Apps and advertisers are coming for your lock screen
theverge.com
theverge.com
In case you don't read to the end (where the author disclaims this viewpoint), I believe that this statement is intentionally taking the viewpoint of someone who's somewhat addicted to their phone - as it's not a totally sensible idea, even if Glance was not an advertising company. Implementing this idea would make phones even more distracting and addicting than they are already.
> “and once you’ve unlocked your phone, you almost forget why you’re there in the first place!”
This is a bug! Not a feature! The advertising and "engagement" strategies implemented over the years have contributed at least in part (if not wholly) to the "erosion of intent" that causes this effect. The solution is to stop encroaching on the agency of the user - not to put things on the lock screen and make it worse!
Those who can't afford it, need to provide all that data and live with a much lower level of privacy.
While it's theoretically "their choice", economically some are forced to give up this privacy.
It has one more advantage: the firmware is really outdated. Normally I'd consider this a bad thing, but in case I ever want to root the device, the jail breaks are probably for one specific old version of the software, to which I'd have to upgrade. Not downgrade, if that's even possible.
> Apple has echoed this idea, talking about how it sees a more feature-rich lock screen as a way to help you use your phone less.
Yes, because those are totally the same thing /s
You would have to be brain dead to think that Apple would ever ship a phone with ads like this on the lockscreen by default. Apple is opening up some APIs to allow apps to provide widgets (aka complications) for the lockscreen and more customizability but to just to "But, by opening up this space, these companies are offering apps and advertisers a chance to get even closer to you." is just bad reporting and silly.
I mean sure, the user might be install shitty apps that show ads but that would be 100% up to the user and not something pre-bundled to increase longtail revenue for Apple.
I've found myself hunting through iOS settings to hide News on that slide screen to the left.
It was definitely put there by Apple and I'm confident they were paid to put it there by those chasing advertising dollars.
My contention is that Apple is not above using your screen real estate for promotion by default.
Apple sends notifications for those news stories on your Today screen ;)
My use of the word 'hunting' was very casual and completely secondary.
They make it incredibly easy to remove widgets
Discoverability is hard, and Apple makes it easy to get rid of UI you don’t care to see.
The successful carriers like Verizon told Apple no due to Apple’s demands. If they knew how big it would be they may have agreed but that was unknowable.
Still it was the end of the absolute lockdown carriers had on smartphone software.
Leela: "Didn't you have ads in the 21st century?"
Fry: "Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games..and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts, and bananas and written on the sky. But not in dreams, no siree."
Those of us pushing back are in such a minority that our voices will not be heard over those of the significant majority clamoring for their $3 savings at the checkout for giving away $300 worth of their data and an incalculable value of their privacy.
Milk cartons and magazines are interesting examples. It really depends on the magazine and the subscriber, but speaking for myself the one type of magazine I still subscribe to is a trade magazine and I subscribe to it in part because of the ads. Yes I read the columns and the content is important, but because it's a trade magazine I'm actually curious about new products and the magazine is a completely opt-in way to get that information delivered to me. I can unsubscribe at any time.
Milk cartons are disposable packaging so who cares?
My phone lock screen though? I don't much like the idea that some remote server somewhere can push something in my face in a way that I can't choose to ignore it, throw it away, opt out .. and, oh yeah, it's on something I paid hundreds of dollars for.
I think that's the difference.
But for now the advertising industry’s main goal is to gobble up any remaining surface of electronic displays, idle or not
In Android-land the only way to regain control mostly relies on security vulnerabilities.
You can’t really build your own either; most apps (including for government services) require either iOS or Android (with Google Play services) and neither can be licensed.
You can’t build your own clients either - copyright law has successfully been used to sue developers of third-party clients despite displaying content the user is authorized to view (and can view in the official client).
I only write this because I don't quite agree with you that you can't regain control of your phone presently. Though if governments start to force you to use their apps then society is in trouble. I hope that activists can shut that down, even if it's just on the basis that a minority of the population doesn't / can't own smart phones.
Edited to fix typo
It would be ideal if all devices we buy were unlockable, but sadly that's not the case. For cable modems and smart TVs and most things that have same RF capability, "regulations" are used as an excuse to lock them down.
Until the early 19th century, advertising was subjected to high taxation rates within the UK. I've come to think that returning to such a practice, with specific carve-outs for specific areas of actual social benefit, might be a very good idea.
Glance, I suspect, would have a differing opinion. That's the parasite's prerogative.
You end up here in a market that rewards “growth & engagement” more than actual cash.
I just became a fan of LineageOS. I don't think they will, but if they do this, I'm going back to dumbphones.
My daughter is in line for her first phone soon, and so she's going to be introduced to the SOE at least as her base Android experience.
- A decade ago (2012), Facebook briefly had (but didn't sell) an htc Android smartphone that had posts on the lock screen. They might've also had an option in the Facebook app to do this in the android lock screen.
- In 2014, Joe Edelman wrote http://nxhx.org/Choicemaking/ with a demo of what an iphone lock screen could look like to honor 'time well spent'
Of course, realistically this will creep in at the low end almost immediately. Cheap Android handsets will have this baked in. Nicer ones will have an option to disable it.
Or we might see the Kindle model -- you can get a base model Kindle for $89, if you don't mind lockscreen ads; if you hate the idea, an ad-free version of the same device is $109.
Sure, Apple could change their behavior on all this, but it doesn't seem likely. Especially if low-end Android gets super super ad-saturated; they'll love to draw the contrast.
IMO if you can't handle free software (and some people can't) then you should just stay away from computers for your own good; they'll use you rather than the other way around.