Hacker News Reader

Comment by c7DJTLrn | Hacker News Reader

Apple's brand is tarnished in my eyes. I already got rid of my iPhone and won't be returning. The fact that they even announced this is proof that they only ever cared about providing a facade of privacy.

View on HN

I can imagine that the following is going to happen.

1. Apple announces the scanning feature (done)

2. People dislike it; backslash (happened)

3. Apple is worried about the brand, publishes statement that they are going to delay (happened)

4. People say "great", "wonderful" (ongoing)

5. Apple waits 5 months, release this crap feature anyway

6. People moved on, media does not want to repeat the same messages again, not many people care anymore

7. DONE.

This is the same thing that Facebook did with its TnC. People complained, Facebook took it back, re-introduced it 3 months later. Nobody cares anymore.

Most people don't care even at step 2. It's only technical people with concerns about privacy and corporate overreach behind this backlash. Most of that group will continue using iPhones no matter what out of convenience and unwillingness to stand up for their principles.

I stood my ground and actually took some action when something made me unhappy. This is the only way things change.

Just curious, what did you switch to? All the truly open source phones still have a lot of work that needs doing, which means the only real competitors are android devices with a custom rom, and that doesn't really fix privacy either.

I switched to a Pixel 5 running GrapheneOS. It does a good job of reducing the chat to Google, but it would be an outright lie to say that it's completely detached from Google. I'm comfortable with the measures GrapheneOS has taken and the way it sandboxes Play Services seems quite clever.

The battery life is really good, not sure if that's just the hardware or whether the debloated OS means less power is consumed.

You can also run without Google Play, but there are tradeoffs you will make to do so.

Not op but I started moving away from Apple a few months ago, much before this Apple CSAM debacle. This is a pretty big move for me because I am a developer who makes apps for both iOS and MacOS, so I pretty much need Apple software for work.

No longer buying iPhones or Macs. I was planning on upgrading to the Mac Mini with M1 chip later this fall but now I plan on building a hackintosh instead. I also no longer recommend Apple devices to friends/family.

I got myself a cheap android phone which I have de-googled myself. I got this Android phone ($190 USD for a very good phone - 8GB ram, 12gb space):

https://www.amazon.com/UMIDIGI-Unlocked-4150mAh-Capacity-Sma...

I use Firefox for YouTube on it with the following add-ons:

1. uBlock Origin

2. Video Background Play Fix add-on

This allows me to use YouTube as a background playback music player. And if needed, I use YouTube-dl to get the audio files and put them on the phone.

You can check out several tutorials to de-google an android phone.

KDE Connect[0] has a MacOS implimentation that will restore some of your 'magic' to your ecosystem. If you find yourself missing AirDrop, Continuity Clipboard, or synced media controls, give it a try and see if it feels right. Even the earlier builds of this were a lifesaver when I was still hackintoshing, and it made it a snap when I was ready to switch to Linux. Best of luck to you in the future!

[0] https://kdeconnect.kde.org/download.html

Oh wow thanks! I currently use AirDrop quite often so this is very helpful!

The hackintosh is still going to have the ability to do CSAM scanning fwiw.

I am aware. What I meant was that I don't want to support Apple with my dollars directly. Since I need MacOS for work (app development), I will use a hackintosh. That way I can run Ubuntu on the side if needed. Might look into how MacOS operates in virtualbox.

If you're hosting on a Linux machine then you can use QEMU for a surprisingly sturdy Mac virtualizationb setup. I've heard legends on IRC of people with meticulously-picked hardware who get perfect GPU-acceleration working, but ymmv.

Wasn't aware of Video Background Play Fix add-on, thanks for mantioning it!

Android phones don't scan the data on your phone looking to notify the authorities that you aren't complying.

Yes but there are other tradeoffs that are introduced. Carrier-specific ROMs, difficulty upgrading to new android versions, generally more malware found in the Play store [1] and non-privacy-centric defaults [2] aren't really great to see either.

I'm not looking to start another android vs iOS debate here. There's plenty of that online that I and others can reference. I'm more interested in seeing how people are finding alternatives or what privacy tradeoffs they are willing to accept to avoid Apple's recent photo scanning move.

[1]: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2010.10088.pdf (PDF WARNING)

[2]: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/16/how-to-stop-google-maps-from....

Was Apple pressured by some government to add the photo scanning software? It seems like a weird feature to add given apple’s messaging on privacy

Since they weren't scanning icloud, there had to have been a ton of pressure from the government, despite their claims otherwise.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com