That's a very healthy attitude towards Apple's claims. They developed all these APIs that allow app makers to spy on their users, and then blame the app makers for spying.
For example, why does any app need to know which other apps I have installed, and how long I use them? This permission should very sparingly pass the review process, and only for apps in specific categories.
- There was never any API for a third party app on iOS to get the time spent in another app. The only workaround I saw to this was an app that asked you to screenshot your app usage screen, and it was able to process those screenshots in an automated way (can't find the link).
- There is an API to open URLs between apps, so that one app can link to another app. When developers realized that they could check whether or not a given URL was openable to check if an app is installed, they started abusing this API to check every app on the system. Apple cracked down on the API in iOS 9 and made it so that all apps declare which other apps they can check, and App Review decides if they have a legitimate use: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uiapplicatio...
This should be done the same as with location and microphone access... ie. "ask the user". "Flashlight 2000 DX app wants to access list of apps installed - allow once, allow always, deny now, deny always". Facebook wants to track 50 different things? Well.. ask the user 50 different times and try to explain why you want access to their call history and calendar data (adding calendar entries could also be a write-only option, with optional unique ids to change/remove entries).... and give your UX team a headache. Also, "deny" should be the "bolded" default. Maybe even give the user a list of unchecked permission the app wants, with explanations why it needs them, and have the user check the ones they want to give to the app (default state is unchecked (deny)).
Also granularity is key... giving location access for bluetooth connections, giving "manage calls" access to stop playing music when you get a call, etc. is just stupid.
Apple needs to force them to be up front from the very beginning that their stupid game or screensaver or else is also a tracking app. And boot any app that uses your phone to do anything beyond what they told you they would do in the app store description.
My how things have changed
Vista popped up inscrutable boxes for all kinds of actions, with no explanation.
This is a small number of permissions, each explained clearly.
If Microsoft had done it this way, nobody would have laughed.
Yes.
Nowadays, people are more aware about such things, so maybe you can start to assume the users are more comfortable about computing and the internet. So they should change their direction.
I'd agree with the sentiment if it was like Samsung making fun of removing a headphone jack, only to do the same thing less than a year later.
Basically, i'd be happy if those "risky" permissions would be hidden in app management in settings, disabled by default, and enabled only by power users.
The problem now is, that due to fscked up permissions schemes, some apps are unable to work at all, even the stuff they work now, some due to play store issues (eg. termux because they want to run downloaded code), and some due to missing apis (eg vnc servers).
That a big No. List of apps uniquely identifies the device and the user. Is this api available??
I just want the app to ask me, and me to decide if the app really needs it or not.
What are you referring to? As far as I know, one app can't query the list and usage time of other installed apps on iOS. This stackoverflow question[1] seems to confirm this. But please enlighten me if I'm misunderstanding what you're referring to.
[1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/51634436/how-to-get-a-li...
What are you talking about?
They didn’t develop any such APIs, and have been progressively closing up anything that can be exploited that was left over from Mac OS.
Also, they aren’t blaming anyone for using anything they have built.
They are just asking users to consent to apps using it.
Why is that a problem?
People want apps to be able to do things and those things can often allow tracking in addition to being useful to the user. There is pretty much one API Apple devised specifically for tracking users and this very issue is Apple attempting to shut down.
Clarification: Just to be clear, Apple isn’t shutting down the API entirely, they are changing it from opt-out to opt-in.
Since I can't edit my original comment, I chose to reply to it instead of replying to everyone who corrected me. Yes, there's no API to directly query installed apps and usage on iOS. I think I got the wrong impression from years ago, when the function canOpenURL() could be abused to detect which apps were installed[0]. Thank you all for the corrections.
0. https://useyourloaf.com/blog/querying-url-schemes-with-canop...
It helps collect data that can be used to help detect malicious users of services.
They don't give you the ability to block them.
and of course, you can't find out what is going in and out of your phone over the network, and you definitely can't firewall it. ("content blockers" are nerfed)
The problem is all of these things you mention are also useful for things users want. Often they are useful for things users want inside their applications. Nobody wants a neutered OS.
It is not apple's way to advertise this capability is available, and give you granular control.
Now that so much news has spread about these privacy additions, Apple selling out will actively hurt this image they have spent a lot of time building. It’s going to have to be an extremely lucrative agreement between them and Facebook for it to be worth it.
> Apple’s most recent earnings report revealed that it earned $12.51B from Services in calendar Q3/fiscal Q4, though there is no breakdown on how much of this comes from ad revenue.
Notice the 'could's:
> Samik Chatterjee argued the company could leverage the millions of users who search its App Store and Safari browser daily to generate the stellar growth seen by Facebook and Google in recent years.
> he launch of Apple TV+, coupled with Apple Inc’s foray into digital services, could help the company increase its income from advertising by more than five fold to $11 billion annually
This article is literally just speculation. Actually, it's quoting someone's speculation.
> The report seems highly speculative…
And even the wildest estimates put it far short on the actual money maker, which is hardware sales. When push comes to shove, if they have to choose between ad and devices, they won’t hesitate long.
No it doesn’t.
It provides aggregate statistics on downloads, just like any analytics server.
No data on users is shared.
Apple also knows which App Store ads I saw given that their server sent them to me in the first place. The ads are (at least for now) limited to the App Store and don't carry over across the web or other Apple apps.
Thus I don't see the problem with Apple using the data they've already got to provide anonymized conversion metrics to app developers.
Ads do not always mean user tracking.
Calling tracking a cardinal rule of ads is like calling HTML a cardinal rule of communication. Sure it might be ubiquitous now, but if HTML were to suddenly disappear I guarantee communication between humans won’t stop — it would adapt. Tracking isn’t a foundation, it is merely what has worked this past decade or so.
Fact of the matter is, advertising today / web marketing relies on user tracking. I'm yet to see anyone debunk this.
But in no way does it need it. We could easily go back to untargeted, reasonably effective ads that appeal to broad markets instead of extremely specific ones.
It’s ‘disingenuous’ to claim that as some cardinal rule.
It’s not - it just happens to be the most popular business fad of the 2010s.
What works in business changes over time. That is a cardinal rule.
Let's call it what it is -- stalking.
Google built a super successful ad business on search terms alone, long before they got into user tracking.
Do you have any evidence that Apple tracks users for their ad business - which only sells ads for apps when users search for them?
As requested, evidence of tracking in iPhones - https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2020/11/16/appl...
That isn’t evidence of Apple tracking anything.
IDFA is used by Facebook and ad-tech companies.
Apple are switching IDFA to be Opt-In rather than opt out.
That’s what Facebook is complaining about.
The mechanism for tracking users is already present. What more proof do you need?
Even if you manage to toggle 3rd parties out of your phone. You cannot toggle the Apple out of it.
Evidence that Apple uses it.
The mechanism relies on libraries which send user behavior from other app to Facebook. These are correlated by the ID.
The identifier is not the mechanism. The mechanism is Facebook’s library.
Apple has no such mechanism.
> You cannot toggle the Apple out of it
False.
There is a toggle for the entire feature.
So FB has Apple with some leverage over them saying accept this or else. FB is in a weak position because it would be hard to tell your users hey leave Apple because they won't let us take all your data without permission. I don't feel for them at all.
Ecosystem concerns aren’t as relevant today, since both Android and iOS have everything you’d want, but in the olden days of Blackberry, Microsoft, and many other mobile operating system vendors trying to compete, they were always seriously hampered by their lack of ecosystem.
Few things could flat out annihilate Facebook, but punching a large hole in their network is probably one of them.
because it would create an obvious a compelling opportunity for someone to finally break the stranglehold of FB's monopoly.
I miss my friend and family connections, but most people in my community won't go near that ecosystem with a flaming 10' pole any longer, and many friends like me, despair that our loved ones' reaction to e.g. the Social Dilemma and ongoing revelation after revelation of sociopathic corporate amorality is "yes that is sad but I have choice" because "all my friends are only insta" or "my cottage business depends entirely on my pages" etc etc.
I cannot wait for them to go down in flames.
Bring it Apple.
Utterly baffled.
FB's noise around this feels very out of character, even for something that's devolved into a personal conflict. They may be truly scared of the update.
Apple isn't a monopoly -- they're a walled garden.
I'm all for regulations that force Apple to open up their hardware so that people can install different software on it, or to disable the walled-garden mode of their software platform akin to how you can install lineageOS or freedroid on android devices but I don't think it's reasonable to mandate that Apple must allow Facebook to do something with their software simply because Apple does it with theirs.
If there is some documentation you claim shows iAds being privileged, please post a link.
So it's hard to come to a conclusion that Apple hates ads. It's easier to say that Apple dislikes advertiser networks, since their own attempt at a generic network (iAds) failed miserably. It's not even clear to me that blocking tracking is going to kill ads as a revenue stream, all it will do is make ads more expensive because they're slightly less targeted on iOS?
Also, Apple runs their own seemingly successful ad market within the App Store app — something I'm reminded of each time I search for an app and see a competitor's app I don't want at the top of my search results, filling my screen with the new design. So it's hard to say that Apple does this for the best user experience. Showing extra popups isn't great UX. And Apple likes free apps, it makes their phone and platform more valuable, so they can charge more for the hardware knowing folks can get great apps inexpensively or free.
While I'm in favour of Apple losing its complete monopoly over App Stores and apps that compete with its own, I actually am in favour of Apple enforcing these policies on apps from its own App Store and platform. And while I would say that third-party stores could have different stances on permissions, the idea that a third-party app store could prevent a popup asking to share a phone's identifier, for example, is frankly a security bypass. The same is true if apps want to communicate with other apps without the operating system knowing.
Personally, I'd love it if Apple went a step farther and used the network layer and code signing to identify which apps actively use which trackers and tracking networks the same way they currently identify apps that use the microphone and camera. It'd be fascinating to see an operating system feature that says 50% of my network traffic in Application X was telemetry being sent to Facebook, for example.
If you had broken this paragraph out into a separate post, it might get more and highly deserved attention.
Even if Apple’s motives are somehow nefarious, Facebook is being scummy in the first place, so it’s a fair move for Apple to take advantage of that, IMO.
You nailed it. Facebook wants to confuse and distract. There's absolutely no reason why Apple's push for user permission on tracking would cause the Facebook app to become subscription-based. WTF?
It wouldn’t become unviable for Facebook because even with a smaller number of users consenting to tracking they would still have a gigantic ad market.
This is definitely good for privacy in the short term, but long term will depend on if Apple decides to monetize this data themselves.
Or they could simply update the data-sharing default to "Yes" and 75%+ would never disable it.
> The don’t collect this data. How could they monetize it?
Your answer is essentially -
“in principle they could build tracking into all their software”
You seem to be suggesting that their plan is to fein interest in privacy to undermine all the tracking companies first, and then reverse their stance and become a super-intrusive tracking company.
That seems very far fetched and weirdly conspiracy like.
Also obviously not true, given that they have been lobbying for privacy legislation.