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Comment by _dibly | Hacker News Reader

Apple is the one looking to expand into health and wellness. The data Apple can harvest is going to become more and more valuable. They're rolling out home speakers and the Apple Watch is increasingly becoming a DYI diagnostic tool. I think it's a bit naive to think that Apple is somehow more altruistic than any other big tech company.

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It's not altruism, it's just their business model happens to be more compatible with people's rights: Apple sells hardware at a premium price. Google monetizes data to push ads. Ads aren't a big part of premium experiences, Apple recognizes nobody likes them.

Which is why Apple devices generally only have ads in third party experiences, and Google shoves ads right in the default mail app.

I don't use Apple devices often, but last time I did I saw insanely annoying ads in the default apps you can't replace.

For Apple services, of course, which raises some pretty intense anti-trust concerns.

This is just completely untrue.

There have never been third party ads in any default application on MacOS or iOS and I feel completely confident saying that.

You could make an argument of upselling, the music app prods your for a subscription to Apple Music or to buy songs on itunes- you could argue Apple TV shows content from providers you’re not subscribed to (next to ones which you are)- but those are first and second party ads.

> the music app prods your for a subscription to Apple Music or to buy songs on itunes- you could argue Apple TV shows content from providers you’re not subscribed to (next to ones which you are)

That's what I mean.

> but those are first and second party ads.

But ads are ads.

I guess I see a difference because the BBC does not show ads except for itself. So ads are not sold.

On what apps? I've never gotten any advertisements like that.

Exactly. Which is why I buy iPhones rather than Android handsets. I'll support Apple as long as their business model is privacy orientated but once they pivot (and I'm sure they will at some point in the future) then I'll switch to the next platform that supports my privacy -- assuming by that point that there are any such platforms left...

Which is why I think projects including PinePhone and Librem 5 are important, as they are privacy orientated and they need community driven support now to be usable in the future. The only other projects that get close are ones that use AOSP as a base like GrapheneOS or LineageOS with MicroG. But this introduces the same issue that Chromium forks have, which is the increasing maintenance burden.

Apple's business model is more compatible with rights YOU care about, but it is false to say it is compatible with "peoples rights"

Apple is more compatible with Privacy rights, but wholly not compatible with ownership rights, portability rights, free speech rights, etc.

Their draconian ecosystem policies around payment, hardware lock in, and platform lock in are IMO just as bad if not worse than Google draconian policies around data privacy

It seems however you do not place any value on anything other than privacy

This is an important point. There are no good guys in cell phones right now, at least none that are large enough on the stage to really scare Apple/Google.

EDIT: I feel like I should give a shout-out to Pinephone, LineageOS and GrapheneOS as some better options, although they are all obviously not mainline.

I personally think that the whole "privacy" thing started because their ecosystem is in trouble.

They created the app store and made apps ubiquitous.

Honestly, computers used to have so much promise. They helped us, and made us better.

But nowadays how many people have you heard say "I don't WANT to install an app". (I know, lots of people don't care)

And apple is trying to restore (a little) trust by saying they're for privacy.

Thing is, they have to play both sides. And they really can't be for privacy (like allow a firewall or block network access for an app) because then developers won't do anything on their platform.

They don’t have to be altruistic as long as their interests align with those of their customers. So far on privacy they’ve spent billions of dollars building a reputation for protecting user privacy, fought court cases and probably given up billions more in potential revenue from user data monetisation. I’m not about to give up using a smartphone or online apps, so given I need to make a choice, I’m happy with the one I’ve made so far.

All you have given is possible reasons Apple might compromise, but those have applied for many years. If they do start compromising then sure, let’s re-evaluate.

They have spent on _marketing_ privacy. Their court cases were a great exercise in PR. They still have the highest compliance rate with US government for turning over user data, which they hold the keys to, and the Chinese government. User data monetisation is not the only danger to be wary of, it just happens to be the one that gets trotted out most often.

The time to re-evaluate is already here, it's just hard to do so when you're already locked into their ecosystem.

It’s not as simple as taking the compliance rate. The question is, how much data do they hold that they can tune over. How much of it is client-side encrypted.

Twitter handing over the DMs for a user: very much problematic- they’re plaintext. Apple handing over the iMessage history for a user: much less problematic, it’s E2E encrypted. (though still an issue - metadata may still be plain)

Fundamentally it boils down to some trust level - how much of what apple says about their data storage is true?

For starters, Apple can turn in all iCloud backup data since they ditched strong encryption plans after FBI complained.

> The question is, how much data do they hold that they can tune over.

https://www.androidcentral.com/apple-may-have-ditched-encryp...

I don’t understand how complying with the law and not criminalising their employees is a ding against them. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that used as a criticism of any other company, but it’s regularly used against Apple. It’s really bizarre. If you dont want companies complying with the law surely what we need to do is change the law and challenge governments. What matters is what they choose to do within the law, and as a customer I’m satisfied.

> They don’t have to be altruistic as long as their interests align with those of their customers.

Exactly. You just summed up why capitalism works in a single brilliant sentence.

> DYI diagnostic tool

I'm not familiar with that term. Does it mean a "Do Yourself In" diagnostic tool?

Ah yes, the notorious Do Yourself In category of diagnostic tools.

What are personal health metrics but the inverse of personal mortality metrics?

they invented iBeacon for instance

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