Apple's called Android a "massive tracking device" in an internal presentation
An internal Apple presentation now made public by the Department of Justice shows just what the company thought of privacy on Android.
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
Not exactly true. If you enable "Advanced Data Protection" not even apple can look at your data (with the exception of data which has to be interoperable like calendars and mail)
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.
Actually, the reason Android exists isn't so one-dimensional.
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.
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.
They both track you fairly closely. There are no winners if you are primarily concerned about privacy. Google is simply more open about it, and provides more access to that data to you (like timeline and takeout).
A list from elsewhere in the thread: https://lemdro.id/comment/3314038
Yeah yeah, wake me up when you can unlock the bootloader on apple phones.
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/HealthPrivacyWhitePaperMay2023.pdf
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.
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
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.
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 understand
Does not want to understand
Oh irony, thy name is Apple.
Pot, meet kettle
Lol. Best comment.
I used to sell apple gear at a reseller. They literally used to send messages to our customers for applecare.
The difference is that Apple simply uses the data for it's own benefit and competes against everyone (including people developing for their system)
Apple simply uses the data for it's own benefit
So... like Google
Definitely not saying Google is any better.
But don't forget, Apple gets billions of dollars from Google too, to be default webpage.. So they're totally complicit, and in practice, they're effectively selling your user data to google.
The biggest issue with Apple has always been their dodgy marketing. 20 years ago, they were living off the incorrect claim that "MacOS can't get Viruses", and now, seems to be just as dodgy with privacy.
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.
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.
The funny part is its coming from Apple
"only when it provides a better customer service" Hahaha. That's so vague that it is completely meaningless.
Yes, but if you put graphene on a pixel it's miles beyond an iphone
Congratulations to you and the other 0.000000001% of Android users then.
0.000000001%
This implies the existence of 100 billion Android users, that is roughly 13 times the number of people alive.
I would like to think that the percentage of users who have grapheneOS is maybe 5% of the pixel population. I'm just pulling a number out of my ass right now but basically a lot of people who want the very best privacy and security go for graphene which is limited to only Pixels even though there are more cool phones like the fp5.
Clearly this was before Apple became one of the largest advertising companies.
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 knowledged daemon) 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. the knowledged stuff 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 with intelligenceplatformd) has a bunch with graph.db being the social graph, but with others like behaviors.db and eventLog.db also likely being relevant, and I think ontology.db was the one where they kept more information on the tags available for the social graph. ~/Library/Application\ Support/Knowledge/knowledgeC.db (associated with Spotlight's knowledgeconstructiond, which I think used to be called knowledged in 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.
was this old (the google logo is the old one so i'm not sure) or was apple just uninformed?
you can have all sorts of multiple accounts in the control panel, mail and calendar all have on device log ons, you can update apps outside of the app store or use the google play store with your google account the same way you do with your apple account.
Five words into the article says
Apple’s internal presentation from 2013
Literally at the top under TL;DR
Given how they operate internally at the engineering level, probably just Apple being uninformed. The internal culture is total brainwash. Apple tech is the only tech. It is partly why they genuinely think they created technologies. They never stick their head out of the fruit to see what the world around them has, and they have a habit of buy, cheat, or steal to ensure their monopoly continues.
Maybe an interesting sociological experiment? How technology evolves in a cult versus outside the cult back in the real world?
Lol at DoJ just releasing it, thanks I suppose.
Lol at Apple trying to wiggle its way into everything trying to fool people that they are privacy champs and everyone else using Android is a chump. I have no doubt in my mind that Apple has terabytes of data on every user. And Google maps can be used without signing in, making their argument a moot point
It is worth remembering incentives though. Apple is primarily a hardware company. Most of their revenue comes from iPhones. Google is primarily an ad company that makes money selling ads, and your data.
This obviously doesn't make Apple a privacy champion , but it should be considered. Apple is at least theoretically in a position to push for the privacy of their users, while Google is not.
Apple is also trying to expand is advertising division. It might be nessecary to force companies like this to split but I doubt we will ever get such regulation.
Apple also makes a fair bit of money from its software services such as the Apple subscriptions, which are massive wells of data. I do not find it strange that they care about harvesting data from their users. Every company who offers software services does the same thing.
Google doesn’t sell shit. They sell and target ads. If they sold your data why would people come to them to purchase ads? What advantage would they have?
Apple is a huge software company, what are you talking about lol
Closed source is always privacy invasive by default.
The difference is that Google is collecting everything, while Apple can collect everything.
Also, Android is not a "device".
Android and iOS are a massive tracking operating systems. Stick to deGoogled Android and Linux on mobile.
Stick to Linux on desktop. Windows 11 is now on par with phone OS
Says them.
They’re not wrong.
Apple has a better stance on data privacy than google because their profit model is being a premium consumer device whereas googles profit model is being a provider of ads.
Apple’s incentives are closer to the consumer since they want to make the consumer happy while googles incentives are aligned with the trackers because that improves ad revenue.
This changes the DNA of the OS.
Plus the integration of googles data insecure services with android mean that as a matter of actual reality then discussing the security of android really means discussing the data security of those integrated services. It’s unavoidable.
Don’t trust either of course but I simply do have more confidence my apple data isn’t being exploited as much as my google data simply because Apple doesn’t stand as much to gain and stands more to lose from being embarrassed on the issue.
And pointing to custom android roms that replace google services with FOSS alternatives is a technically correct but still wrong answer to this because it doesn’t reflect the reality of the overwhelming majority of android users.
Naive view of apple lol
My ads got way less creepily targeted when i switched back to iphone. It’s not perfect but it’s the best option for people who don’t want tofuck around with degoogling and all that.
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.
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).
Not mine the fuse to my modem has the leg cut off. It’s a triple leg fuse.
Hypocrites!
The real question when it comes to privacy is how much you can modify the device and os to get rid of the tracking.
I use android and yeah, it is.
Does this also go for custom roms like GrapheneOS?
Nope. It's just in reference to Google login being used across the board.
That's an old Google logo
Google+?
Slide is from 2013, per the article
Apple has been donwgraded to an asswipe. Android != Android.