Everyone knows when Apple says privacy they just mean from others.
this post was submitted on 13 Apr 2024
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This sounds like an exaggeration though.
To me it seems like these researchers are saying the switch is confusing and complicated. That is not to say that Apple secretly collect data after lying to their users.
The problem with Siri, first example, is more about Apple's (characteristic) terminology garbage. Siri's voice control has nothing to do with Siri's search suggestion, yet they marketed both as Siri. Actually, you can turn them both off, but since the voice control is just called Siri, they confused their users.
That's different from "collecting data even when supposedly disabled.
(Tbf, even if they were better termed, my mom would still manage to confuse herself... mo matter what Apple do, the average user won't be able to turn off anything.)
That said, there's no point trying to convince someone on the internet anyway, and so I don't really know why I wrote this comment.
Depends on whether you consider dark-patterns to be "lying". If a normal user would reasonably think that data isn't being collected based on the settings they chose, then is it dishonest for them to still be collecting data? Is it good enough for them to say "well we technically never said that disabling X disabled all the invasive functionality needed to do X."
Depends on whether you consider dark-patterns to be “lying”
https://www.apple.com/privacy/ "Privacy. That's Apple.". That and then doing dark patterns, I consider that lying, yes.
Maybe this research and language is intended to suggest that there is a point past which “confusingly and unintuitively designed” strongly resembles “intentionally deceiving”? We’re probably not going to get internal emails saying “make it complicated so that we can collect users’ data”.
Also, researchers don’t really control how university press departments write up their results. Even less so when they’re interviewed by media.
Addendum: Apple takes great pride in UI and user-centered design, and lately they have been highlighting privacy as a differentiator from Android. Maybe they just dropped the ball, maybe people don’t care, maybe people aren’t very bright. Still, some people have questions:)
Maybe this research and language is intended to suggest that there is a point past which “confusingly and unintuitively designed” strongly resembles “intentionally deceiving”? We’re probably not going to get internal emails saying “make it complicated so that we can collect users’ data”.
This is Apple that pride themselves on UX as you mention. They mainstreamed opinionated design. If they do it a certain way there is a reason, which is not always with the user's interests in mind. It's not because Bob in development couldn't think of a better way. Other brands might get away with that excuse but not Apple.
Of course Apple collect data. The reason they wanted to prevent other apps from collecting data was so only they can use their data, and their ad network could have an advantage over the others.
Yes, they have an ad network, and want to significantly expand it:
- https://proton.me/blog/apple-ad-company
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2021/10/19/apples-ad-network-is-the-biggest-beneficiary-of-apples-new-marketing-rules-report/
- https://digiday.com/media-buying/apples-expanding-ad-ambitions-a-closer-look-at-its-journey-toward-a-comprehensive-ad-tech-stack/
Obviously a Google phone will be at least as bad, but I'm curious how de-googled Android forks like graphene would fare.
Much better for sure.
Also a lot less functionality of course.
I've been running graphene for almost a year I think, and I haven't had to make any functional sacrifices. Though I was already not using Google's voice assistant features.
I have to agree, I never used the VA features. I was prepared to have issues with banking apps and such but found myself not having issues with even those.
I was kinda expecting that sooner or later. Although it seems that it is only the basic interaction metadata - device info, crash logs, etc.
I find the settings to be an absolute slog on iOS. I was on android for the rest of history, and swapping to iOS has been a nightmare. I’ll be returning to android asap.
It’s so so difficult to find anything or change things, it’s unclear when those things you’ve done are breaking other apps (which happens a lot more than it really should).. and heaven forbid you have to roll something back because it broke something, good luck figuring out what or where to find it.
I’m the sort who always dives really deep into the menus on any new device/os I get, just to see what I can and can’t do.. but I still don’t know what I can and can’t do with this pos iPhone, because I can’t tell if I’ve found everything or not.. and that’s just not good at all.. it should be exceptionally clear when you’ve made it through all the settings, unless they are trying to hide things.. it doesn’t even make sense to have them in different places..
I really dislike iOS for a lot of reasons, but their decisions to break down settings the way they did is such a massively huge one it’s nearly deal breaking on its own..
But I never assumed apple was better with privacy or anything. If they were, they wouldn’t have a walled garden because they wouldn’t need one. I’ve just assumed they are far worse with privacy because they don’t give you freedom to manage it yourself in any meaningful way.