I jusy checked the iOS app’s permissions. It asks for no permissions outside of live activities, for integration with Siri, notifications and background app refresh.
- Official app https://i.imgur.com/fjgKlVo.png, see 'Data used to track you'
- Apollo app https://i.imgur.com/icykgJP.png, see 'Data not used to track you'
3rd party apps do not track users, which is a problem for an advertising-based business like Reddit.
Apollo doesn’t track you. But Reddit is tracking you either way.
The official app is also hoovering up other deanonymizing data like user location, which helps narrow down ad targeting even further. It's obvious why Reddit prefers you use their official app instead of a third-party alternative.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identifier_for_Advertisers
It’s also a system setting whether you allow an app to use IDFA - which according to at least FB - 80% of iOS users decline.
>In iOS 10, Apple introduced "Limit Ad Tracking" setting for users who do not wish to be tracked by advertising networks. If the setting is enabled the system returns a default all-zero id for that device. As of December 2020, it's estimated that approximately 20% of users turn on this setting.
On iOS you can go to “Location” and Reddit doesn’t show up as even an option.
And you cited an article about iOS 10 that came out in 2017. As of 2021, it’s 88% that opt out of tracking
https://targetinternet.com/resources/how-apple-ios14-changes...