to focus changes and switch settings. It much less has to transmit this event log, let alone to a third party such as Google.

An OS with this data is different than an app.

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