Comment by whynotminot | Hacker News Reader

Comment by whynotminot | Hacker News Reader

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I'm taking aim at the Google bros who try to raise these arguments to muddy the waters into a sort of false equivalence between Apple and Google.

If you're already using a dumb phone and eschewing modern software services, then I'm not really talking to you. Roll on brother/sister, you are living your ideals.

> How do you distinguish between a company who 'has built protecting privacy into their core value proposition' and one who just says they've done so?

The business incentives. Apple's brand and market valuation to some extent depends on being the secure and privacy oriented company you and your family can trust. While Google's valuation and profit depends almost entirely on exploiting as much of your personal data as they possibly can get away with. The business models speaks for themselves.

Does this guarantee privacy and security? Does Apple have a perfect track record here? No of course not, but again if these are my two smartphone choices it seems fairly clear to me.

> but again if these are my two smartphone choices it seems fairly clear to me.

If you really perceive this as a binary choice, I have no idea how you could conclude that iOS is more secure than the Android Open Source Project.

...of course, it's not just a choice between a Google-spyware phone or an Apple-spyware phone. Many people like to reduce it to that so they can rationalize whichever company they pick, but in reality you have many choices including no smartphone at all. On Android's side, the Open Source images have enabled rigorous cross-referencing in OS capability, as well as forks that reduce the already-limited attack surface. Apple has a long track-record of letting zero-days fester in their inbox and failing to communicate promptly to security researchers, even for actively-exploited vulnerabilities.

It's not a "false equivalency" to highlight how Google, Apple and Microsoft all fold over like wet paper when the intelligence agencies come around. It's not a coincidence, either; all of those companies are enrolled in the NSA's domestic warrantless surveillance program.

> but in reality you have many choices including no smartphone at all.

Oh come on man. This is why these conversations often aren’t even worth having.

I'm sorry, hopefully you come back to reality soon. I just went 2 weeks without touching a smartphone, I'm certain you can too.

I think you’re the one not living in reality.

But, hey, at least the NSA won’t get ya.

Alright. Take care.

If you can live without a cellphone, you're not living in reality? Interesting argument.

I wonder how all those people did it in the 90s and 00s and before the age of smartphones.

In those dark derelict days, before the brilliant shining light of creation endowed man with the Subway App.

Simple, everyone around them also didn’t have cellphones.

Reality is based in a context.

Or are we going to go to even more “get off my lawn” kind of places and talk about how ancient man survived quite fine without the internet?

You know this is a growing trend with teens, right?

Like to eschew smartphones and just use basic feature phones and to interact in real physical settings and not digital ones.

There's a growing and warranted push back to pervasive and addictive digital technology.

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