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Comment by tokarf | Hacker News Reader

From Apple's website:

"we don’t need to know a lot about you to deliver a great experience on Apple Maps." -> so you still need to know a little about me ?

"Even if you choose to sign in, Maps keeps your data in sync across all your devices using end-to-end encryption — so where you go isn’t associated with your Apple Account at all." -> looks like magic, data is synced accross all your devices but without using your apple account ...

For shop owners buying ads, they'll still need to provide statistics of view, clicks and conversions and that needs tracking. So that's not different from google. Apple claims to be the champion of privacy, that's just hypocritical. Just check the apple Advertising & Privacy page.

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> Apple claims to be the champion of privacy

While letting Facebook, TikTok and others secretly track you for years, across devices AND DEVICE REINSTALLS, through Apple's iCloud Keychain API, to store data that users cannot see or delete on iOS, except through the macOS Keychain app, and even then it's dubious if that's all that's actually stored.

I'm not sure I follow, presumably if these are using the Keychain API they're doing so via the app, to which you must be logged in, so they are already tracking you and the keychain thing achieves... nothing?

The keychain data of an app on iOS is NEVER removed from your device, unless you completely wipe the device. This has been the behavior since the beginning.

> unless you completely wipe the device.

then it comes back after you sign into the same Apple ID on that device or even a NEW device!

and of course the crap remains on your other devices.

Funnily enough Apple allowed users to delete that shit for a while, during a certain iOS beta, but then backtracked before release.

There is an interesting prior discussion here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39635616

Started by me! No one else seems to know/care over the many years I've been pissed about this :')

Keep up the good fight!

My personal pet peeve is that a lot of people seem to believe that disabling Allow Apps to Request to Track disables in-app trackers.

Carefully formulated by Apple to give completely the wrong impression (only blocks identifiers like IDFA.)

Even if you delete and reinstall the app, it remembers your logins and who you are. Even after you wipe the iPhone/iPad and setup with the same Apple ID/iCloud account.

Discord automatically logged me in ON A NEW IPAD, because I signed into the same Apple ID/iCloud account.

and I assume all the other apps from a company can share that info, like Facebook ↔ WhatsApp

Funnily enough, Apple allowed users to delete that data when deleting an app, during an iOS beta, but removed that feature before release, heavily in favor of the spyware and against users.

Can you link to a good article or post about this?

Thanks!

I've been ranting about this since 5 years, and every time it mostly just gets ignored. You can Google or ask ChatGPT about the iCloud Keychain API.

And to see for yourself, open the Keychain Access app on your Mac, and search for "Facebook", "TikTok" etc (that data is accessible by those apps on all your other Apple devices too)

> For shop owners buying ads, they'll still need to provide statistics of view, clicks and conversions and that needs tracking. So that's not different from google.

The difference is in how the data is handled. One is using it as an asset to update the FBI-like file they have on you. The other is treating it like a hot potato.

Are you suggesting apple is handing out user days to advertisors? That sounds strictly worse than the other option

"So that's not different from google."

HN comments over the years have tried to direct focus to differences between these companies instead of similarities

It's truly obtuse to ignore the similarities

Apple sells access to its users (ad targets) to Google via accepting payment from Google for "default search engine" settings

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