This is the correct response. Either everyone has protection or no one has. Not that I'd trust apple anyway but by pulling the service your average person is likely to make some noise because they can feel the effect.

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There’s legitimate criticism to be made for Apple, but this is something I really appreciate about them.

The incumbent government is circling the drain and are, it seems, determined to leave a trail of destruction and burned bridges for their successors to repair.

There are a lot of things to hate about Apple, but this I can get behind. Get people using 3rd party messaging apps too! Preferably ones with e2e encryption.

God damn bullshit always "for children and terrorists"

Signal and WhatsApp have also said they'd likely leave the UK market if this bill is passed as it currently is.

Don't you know anything, Brits? Apple only strips security features for the Chinese government, you fools!

I once had a conversation under NDA (which has expired since) with an engineer at Apple who was working on iCloud infrastructure, and he was telling me that his team was a bit shocked to read that Dropbox was releasing apps for photos at the time “because they’ve noticed that most of the files users are uploading to Dropbox are photos”. He was like: how do they know that exactly? His team had no idea and couldn’t possibly find out if the encrypted files they were storing were photos, sounds, videos, texts, whatever. That’s what encryption is for, only the client side (the devices) is supposed to know what’s up.

Not having that information meant a direct loss of business insights and value for Apple, since Dropbox had it and leveraged it. But it turns out Apple doesn’t joke around about security/privacy.

The one good thing I can say about apple is that they at least push back against this kind of bullshit, even if they only do so for marketing.

This is the way.

Those proposals will never be made law and acted upon.

It's infeasible nonsense to pander to the Daily Mail reading curtain-twitchers. They've had 13 years to try and do this. If they wanted to (and indeed if it was in any way possible), they'd have done it already.

It'll be just "Vote for us and we'll make your children safe from nonces and muzzies!" until the end of time.

I'll be damned if we'll have to thank the UK for getting RCS normalized.

Rare Apple W.

Why don't politicians just fuck off?

Nothing they ever do about anything leads to an improvement.

Why can't the UK govt simply rent their spyware from Israel, like everyone else?

They had a different response to China though. Telling.

NSA Access Only!

I can't believe I'm saying this but...good guy Apple?

They should just publicly publish all the messages from politicians' accounts.

If they want to see our messages we should be able to see theirs, fair is fair.

Good on them

What about other tech companies like Microsoft or Google? Do they comply?

As a UK citizen, I totally support this. The more that the average voter is disconvenienced because of proposed law changes like this and the (unenforcable) anti-porn laws, the more likely they are to actually pressure their MP or change how they vote.

Apple would have to refactor their tools and potentially introduce security issues for everyone by doing this. If the UK government wants to be fucking dumb, it shouldn’t be something everyone has to pay the price for.

Apple is correct. If they compromise their apps here, then other countries will follow suit and their reputation as a brand will take a massive hit. A big part of Apple's appeal is their security, this is the best financial decision.

Huh, for once I am siding with Apple. Weird feeling.

And they will come up with other ways to steal user's data, so they could sell it or distinguish user behavior to develop new product.

It's a strange world when Disney and Apple are actually doing the right thing.

Yeah yeah. We all know you're too greedy for that Apple. Cut the talk and actually do it if you give a shit about encryption.

What are the UK proposals?

I love this

Rare Apple W

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Good for Apple to take a stand.

I think it's the correct response, but in the UK, iMessage is essentially just a way to send SMSs, so won't really be missed. It doesn't have the same status as in the US. No idea if anyone uses facetime.

Good. Get the proprietary messaging apps out.

And nothing of value was lost.

Rare Apple w

Sure, as long as they check Prince Andrew’s messages first.

Bye Bye

Aren’t they the ones that made every website have a cookie notification? So stupid

Apple should remove FaceTime and iMessage from North America, so kids stop getting bullied for green texts, despite having a superior phone.

But seriously, why is the kid with a $200 iPhone 5 with a cracked to shit screen laughing at the kid with a $1200 Android phone with features Apple will "invent" 10 years later? All over a green bubble?

Although, it was pretty nice to be able to see which people are lowlife losers on Tinder back in my dating days. They made it very clear how shitty they were when they bashed me for my green bubbles. Saved me a ton of time!

this is advertising and should be removed

Wow, nobody is going to be allowed to use FaceTime. Like anybody uses that. Since it was invented I've never used it. Go Apple! The assuming fruit! Because, oh yeah, you betcha, all we people ever use is FaceTime for video conferences. I mean, yeah, like, that FaceTime app on my iOS devices. It's just there. I have video chats with people. On FaceTime? Never. So, yeah Apple, you go stick up for the good guys and just remove services to an app nobody uses anyway.

Face what and iMess who?