Tim Cook delivers speech railing against “data industrial complex,” sideloading | Hacker News Reader

Tim Cook delivers speech railing against “data industrial complex,” sideloading

arstechnica.com

11 pointspaulpan13 comments

But of course the real anger is the possibility to install apps on devices where the manufacturer cannot get their share. But I expect the average Apple user to believe it.

Yes, I have an Apple device too, but buying it wasn't my proudest moment...

I don't think this narrative is congruent, at least to people that are aware of Apple practices. They're in a campaign to try to trash other businesses competitive advantage, like some sort of virtue - when in reality Apple still has some other agendas that aren't very consumer friendly.

So all of this just sounds fake.

I wonder when they'll pitch that contextual advertising will perform better than all the rest, and they'll offer it as a solution, and in no time Apple enters the Advertising space because brands can reach Apple users in a contextual way.

I totally understand the concerns and have some fears about side-loading. But I came to the conclusion that the solution to this isn't to prevent side-loading. It is to allow side-loading and introduce legislation for better consumer rights.

You can force developers to offer refunds, fair trials that don't trap you into a subscription, subscriptions that you can cancel on every billing date with the click of a button, leave privacy choice to the user and preventing app developers from restricting functionality based on these. Maybe a cheap legal way to force a big company to review your account ban.

Basically all the consumer friendly practices Apple forces onto developers offering Apps in the App Store and more.

But I'm against legislation that only forces Apple to offer side-loading and functions as a way for big developers like Adobe or Epic Games to potentially circumvent restrictions on dark patterns they would like to use in their apps. Bring this developer and consumer rights combo bill and I'm all for it.

Also: Restricting users from running third-party code is a really effective way to stop malware infections. Yes there are zero-days, but most malware related problems are caused by someone accidentally running code. These locked down devices completely stop this kind of attack. This makes locking down devices a huge plus for the majority of the user base. It's only a problem for developers that sell software in the App store and advanced users that want to run their own software.

You also plainly reduce the amount of available software because not every developer will put up with Apples demands and you could argue that their model attracts developers that are orientated to get a profit out of their users. That alone isn't nefarious, but it is clear that software today would look a lot worse if we only had such platforms available.

Additionally nobody would be forced to side-load anything, so I don't get the restriction. Security is a cheap excuse in my opinion and Apple can be glad that this is swallowed to readily.

Actually, more like Tim Cook railing against the customer's freedom of choice. Heaven forbid if lowly users of iPhones (that they paid for) are allowed to "escape" and are free to install apps other than from the Apple Store. Such consumer freedoms are unconscionable, to them.

Tim Cook can rail against the digital stalking of the "data industrial complex" because Apple isn't built to amass, analyze, and sell the data that they do -- and could -- collect. I would like to know, however, how much they are being paid in servicing warrants for information about their customers. Every Apple device phones home to Apple with massive amounts of data about apps used, where you have been, etc. Officially this is for debugging purposes and so that Apple engineers have in-the-field data to reference for improving their devices. It's also a wealth of information that could be sold at some future point... and it's not like Apple is on record as using their massive cash reserve to pay Contempt of Court fines for telling the Feds to pound sand when they come around with a blanket warrant for all usage info about a person of interest.

i don't buy that: how is it, they keep asking for an apple-id, and they do that a lot. This data must be going somewhere...

What data? The Apple ID itself?

the data gathered from all further interactions that required the login; app acquisitions, media that was consumed, etc.

It’s impossible to deliver these services without that data. Do you think if you listen to a song on Spotify it doesn’t get logged to your account?

No doubt about that, but Spotify doesn't place itself as a privacy respecting company. Also i think your last question was a bit of a 'what about' trick.

You can respect privacy as much as possible while collecting the required data. For instance, Apple does collect some location data but they don’t connect it to your identity, it is associated with a random number that is replaced every so often.

So they do get the benefit of the data while maintaining some balance with your privacy interests. Now if you compare that to their main competitor Google, who just collects everything they can and keeps the data forever, they can justify posing as a privacy respecting company.

If you want, you can see exactly what data Apple collects and how they use it when you use Apple Music:

https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/data/en/apple-music/

Compare to Spotify:

https://www.spotify.com/us/legal/privacy-policy/

Spotify builds a profile of the kinds of content you listen to, so third parties can serve you ads related to it. There is an opt out but it does not opt you out from this behavior.

Spotify obviously has to do this because they offer free, ad supported accounts. Apple does not have to do that because they don’t offer ad supported accounts. That is why Apple can justifiably pose as the privacy respecting company, compared to Spotify.

I hope you are right, it's hard to know for sure.

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