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Comment by xkiwi | Hacker News Reader

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xkiwi

Finally those numbers of iPhone activation and mac sold are useful.

#1 Mac unit sales

http://www.macworld.com/article/2062821/apple-by-the-numbers...

2010 @ 13662k

2011 @ 16735k

2012 @ 18158k

2013 @ 16341k

Total = 64,896,000

#2 iPhone unit sales

http://www.statista.com/statistics/232790/forecast-of-apple-...

I only take the number from 2013 & 2014 because Apple trend to upgrade fast.

2013 @ 53.6 Million,

2014 @ 63.2 Million,

Total = 116,800,000

Now, quote from "Government Information Requests"

"less than 0.00385% of customers had data disclosed due to government information requests."

Only 699529.6 round to 699529 customers had data disclosed.

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0.00385% of 181,696,000 is 6995, not 699529.

Even if we take the total number of iTunes customers (~800 millions), it comes down to 30,800.

It's between 0-250. Tim Cook confirmed it on the Charlie Rose interview on Monday.

That was for the first half of a this year alone. They specify this in the page on Government Requests

(116800000+64896000)*0.00385/100 == 6995

Source: http://verizonmath.blogspot.com

#3 iTunes users

http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2014/04/24/itunes8....

800 Million,

#4 ipod users

http://www.statista.com/statistics/276307/global-apple-ipod-....

2010 @ 50.31 Million

2011 @ 42.62 Million

2012 @ 35.17 Million

2013 @ 26.38 Million

Total = 154,480,000

#5 Apple Laser Printer user

#6 Apple magic mouse user

#7 Apple Newton user

#8 Apple PowerBook user

#9 Apple MacBook user

#9 Apple Xserve user

Yes I made a mistake, however this is just a word game from Apple overall.

It's not 699529, but 6995 since it is 0.00385% (*0.0000385)

There's probably a big overlap between iPhone and Mac users, but yes, a big number is going to come out the other end.

To put this in context: 0.2% of women and 0.01% of men become rape victims every year. So the chance you get raped in the next year is 27 times bigger than the chance Apple disclosed your data to the government. Seems like we have worse things to worry about...

I'm not sure where you got this data, but probably it doesn't include the prisoners that were victims of rape (where the gender ratios would probably be quite different).

That might be true, but it wouldn't change much about my point, so I don't really care...

The problem is that local police are getting increasingly aggressive about abusing your privacy, and seeking access to your devices during the course of routine stops and searches.

Legally there is a combination of abuse and grey area right now, and it's going to get worse near term.

Those government information requests don't cover how many times an officer at the local or state level has accessed someone's phone either illegally or questionably legally.

This move by Apple can help to blunt that effort by the local police.

Deleted comment

Absolute numbers are useless... Pretty much any statistic put into absolute numbers ends up being a stunning number of people.

It's a bit less than 4 in 100,000, which I think is an easier number to relate to.

The second hand market for iPhones is quite large in Australia and I imagine its the same elsewhere. Probably not fair to only include those two years iPhone sales.

I would think at least 50% of the older models are either on-sold or the user hasn't upgraded.

edit: UVB-76 has a good point, there is probably a very high percentage overlap.

Didn't know that many.

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