Comment by BoorishBears | Hacker News Reader

Comment by BoorishBears | Hacker News Reader

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Everyone trying to turn this into a users vs devs thing. Come of it.

Apple could have made a social media login that respects privacy.

Put it out into the world. Advertise "Apple's social media login is the only one that keeps your privates private".

Had developers adopt it and it becomes a new de-facto login besides Google and Facebook.

It's great for users, good for devs, not as easy to abuse (Apps could watch what Apple is doing right now with Epic and back out instead of wringing their hands they might be next for example...)

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Instead they force developers to implement a new feature with deep integration into app's backends, customer lifecycles, and an implicit change on all platforms they serve.

Like seriously people:

> The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

I support user privacy, and I don't think what they did is ok. How is that so hard to grasp?

Being anti-"How Sign in with Apple is mandatory" not being anti-privacy, it's not even being anti-"Sign in with randomized emails" in a vaccum.

The problem is _forcing that choice on others_.

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Do you actually imagine it makes it less ridiculous, or do you not realize how prevalent social logins are not just in apps, but on the internet in general?

Social logins are the de-facto login method on mobile

Apple gets to just make their own social login and ignore concepts like risks in implementation to devs and just boop now everyone has to use it.

It's almost comical! They played the "this is a privacy deal" card which is cool, but then the idea they actually forced a new social login option apps based on the platform they run on... absolute insanity.

It's like Apple is just begging for scrutiny these days, they really do think they've become Microsoft in the 90s

So they clearly don't do what you are suggesting! They do it because social logins are so prevalent. The issue, which seems to be evading those who argue against this policy, is that organisations such as Facebook use these logins to track users. I work in security, if you want to talk risk, I'm more than happy too. But suggesting this is a greater risk to developers, when their actions are often causing greater risks to end users? That's insanity.

Is apple legally bound to not track users or something?

Otherwise I'm not sure how this is a solution to the problem; apply tracking you or Facebook, it's all the same. Sure apple might not track you now, but their priorities can change

It seems they are trying to have a safety and/or privacy story for each new feature that increases platform lockin. It's a brilliant PR strategy to have deniability on each anticompetitive action. But they have revealed their hand with things like app signing on MacOS not being just for security.

> But suggesting this is a greater risk to developers, when their actions are often causing greater risks to end users?

"Risk" is not a unit of measure. "Risk" is not a fungible thing.

You're using the word "risk" to let you compare to very disparate concepts and say "see users are important too!"... except no one is saying they're not.

This is a conversation with a ton more nuance than that.

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I've said it more than once here, the problem isn't the privacy protection features Sign in with Apple, it's Apple's forcing it.

Google and FB never forced anyone their logins to compete, they made them easy to integrate, added value for the user.

At most Google gave their option a fancy UX when used on their platform, and if Apple had limited themselves to that it still would have been a great option and likely gained a lot of traction very quickly.

The problem is, Apple doesn't want to have to compete the way everyone else does. The fact their option is good for my privacy is great... but in no way does it let me excuse their behavior.

This Epic Games row should be showing that, Apple's feature isn't anti-user but here we see at some point they likely did hold it over a developer's head only to walk that back after getting press coverage.

Right now devs should be able to walk away from this option and explore other privacy centric login approaches that don't extend Apple's grasp around their necks to other platforms

Because unlike most of Apple's initiatives, this one reaches well past the platform they control. All your platforms have to support Sign in with Apple for its users to log in by the very nature of a social media login (short of fancy cross-referencing tricks). So forcing it on one platform forces it on all platforms

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The irony is of your risk talk, by the way, is in the fact mobile apps social logins are not what lets FB and Google track users in any egregious way. They're much more self-contained than on a website where the security model lets them do a ton of tricky things with nothing more than a like button showing...

Instead that would be their absolutely massive advertising libraries that hook into apps at the deepest levels and link users them across multiple apps. Apple was going to do something about it until they weren't (for now™):

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/09/facebook-complains-a...

Developers very willingly integrate those, and Apple fully allows it.

Ironically, if Apple is so concerned about privacy, you'd think Epic Games would have their reduced cuts, anything that lets devs make money outside the ad ecosystem that represents the vast majority of privacy risk.

But alas, Apple plays privacy to have an angle.

The day they announced they were going back on the iOS 14 privacy change, which easily would have one of the biggest attacks on ad networks they've ever made...

They also released this ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l61NE0eqkw

Funny how most of that "oversharing" is driven by the very ad machinery they bowed out to.

Are you ignoring "Log in with Facebook", "Log in with Google", and other equivalents on purpose to be a crank, or did you just somehow miss the existence of those login methods 10,000 times while logging in over the past few years?

Apple's protecting user privacy here. Nothing else.

Yeah but when you use those, facebook and google tell you the underlying email address. Its not hard to just make users sign up again, whereas with Apple you have no idea who you are talking too.

Clearly, Apple has far far more control over the developer with sign in with Apple vs Log in with Facebook/Google.

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