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Comment by bfrog | Hacker News Reader

I mean the main differentiator of Apple was the lack of Ads and tracking compared to google for me. If Apple starts hammering ads and providing tracking data and selling spots like google does with admob/android then is it really worth the premium anymore?

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Nope,

Lack of ads IS the killer feature for me. What I use an iPhone for could just as easily be done by Android.

If Apple is enthusiastically running towards the ads hellscape then it might be time to get one of those Linux phones and start developing some apps for it. I need less than 10 apps for it to be a viable replacement, or if it get's really bad then I could make do with even less.

The ads aren’t the big thing for me. The tracking is

Fair enough. I like not being tracked, so I will happily take that as well.

If the main difference between Apple and Google is selling your data, are they really all that different in the first place? Apple already collects plenty of telemetry from your devices whether you opt-in or not. OCSP sends data back to Apple's servers every time you tap an app, that's non-negotiable. They go out of their way to limit your traffic filtering capabilities solely so they can phone-home. The rabbit hole is pretty deep, and doesn't favor any of these FAANG faces.

The volume of data transmitted by iOS is one order of magnitude less than Android, though (at least when logged out and idle).

Reference: Leith, D. J. (2021). Mobile Handset Privacy: Measuring The Data iOS and Android Send to Apple And Google. URL: https://www.scss.tcd.ie/doug.leith/apple_google.pdf

Ad companies don't sell your data. It's one of their most valuable assets. They sell access to impressions that are targeted based on modeling of that data.

It is a nuanced, yet extremely important distinction.

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