6 ms·

Apple is a 'use all of our products, or else we will make life inconvenient for you' company. The fact that this happens to offer some privacy benefits is just

Apple is a 'use all of our products, or else we will make life inconvenient for you' company. The fact that this happens to offer some privacy benefits is just a strategy credit[1] [1] https://stratechery.com/2013/strategy-credit/ https://stratechery.com/2013/strategy-credit/

4eleven7 7y ago
Or "If you use all of our products, you'll reap the benefit of tight vertical integration". I suppose its a cup half full type deal.
eklavyaa 7y ago
I think its still fine, as long as someone can afford it. We can't ask them to be fair its just take it or leave it. These days privacy is a luxury, rather than a fundamental right.
- wereHamster 7y ago
  > These days privacy is a luxury, rather than a fundamental right. The EU things differently. For us privacy is very much a fundamental right, such as right for access to clean water/air, right for free access to information (internet) etc.
  - loriverkutya 7y ago
    Last time I checked Facebook was still selling our data to Cambridge Analytics and whoever they wanted to and tracking us around the whole internet. So on paper it is, in practice not so much.
  - xvector 7y ago
    And yet Google and Facebook still regularly invade privacy and build shadow profiles of users.
    - wereHamster 7y ago
      We have laws against murder and yet people commit it all the time. What kind of argument are you trying to make? Both Google and Facebook have been hit with lawsuits in the EU. The laws are there and companies violating them are being punished. One could argue that the punishment is not large enough, if companies still repeatedly violate the laws. It'll take some time though until we see whether companies change their stance on privacy. One company which doesn't need any 'encouragement' is Apple, that's pretty clear now.
      - stef25 7y ago
        Did anything ever come of this? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-belgium/facebook-loses-belgian-privacy-case-faces-fine-of-up-to-125-million-idUSKCN1G01LG https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-belgium/facebook...
    - afiori 7y ago
      Whether what they are doing is legal or will go unpunished remains to be discovered. In the meanwhile there is a considerable increase in public awareness of (e.g.) how creepy facebook is (I know that the biggest facebook competitor is instagram, but there is a real difference between how people interact with the two platforms and also in expectations on how much public your profile and post are)
      - stef25 7y ago
        > In the meanwhile there is a considerable increase in public awareness of (e.g.) how creepy facebook is Every non tech person I know has some notion of FB being creepy but not a single one has changed their online behavior in any way. Everyone cares until it's actually time to delete your account.
        rahoulb 7y ago
        Anecdotal I know, but I know of several people who now refuse to install the Facebook app on their phones (instead using the website) because they don't want "Facebook listening in on their conversations"
  - eklavyaa 7y ago
    In some countries clean water/air and internet are still luxury my friend
  - stef25 7y ago
    > privacy is very much a fundamental right Looks good on paper but in reality what's being done about it? Apart from a few token court cases. People are still dumping their data wholesale in to social networks and EU is mostly powerless when faced with these companies (FB, Google). > right for access to clean water/air Here in Brussels you can't throw a rock without hitting 10 diesel cars that come with almost every desk job and include free diesel no questions asked. They spend most of their time sitting in some of the worst traffic in Europe. Air quality is constantly at the worst end of the scale, both indoors and outdoors and takes years off your life. At the same time there's more and more calls for regulation of Lime scooters. EU cares but mostly just pats itself on the back for churning out reports.
SXX 7y ago
I'm not in any way an Apple fan and only look at their ecosystem via VM, but I curious. What company have more convenient integration of both own proprietary services and 3rd-party one? As I see it with Apple you can be at least fairly sure their products going to have good integration within their closed-garden ecosystem. With anyone else not even this is guaranteed and you'll likely be bombarded by ads. I'm among the guys who use FOSS everywhere and it's just hard to setup and maintain own infrastructure like Desktop+Laptop+Phone+Cloud+Services integration. So I wonder if you know better options.
- robjan 7y ago
  I can use Google Drive on pretty much anything. Now try using iCloud Drive on an Android...
  - killjoywashere 7y ago
    Seriously... Even Microsoft came around to putting Office on Android. Apple? Nowhere to be seen.
    - close04 7y ago
      Because it makes no financial sense for them. MS’s Office is ubiquitous and has a market beyond the borders of a specific OS. Apple’s solution isn’t nearly as competitive as Google’s or MS’s. It’s a “better than nothing” approach as far as I can tell. Even Google’s solution only competes because of the synergy with the ecosystem (Android), not because of technical superiority. It’s similar to the reason MS stopped making a mobile OS. And if you’re wondering, Google’s solution also integrate pretty poorly with the competition’s products, if they can get away with it. But in their case it’s not because it doesn’t make sense, it’s to force people into using G stuff. Maybe this will change if Apple guarantees some privacy features but without solid technical features to compete, it’s still a tough sell.
    - johannes1234321 7y ago
      Why should they? They want to sell you the Apple experience, where iCloud is fully integrated. Integration into Android will be half backed, which gives a bad impression. Microsoft failed with their Windows mobile strategy and uses a different playbook, trying to get everything in Azure, no matter the specific client.
dijit 7y ago
Not sure how true this is. I run my own infra (caldav,carddav,imap/smtp) and all of it intergrates seamlessly into iOS and macOS. I tried the same on android and it did not work seamlessly with anything except google services. Sure, their own stuff works better with their own stuff, and yes, the watches can't be configured without a phone, but that's also true of android.
- josteink 7y ago
  Could you outline what kind of problems you had with android and integration? In my experience android is the superior platform for plugging in your own modules and your own data where you want it.
  - dijit 7y ago
    The way you describe it; I would agree. You can "do anything" on Android, but this leads to poor implementations for common things. What I'm referencing is that the OS and Apples own applications are built to support what I would be consider very sane defaults (as in, it supports me doing my own thing, without the need for plugins/modules). My experience is that on Android I had to have many third-party integrators to get things up and working, and they were very poor quality and would run in the background murdering my battery life. (and I had to pay for it: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=at.bitfire.davdroid&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=at.bitfire.dav...) IMAP/SMTP Were less of a problem but it always /felt/ very third party when using tools for that purpose, where google mail was truly first class. On iOS I don't feel this way at all, once I had push notifications set up the experience was identical (if not a little better with my own server due to apples SMTP servers getting overloaded). So, you're right when you say that Android is more modular and supports stronger composibility of the system. But the experience of actually using it is so incredibly poor that even with Apple doing it's bullshit (no small phones, no headphone jack, protruding camera) I have very little inclination to go back- the "feeling" I get is that it's funnelling me to third parties, whether it be google or samsungs awful "samsung cloud ecosystem"
    - josteink 7y ago
Angostura 7y ago
> 'use all of our products, or else we will make life inconvenient for you' company. I see them more as the 'use all of our products and we will make life convenient for you' company.

4eleven7 7y ago

Or "If you use all of our products, you'll reap the benefit of tight vertical integration". I suppose its a cup half full type deal.

eklavyaa 7y ago

I think its still fine, as long as someone can afford it. We can't ask them to be fair its just take it or leave it. These days privacy is a luxury, rather than a fundamental right.

wereHamster 7y ago
> These days privacy is a luxury, rather than a fundamental right. The EU things differently. For us privacy is very much a fundamental right, such as right for access to clean water/air, right for free access to information (internet) etc.
- loriverkutya 7y ago
  Last time I checked Facebook was still selling our data to Cambridge Analytics and whoever they wanted to and tracking us around the whole internet. So on paper it is, in practice not so much.
- xvector 7y ago
  And yet Google and Facebook still regularly invade privacy and build shadow profiles of users.
  - wereHamster 7y ago
    We have laws against murder and yet people commit it all the time. What kind of argument are you trying to make? Both Google and Facebook have been hit with lawsuits in the EU. The laws are there and companies violating them are being punished. One could argue that the punishment is not large enough, if companies still repeatedly violate the laws. It'll take some time though until we see whether companies change their stance on privacy. One company which doesn't need any 'encouragement' is Apple, that's pretty clear now.
    - stef25 7y ago
      Did anything ever come of this? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-belgium/facebook-loses-belgian-privacy-case-faces-fine-of-up-to-125-million-idUSKCN1G01LG https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-belgium/facebook...
  - afiori 7y ago
    Whether what they are doing is legal or will go unpunished remains to be discovered. In the meanwhile there is a considerable increase in public awareness of (e.g.) how creepy facebook is (I know that the biggest facebook competitor is instagram, but there is a real difference between how people interact with the two platforms and also in expectations on how much public your profile and post are)
    - stef25 7y ago
      > In the meanwhile there is a considerable increase in public awareness of (e.g.) how creepy facebook is Every non tech person I know has some notion of FB being creepy but not a single one has changed their online behavior in any way. Everyone cares until it's actually time to delete your account.
      - rahoulb 7y ago
        Anecdotal I know, but I know of several people who now refuse to install the Facebook app on their phones (instead using the website) because they don't want "Facebook listening in on their conversations"
- eklavyaa 7y ago
  In some countries clean water/air and internet are still luxury my friend
- stef25 7y ago
  > privacy is very much a fundamental right Looks good on paper but in reality what's being done about it? Apart from a few token court cases. People are still dumping their data wholesale in to social networks and EU is mostly powerless when faced with these companies (FB, Google). > right for access to clean water/air Here in Brussels you can't throw a rock without hitting 10 diesel cars that come with almost every desk job and include free diesel no questions asked. They spend most of their time sitting in some of the worst traffic in Europe. Air quality is constantly at the worst end of the scale, both indoors and outdoors and takes years off your life. At the same time there's more and more calls for regulation of Lime scooters. EU cares but mostly just pats itself on the back for churning out reports.

SXX 7y ago

I'm not in any way an Apple fan and only look at their ecosystem via VM, but I curious. What company have more convenient integration of both own proprietary services and 3rd-party one? As I see it with Apple you can be at least fairly sure their products going to have good integration within their closed-garden ecosystem. With anyone else not even this is guaranteed and you'll likely be bombarded by ads. I'm among the guys who use FOSS everywhere and it's just hard to setup and maintain own infrastructure like Desktop+Laptop+Phone+Cloud+Services integration. So I wonder if you know better options.

robjan 7y ago
I can use Google Drive on pretty much anything. Now try using iCloud Drive on an Android...
- killjoywashere 7y ago
  Seriously... Even Microsoft came around to putting Office on Android. Apple? Nowhere to be seen.
  - close04 7y ago
    Because it makes no financial sense for them. MS’s Office is ubiquitous and has a market beyond the borders of a specific OS. Apple’s solution isn’t nearly as competitive as Google’s or MS’s. It’s a “better than nothing” approach as far as I can tell. Even Google’s solution only competes because of the synergy with the ecosystem (Android), not because of technical superiority. It’s similar to the reason MS stopped making a mobile OS. And if you’re wondering, Google’s solution also integrate pretty poorly with the competition’s products, if they can get away with it. But in their case it’s not because it doesn’t make sense, it’s to force people into using G stuff. Maybe this will change if Apple guarantees some privacy features but without solid technical features to compete, it’s still a tough sell.
  - johannes1234321 7y ago
    Why should they? They want to sell you the Apple experience, where iCloud is fully integrated. Integration into Android will be half backed, which gives a bad impression. Microsoft failed with their Windows mobile strategy and uses a different playbook, trying to get everything in Azure, no matter the specific client.

dijit 7y ago

Not sure how true this is. I run my own infra (caldav,carddav,imap/smtp) and all of it intergrates seamlessly into iOS and macOS. I tried the same on android and it did not work seamlessly with anything except google services. Sure, their own stuff works better with their own stuff, and yes, the watches can't be configured without a phone, but that's also true of android.

josteink 7y ago
Could you outline what kind of problems you had with android and integration? In my experience android is the superior platform for plugging in your own modules and your own data where you want it.
- dijit 7y ago
  The way you describe it; I would agree. You can "do anything" on Android, but this leads to poor implementations for common things. What I'm referencing is that the OS and Apples own applications are built to support what I would be consider very sane defaults (as in, it supports me doing my own thing, without the need for plugins/modules). My experience is that on Android I had to have many third-party integrators to get things up and working, and they were very poor quality and would run in the background murdering my battery life. (and I had to pay for it: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=at.bitfire.davdroid&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=at.bitfire.dav...) IMAP/SMTP Were less of a problem but it always /felt/ very third party when using tools for that purpose, where google mail was truly first class. On iOS I don't feel this way at all, once I had push notifications set up the experience was identical (if not a little better with my own server due to apples SMTP servers getting overloaded). So, you're right when you say that Android is more modular and supports stronger composibility of the system. But the experience of actually using it is so incredibly poor that even with Apple doing it's bullshit (no small phones, no headphone jack, protruding camera) I have very little inclination to go back- the "feeling" I get is that it's funnelling me to third parties, whether it be google or samsungs awful "samsung cloud ecosystem"
  - josteink 7y ago

Angostura 7y ago

> 'use all of our products, or else we will make life inconvenient for you' company. I see them more as the 'use all of our products and we will make life convenient for you' company.