Comment by chasil | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chasil | Hacker News Reader

I bought a cheap, used iPhone SE3 because I needed to Facetime relatives.

I learned quickly that "Find My" was far superior in remote tracking of airtag-equivalents, and switched some of my convertible tags to their network.

I flew out of O'Hare last month, and there were advertisements all over the airport announcing that Illinois id/drivers license import into Apple Wallet, so I did it, and that works.

Supposedly, passports can be imported. I haven't been able to make that work, even after a few hours on the phone with Apple.

I also added a new CTA Ventra card, and I lost my ATM card while out of the country and instantly added a new one to Apple Wallet.

Apple devices allow biometrics to be disabled for unlocking the phone. That is an important requirement for me to use these features.

I would never, ever trust Google with any of these things. Ever.

That being said, if I want to run a torrent client on my phone, I should be able to do so. Apple will never allow that.

If I want a Bourne/POSIX shell, I should be able run one. Apple will never allow that [AFAIK].

There are important reasons that Apple products will never, ever be my primary communication devices.

> I would never, ever trust Google with any of these things. Ever.

Why do you trust Apple with them? What guarantees Apple will not do evil?

There are no guarantees, but if I need a digital ID, then this is the best solution.

Currently, one is a surveillance company that is motivated to abuse my privacy in every possible way, in order to target ads (and, conceivably, Gemini). The other, currently, is a hardware company that's dipped it's toes in advertising and is motivated to sell me devices and services.

If, at some point, they converge, I will trust Apple as little as I trust Google, but it's absurd to pretend they're the same thing, today or to "what if" yourself into knots.

Google is absolutely an evil company, head to toe, that is aligned against you. Trusting them with anything is almost as stupid as trusting Meta.

> Google is absolutely an evil company, head to toe, that is aligned against you. Trusting them with anything is almost as stupid as trusting Meta.

You should never really trust a business with your information. At the end of the day all they care about is making money and most customers have no interest in the business making more money, so you're never really in alignment.

I trust a business to do it's business - I don't believe Apple is going to try to build a massive database of everything I do online, because that is not its business. I do believe Google has a vested interest in knowing everything I do online because that is how it makes money.

Thinking they're the same, or will do the same things, or playing slippery slope games is really silly and/or a complete waste of time and energy.

> but it's absurd to pretend they're the same thing, today or to "what if" yourself into knots.

It's not absurd whatsoever. Apple and Google are oftentimes asked to make the exact same concessions, and in many cases (see: push notification backdoor) they do exactly the same thing: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-...

Neither Google nor Apple have any real accountability at play. The same mechanisms that demand Google to surveil users are being accepted by Apple too. The "ad business" canard is (and always was) a distraction.

> The "ad business" canard is (and always was) a distraction.

Your position is that Google has not and does not differentially acquire data on its users (and non-users) because... Apple has shared some data with the feds? Is that a serious position?

Your position is that Apple meaningfully differentiates itself by copying Google's worst behavior? Lemming logic does not apply, Apple and Google can't blame each other for assenting to warrantless surveillance.

My position is that they differentially collect data and that their version of that data collection is worse.

It's almost like that's way I've been talking solely about that for the entire thread, in spite of your attempts to whatabout other things into the conversation that you think make Apple Bad. I'm not clear why you're finding this conversation challenging.

There is more to data collection than analytics. This thread is specifically discussing data which users voluntarily share by using Apple's services.

Yes, it's still hypothetical, but do you think it's that unlikely? You can't use Advanced Data Protection (full E2EE for iCloud) in the UK anymore. It was forced upon them but compare that vs. their malicious compliance of the EU's DMA. The first only negatively impacts Apple's customers while the second aims to empower customers, but negatively affects Apple.

To add on... No ability to firewall their iOS devices leaves use of the network vulnerable. Siri and other unkillable daemons always running. My favorite is when the cpu fan "stopped working" on an old A1278 after an update. Turns out that was just a change in the fan profile so the machine would cook first before the fan would wheeze out a puff of effort.

> That being said, if I want to run a torrent client on my phone, I should be able to do so. Apple will never allow that.

> If I want a Bourne/POSIX shell, I should be able run one. Apple will never allow that [AFAIK].

I believe you can accomplish the latter (via an emulator) with “ish”, and then use that to accomplish the former (with e.g. rtorrent)

I have that loaded on my phone, but look at /proc/version.

Depending on your definition of shell there are some: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/a-shell/id1473805438

You traded convenience for control. That is how all these big companies lock you in.

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