Apple is 100% correct. It’s the entire reason Android exists.
Then again, Apple also does a fair bit of data collection. I hate that Apple has been able to market themselves as some kind of bastion of privacy. They aren’t.
Apple is 100% correct. It’s the entire reason Android exists.
Then again, Apple also does a fair bit of data collection. I hate that Apple has been able to market themselves as some kind of bastion of privacy. They aren’t.
So Apple is not 100% correct. They are 50% correct because the second half of their claim is that Apple is somehow different and not tracking its users…
When the pot calls the kettle black, it is technically correct.
I believe the reason Google acquired Android was to make sure that Apple didn’t dominate the mobile device landscape, which would be a threat to their ad business. The data collection was just a nice side-effect, from their perspective.
All cell phones are tracking devices. Unless you faraday cage them. But yes, both apple and Android phones give out way more information than just that. And I definitely would not say that I would trust Apple more with data that I would Google.
Genuine question: in what ways do Apple track iOS users (that cannot be turned off)?
I’m of the viewpoint that most tracking can be rather easily be turned off, and that android plays in a totally other ballpark here. But I might very well be wrong.
A list from elsewhere in the thread: https://lemdro.id/comment/3314038
Actually, the reason Android exists isn’t so one-dimensional.
- The company Android was initially concerned more with Microsoft dominating phones like they did computers at the time, before being bought by Google
- They created two prototype chains initially, one touch, one that was more akin to BlackBerry
- iPhone came out, they ditched the BlackBerry-esque one and focused on what became now Android
Google was mostly just doing what all tech companies were doing at the time, trying to compete in a mobile arms race for dominance. The data tracking was just a bonus. Appeasing shareholders is paramount. Look at how Apple created an Alexa speaker just because they had to as another example of this type of behavior.
Also, Apple actually has a long history of tracking user behavior that predates both Android and the iPhone.
Apple apps since some time shortly after the inception of OS X would (and likely still do) phone home to configuration.apple.com to send apple metrics on usage. Earlier variations of LittleSnitch could actually block this collection behavior.
Apple has since reconfigured the network stack to guarantee that direct encrypted connections to Apple are always possible above any VPN, or other type of network filter connection. So there’s no way to prevent communication with Apple on an Apple product at all now short of keeping it off the Internet or blocking DNS to 17.* IP addresses, which would only work on a network one has control over.
2021 - Apple collects more types of data than Google https://www.tomsguide.com/news/android-ios-data-collection
2021 - Apple Do Not Track basically a placebo button https://www.techdirt.com/2021/12/10/apples-do-not-track-button-is-privacy-theater/
2022 - Apple tracking you despite your privacy settings https://gizmodo.com/apple-iphone-analytics-tracking-even-when-off-app-store-1849757558
2023 - All the Data Apple Tracks on You (Privacy guides amount to roughly 70,000 words of legalese) https://www.wired.com/story/apple-privacy-data-collection/
2023 - MAC address “filtering” has basically been broken since launch https://www.zdnet.com/article/iphone-users-who-dont-want-to-be-tracked-need-apples-ios-17-1-privacy-patch/
Apple still links services like device bricking to the Find My network. If your iphone is stolen, and you don’t want someone to reset it to use or sell, you HAVE to submit your location data to be a part of the tracker network. Disabling that, Apple sends users a scary nag email that their device is no longer protected.
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100%. Most business is just advanced sophistry at this point. Marketing and advertising serves a useful purpose for new products, when the market isn’t aware that it exists.
But by quantity and cost, most advertising is just social manipulation and is effectively an extra drain on the economy.
And that’s just the last three years!
Juan, YOU are the man! 💪
Plus people forget that if they use iCloud Apple can also see all your data in the same way Google can if you use a Google account
Yeah yeah, wake me up when you can unlock the bootloader on apple phones.
Exactly as long as Apple devices are closed source black box you have ZERO privacy under any circumstances. At least on an open platform like Android you can get pretty close.
Yup, the logic people use to call Apple phones secure would put Fisher Price toy phones at the S-Tier of security.
Is Apple trying to convince me that the Health app, Apple maps or Siri doesn’t track me?
Is Apple trying to convince me that the Health app, Apple maps or Siri doesn’t track me?
No, they are trying to convince themselves. It’s an internal brainwashing presentation after all, not for external PR.
Their slide seems to list Siri, Maps, and iAd not being tied to the user’s Apple ID as a pro. I didn’t realize this was the case.
Apple has very explicitly stated in very clear terms that the health app does not share data with other apps or devices unless you give permission. And as someone who has given that permission (twice, once to give a meal tracker write permission and once to link to my doctors office’s application for read and write) it’s for every application. It’s not a “hey you need to let everyone have access or no one”. You can get fairly granular.
There’s always the possibility of lying but usually when a company goes that hard on saying the same thing is so many different ways it’s legit. They don’t commit like that unless they know they won’t get in trouble. Those kinds of statements could open them to false advertising claims if it got out they were taking your health data.
Here’s a link to their privacy document which reviewed a good bit of info: https://www.apple.com/privacy/docs/Health_Privacy_White_Paper_May_2023.pdf
I’ll stand corrected on my original comment then. I hope that with Google being dragged through the courts at the moment, perhaps it may inspire more interest and conversation about how our data is handled and how it pertains to the implications around privacy.
Health app has encrypted data that doesn’t go to Apple without explicit permission
Huh I wonder how is that different from Samsung Health or Google Fit.
Google doesn’t make money off of those so its OK.
Yeah, but Android doesn’t make me constantly enter my password to do basic things. Also, Apple takes away a lot of control from their consumers.
I’ll take the phone that isn’t dumbed down tyvm
Ideally you shouldn’t have to compromise. GrapheneOS without Google is an option.
It literally isn’t - Graphene only supports Google Pixel phones.
You’ve apparently missed the point. Graphene exists solely to harden security and privacy by disabling the googly parts of the phone. That is clearly what was meant by “without Google”
You can do that without Graphene though
And?
Graphene is is way over hyped. You can basically the same thing with lineage os. The key is just not using gsf
But then you can’t use any apps that require Play Services. The killer feature of GrapheneOS is letting you run Play Services in a sandbox.
Unlocked bootloader is considered a vulnerability tho
But if your threats model is toxic Tim, satya and sundar, it will do the job just fine.
The kids need to use their buzzwords though
And how do you know there aren’t hardware level trackers in Google’s chips? The kind Graphene can’t override? Do you trust Google not to do that?
Ultimately you can’t know everything. At some point you have to trust someone. The graphene people seem to know they are doing imo. Ultimately everything is flawed, you just have to know when to say "good enough ". The pixel hardware is pretty great imo and they are often cheap, so I think it’s worth considering them given that they can be hardened in various ways.
Because this will get .001% more total data considering the low number of GrapheneOS users. Besides, this is highly illegal and would result in significant public outcry and legal consequences far greater in cost than any potential benefits.
And if you cannot trust Google with their processors, you cannot trust any other company either.
Because all of that has stopped OEMs in the past…oh wait! No it hasn’t (looks at Lenovo)
Just use Lineage os
Or literally and other custom ROM based on aosc or lineage os
Very true.
+1 for Lineage, been using them since they forked from cyanogenmod
Not a lot, ALL. Apple devices are closed source, the user has absolutely no control over the devices what so ever.
You can do only what Apple allows you to do on them, full stop.
One damn iPhone in my home network makes most calls home out of anything in my home network. I cn see it in AdGuard Home log.
I also can see this on router with Gargoyle firmware
Buying or updating an app requires system-wide sign in
Only if one uses the official play store. Which apple does not understand, ofc.
does not understandDoes not want to understand
Pot, meet kettle
Google, the famous advertising company is using its hardware,software and infrastructure to watch everything we are doing?
I’m shocked.
Apple, ruthlessly opposing standards any time it can make them a buck no matter how many people have to suffer the consequences.
I’m shocked.
Apple got shit on when they went all in on USB on the Mac. People complained they couldn’t use their mice and keyboards anymore.
They shit on FireWire and thunderbolt and called them proprietary, even those were both industry standard ports. Same for DisplayPort.
They switched to USB-C exclusively and then people complained that they had to buy dongles.
In the modern era, they have had maybe 3 or 4 proprietary ports.
It doesn’t seem so ruthless to me.
Which is why iMessage is open source and supported on all platforms, right? ;)
They should have switched to USB c years ago, they only did it because the EU forced them
Apple gets far less hate than it deserves. Fucking garbage company
Did the EU force Apple to switch the iPad to USB-C? For that matter, didn’t Apple have like 20 or so engineers on the USB-C spec?
I don’t know how much more hate Apple can get, their mere existence enables an entire tech-journalism ecosystem dedicated to laying out their evils and predicting their demise. It’s good for the economy!
The funny part is its coming from Apple
They are not wrong
They are not wrong
The best lies have a bit of truth in them, by making a factual statement and then deliberately coming to a wrong conclusion. They are wrong when the second half of the claim is that Apple is somehow any different. There is tracking and analytics everywhere in Apple systems. They don’t need to formally tie the Apple ID to other tracking methods when they can just use other means to find out that two connections come from the same device.
At least in the Android world there at least is the option to go fully free of Google Services. There is no iOS Open Source Project that includes everything but a few things.
You’re making huge assumptions based on a single slide that doesn’t state it’s own conclusion. To me this easily is showing that Apple limits how data is used compared to Google, it doesn’t try to show that Apple doesn’t track you.
You’re making huge assumptions based on a single slide that doesn’t state it’s own conclusion.
I’m making assumptions based on the fact that it’s a slide from an internal presentation. Since it’s an internal presentation, it’s about displaying Apple in the best possible light to its employees… employees who may think to accept job offers from Google.
Again you’re assuming that’s what the target is.
Again you’re assuming that’s what the target is.
Yes, I literally wrote “I’m making assumptions based on the fact that…”.
Which is 100% speculation on your part. Given this was from 2013 and Apple went on to advertise privacy publicly, it stand to reason it’s more about how they could market their product based on the truth of what they don’t do compared to Google than some sort of employee retention or spin.
Which is 100% speculation on your part.
No, the slide being part of an internal Apple presentation is not speculation at all and going from that verified fact, it’s absolutely fair to make educated assumptions based on that. Nowhere it I claim that my comment is 100% fact. You don’t seem to get this in your head.
it stand to reason it’s more about how they could market their product
100% speculation.
“only when it provides a better customer service” Hahaha. That’s so vague that it is completely meaningless.
They’re not wrong. Its just they aren’t the perfect solution
I don’t think they want to be. I just think they want to fragment Android. I agree with them.
The fall of android would be the fall of the only reliable open os for phones. I’m not seeing many custom roms for privacy based on iOS.
Opening a space for an OS fork led by a consortium of mobile phone manufacturers that don’t have a vested interest in supporting their ad and tracking business would be an overall benefit. Google sees value in android only for that, and that’s a major problem.
Well, it’s not like Apple doesn’t also collect pretty hair-raising information on you. Go digging through some of the sqlite databases on your machine and you’ll find eg. a social graph that even supports labels for things like political affiliations (I think this db was the one used by their ominously named “intelligence platform” service). Another db (which I think was for the
knowledgeddaemon) has an incredibly detailed log of everything you do on your computer and phone, including eg. web URLs and millisecond granularity events on when you interact with your devices. Whether that social graph or all that other stuff ever leaves your devices is unknown (although eg. theknowledgedstuff definitely does since I can see events for my phone on my laptop), but I wouldn’t count on it not being sent to Apple – regardless of what they claim.And yeah, sure, this is all to make “customer experience” better, but do you seriously believe that’s all they will be used for?
Edit: and just as a side note, I’m not basing these claims on stuff I read online, but on actually having looked at the contents of those databases myself
Could you cite the source for those dbs?
Sure!
~/Library/IntelligencePlatform(associated withintelligenceplatformd) has a bunch withgraph.dbbeing the social graph, but with others likebehaviors.dbandeventLog.dbalso likely being relevant, and I thinkontology.dbwas the one where they kept more information on the tags available for the social graph.~/Library/Application\ Support/Knowledge/knowledgeC.db(associated with Spotlight’sknowledgeconstructiond, which I think used to be calledknowledgedin earlier versions) has the other stuff I mentioned.There’s also some system-level things in eg.
/var/db/knowledgegraphd/but I haven’t bothered looking into those yet because it’d require disabling SIP.Ok, I’m just gonna come out and say it - I messed up.
I clearly have no idea what you’re saying, and I don’t even know why I expected anything even remotely simple to understand.
I apologise for wasting your time, but thank you so much for this comment, however pointless it may seem now.
Oh you didn’t waste my time at all, no worries. It’s not like copy-pasting those paths from my terminal was all that much work, and it’d definitely have been better if I’d included that info right from the start. Unfortunately I couldn’t give any blog posts etc as a source, because as I said it was all based on my own poking around in those databases, but at least I could say where the databases were so others could do some poking around of their own if they wanted to
Makes sense… Thanks alot for the nice response 🫡.
Don’t forget our vehicles are also tracking us. Soon our Ai trainers will have enough data to guide us in their path and we’ll love what they tell us we should do.
My vehicle does not track me. I will take my old car to my grave
This logic is so short sighted… You are one accident away from being in this shiti market.
How do people not understand this simple concept?
You ain’t opting out of jack shit peasant.
I have never had an accident in my life and I hope to continue that trend. However, if I need to replace my car I’ll just get something else old and used. I’m fine working on my own car and I don’t need a fancy set of wheels
Still missing the point…
One more advantage of the used cars I buy: the cell network they can connect to doesn’t exist anymore (the radios don’t exist, the company itself exists, but they have upgraded towers to not support older cell connections).
Clearly this was before Apple became one of the largest advertising companies.
