Real question. I would like to know what drives you to hate Apple? (In terms of privacy of course because in terms of price it’s another story).
Security theater: All you stuff is encrypted but they have the decryption keys
Proprietary App Store: The apps and the store itself are proprietary and I don’t trust Apple.
Gaslighting their customers: Images shared with Android users from iPhone are purposely crushed to a unreviewable quality. The idea is to convince people that Android takes terrible photographs.
From recent experience: They read your screen which means the government reads your screen as well. Its okay. if you’re doing nothing illegal, you have nothing to hide! All history books that could tell you otherwise are paywalled anyway!
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And in addition they run big adverts on caring about privacy, while in reality they do the same shit as all the other tech companies, but just use their monopoly power to push out surveillance advertisement competitors.
They don’t, actually. They only sell anonymized statistics and don’t allow advertisers to choose who they advertise to. As a result, they can’t charge as much for advertising. So they are actively taking less money to better protect your information in that respect.
Apple runs their own advertisement network these days. Its pointless to argue that they sell less data when they themselves still collect all of it for their own advertisement purposes.
Where is this information from an independent party (not from Crapple)?
About “Security theater”: you can enable what’s called “Advanced Data Protection” so the encryption keys are only stored on-device for most types of data including photos, backups and also notes for example. Mail and calendar is one exception that comes to mind, but you could also always use a different mail and calendar service. This is a fairly recent feature, so you may have missed it. Sure, it’s not your fully self-hosted “cloud” on which you can audit every single line of code and whatnot, but it might actually be the best “compromise” of ease-of-use vs. privacy for many people outside the tech bubble we’re in in this community.
About “Proprietary App Store”: the store itself and many apps on there are proprietary, but there are a lot of open source apps on the App Store as well. The bigger problem is the fact that the App Store is the only (hassle-free) way to install apps to the iPhone and only recently the EU seems to change that with alternative storefronts now emerging, but Apple is limiting the use of them to the EU, so they’re essentially doing the bare minimum to comply with EU law.
About “Gaslighting their customers”: I’d like to see hard proof on that. I think what you’re talking about is the fact that messages sent to Android users using the default “Messages” app are sent as MMS, which is an ancient technology and as such only support tiny, low-quality images. Android doesn’t support iMessage and Apple seems to like to keep it that way as it’s apparently selling a lot of iPhones this way in the US (and sure, I agree that’s a bad thing). It does get better with the just-announced RCS support (a supposedly open protocol which Google added so many proprietary extensions to you can’t really call it open anymore) so pictures can be send in full quality to Android users using the Messages app. Also, you could always use a third-party messenger like Signal or WhatsApp and send full-quality pictures just fine.
I’m not saying there aren’t any concerns, but some of the information you provided is at least out of date.
Android doesn’t support iMessage
I think it’s the inverse: iMessage doesn’t support Android.
Those aren’t equivalent statements; the first implies that something about Android makes it impossible for Apple to produce an iMessage client for it when that is purely a business decision on Apple’s part.
You are correct and the person you’re responding to is wrong about just about everything they said. Funny to me they think mms is why those images look so shitty when no android users have ever experienced that without an ios device involved
MMS does have size limits that can hurt image quality, but I have the impression iOS applies limits of its own that are considerably lower. I’m not sure why anybody in 2024 wouldn’t have at least a couple modern messaging apps, but it seems a lot of people don’t.
Well yes exactly. I have noticed for years that every photo or video an iPhone sends me is worse quality than flip phones used to send/receive. Amazing to me that iPhone users fall for this trick
Like they missed that the whole apple MO is to make them feel superior without evidence
It seems like an odd decision to me, as it would make the iPhone look like it has a substandard camera to someone receiving media from one by MMS.
The idea is to convince people that things only look good on iPhones
Android users would use RCS for communicating with each other via the default messaging app on Android.
MMS has a hard size limit depending on the carrier the sender uses, that’s independent of the sender using an Android phone or an iPhone. This limit can be as high as “more than 1 MB”, but also as low as 300 KB or even less. Compressing an image down to 300 KB will naturally incur a quality penalty.
Rcs is a new thing and not all android phones use it even now
Photos sent from iPhones look like shit today and they did years ago. Rcs is not a factor.
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Interest in RCS is recent - newer than iMessage, which launched in 2011. RCS with Google’s proprietary extensions is just another proprietary messaging app, and I am not particularly excited about it.
even so far as “patch” a fix that was created to make it possible for their customers to communicate securely with Android users.
There’s no shortage of options for doing that. What Apple wants is tight control over all of its walled gardens, which should be no surprise given the company’s history. They’re very good at making it appear as if decisions made to increase their profits are aligned with the interests of users. It’s probably even true that someone would have exploited the technique Beeper Mini was using to send spam if Apple hadn’t closed it.
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SMS fallback. A feature which you can use with any app on Android
SMS fallback is not a common feature of internet-based messaging apps on Android. Signal used to do it, but does not now. I don’t think WhatsApp or Telegram ever did.
About “Security theater”:
keep in mind that companies can lie on how their stuff works, also I don’t think the nature of the store matters, as much as the fact that you’re only allowed to get the open source apps from there which will also run on top of a proprietary OS, with proprietary firmware
Gaslighting their customers": I’d like to see hard proof on that
Consider that I have a low standard on what a hard proof should be,… I consider telling people that : “Privacy, that’s iPhone”, while literally developing nothing in the open, which is the best and ONLY way to guarantee transparency, instead they went with the “trust me bruh” method, plus they display ads… like…they have… a… dedicated… ad … platform…
You don’t respect my Privacy while you target me with ads
Or being unable to install third-party apps or other browser engines is supposed to be for security reasons. Or being environment friendly through their recycling program when the truth is that they only do that to keep spare parts out of reach of independent repair shops. Pure gaslighting.
They can lie about how the advanced data encryption works…. But then they also tell you that you’re shit outta luck if you forget or screw up your decryption code. If they really had a back door, then I would expect them to take a much less hard line on you’re screwed if you lose the key.
I would be surprised if they had a back door too given how they’ve pushed back on back doors from the NSA and EU
I mean they understand their encryption algorithm, they made it after all, and with the advancements of Quantum computing it could be possible to decrypt someone’s data… So what good does providing quantum computing for Imessages do… If they : understand how the algorithm works + they have enough computing power to decrypt it + it’s proprietary.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it was all a theater, and it’s the best backdoor implementation to exist
This feels a lot like the argument of well what if they break TLS? A lot of hypotheticals when I don’t have any reason or proof to believe that they’ve made a back door
No, breaking an encryption is all about knowing how it works, many cryptographers make their algorithm proprietary in hopes that an attacker will have a hard time figuring how it works, however they turn out to be weak, other encryption algorithms are developed in the open so that many people look at it and see the flaws
The key word is : weak The idea is not making a backdoor directly, the idea is making it flawed, it’s like securing a bank with steel doors with the exception of one door, that door is made out of wood and only you know where it’s located.
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Regarding gaslighting: See Apple’s response on the CSAM backdoor shit show. All the critics were wrong, including the various advocacy groups.
Simp.
- price
- closed ecosystem that funnels you into buying more overpriced hardware
- general feeling of superiority apple customers often seem to aquire
(e.g. my former project lead refused to touch other peoples devices because using them “doesn’t feel like apple, eww”)
All that.
BTW, of all the drivers on the road, I always hated Volvo drivers who sport an Apple sticker the most. They’re pure entitled no-good scum. Except BMW drivers, they should be euthanised.
What kind of image do Volvo drivers have where you live? Here Volvos are just seen as reliable but boring.
Here in Slovenia they have this sort of hipster/yuppie clientele, basically the same demographic as the smug Apple users, that’s why you see so many with Apple stickers. Usually they drive the estate version like XC70. The new SUVs are more for the executive smug base, though, but obviously they’re still scumbags. :)
Ah, here it is BMW drivers, most have Apple stickers on their cars, and they are all douchebags.
I still have to encounter a BMW driver who isn’t a piece of trash. Note that I actually raced with BMWs, but still wouldn’t buy one as a daily driver. 🤷🏼
Overpriced hardware comes with a boon: It lasts longer. I am by no means an apple fanboy, but when I discovered the 12 year old Mac of my dad still performed like mid-range PCs with Windows, I was quite surprised.
Still not buying their hardware though…
Except a 12 year old Mac isn’t supported by Apple anymore and will likely be riddled with vulnerabilities. You could just load Linux on it since it’s probably an Intel based chipset.
As long as the OS was supported, updates were available.
But yes, I loaded a nice Fedora on it… 😉
Check out Louis Rossman on youtube. Especially his apple hardware design analysis.
Rossman has a vendetta against Apple ever since he got caught importing counterfeit batteries (You can’t slap the Apple logo on batteries that Apple did not make, even if you call them “refurbished”)
I do like their laptops, but for literally everything else: the fact that I basically don’t own my own hardware.
I can’t install or distribute my own software without Apple’s arbitrary approval. When Apple decides it’s done supporting the products, I can’t even install a different OS like Linux because the hardware is completely locked down… they become paper-weights.
That is not how ownership is supposed to work.
What could you not install Linux on? I’ve never had that issue.
My 2011 iPad 3rd gen.
A lightweight Linux distribution would make that thing killer for word processing and document reading. Might even allow YouTube videos to be watched again.
Any equivalent Android tablet would have custom ROMs etc. to get a bit more functionality out of it. I know it’s not a tablet, but look at the Samsung galaxy SII - the amount of community development for that is incredible to this day.
I mean, I wouldn’t expect to have custom Linux ROMs for an iPad. For an Android device, which is already Linux based, that would make sense. But it wouldn’t surprise me if the newer iPads had builds for them since they’re built on the same processor as the MacBooks
In what way is the hardware locked down? Is this something new with the M chips?
Everything except the Mac line has a locked boot process. So your iPhone or iPad must run the latest iOS, must have an Apple ID, must source apps from Apple, and Apple has gotten so good at securing their devices that its basically killed hobbyist jailbreaking.
Anything you do on these multi thousand dollar devices is only because Apple allows you to— reluctantly, I might add.
Anti-open(source), anti-open(standards) l, anti-consumer, anti-planet, anti-repair, anti-honest. What else do you need?
Can you read their source-code? Nope. And they falsely advertise their phones as Privacy alternatives when they collect just as much data as Google.
This is different than my understanding of Google and Apple. Could you provide links to sources showing what Apple collects about its users?
From their own privacy policy they outline what they do:
For research and development purposes, we may use datasets such as those that contain images, voices or other data that could be associated with an identifiable person.
To provide location-based services on Apple products, Apple and our partners and licensees, such as maps data providers, may collect, use, and share precise location data, including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device.
Apple’s websites, online services, interactive applications, email messages, and advertisements may use “cookies” and other technologies such as pixel tags and web beacons.
We also use personal information to help us create, develop, operate, deliver, and improve our products, services, content and advertising
At times Apple may provide third parties with certain personal information to provide or improve our products and services, including to deliver products at your request, or to help Apple market to consumers.
Apple may collect location, IP Address, network information, Bluetooth information, connected devices, accessories, personal demographics, browsing history, browser fingerprint, device fingerprint, search history, app data, usage data, performance, diagnostics, product interaction, transaction information, payment information, purchasing records, contacts, social graph, watch history, listening interests, reading list, call metadata, device information, messaging metadata, email addresses, salary, income, assets, health data, ad interaction, in-app purchases, in-app subscriptions, app downloads, music downloads, movie downloads, TV show downloads, Apple ID, IDFA, Random Unique ID, UUID, IMEI, Hardware serial number, SIM serial number, phone number, telemetry, cookies, Nearby WiFi MAC, Siri request history, Web sign-in, songs played, play and pause times, playlists, engagement and library.
Literally all of this is what Google does. The only thing Apple does differently is hinder 3rd party apps to a greater degree, whereas Google is more permissive. But to be fair, Google has been improving the Privacy features of Android with each version.
You can read their own privacy policy, in which they admit to everything: https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/en-ww
Ignore their bullshit marketing as for “why” they collect it and when they try to justify it. Look at the facts laid out.
Walled garden, overpriced exploitation of that locked ecosystem ($5000 monitor stand kind of shit), green bubbles/blue bubbles, dominating all tech with their middle of the road/copycat approach where Android was eventually saturated with same type of execs and “gave up” on differentiating until everything was the same sealed back glass rectangle without MICRO SD expansion memory, leading the charge on “brave” feature killing enshitification like removing the headphone jack, plenty more…
what are ‘green and blue bubbles’?
An elitist dog whistle built to “other” the “poor” people - people that may have otherwise been successfully socializing or “passing” with wealthy people to the point of the first text message sent. Also a quiet tool for labor discrimination.
Only took them about 20 years of oppression to finally announce they would potentially end the practice.
Tbf that’s more of an apple fanboy thing (though apple created, encouraged, and exploited that as an advertising technique, it’s an extension of iPods and their “white headphone cord”).
Basically apple cultists judge you as less than because you’re too poor to afford an iphone and use android instead.
Apple is actually just a really good marketing company that hawks mediocre tech, not a mediocre tech company with a really good marketing team.
iMessage and sms
They pioneered modern day planned obsolescence, they also popularised unrepairable electronics. They try to block or bastardise any right to repair bills. They force chip distributors to not sell chips they use so their products can’t be repaired. They make building applications for Mac at scale a huge pain in the ass and extremely expensive, the solution I recently built wastes insane amounts of power because of the way Apple licenses their stuff. Overall it’s a shitty company who fucks poor people in developing nations, fucks the environment and fucks it’s customers. I don’t care how well it may or may not work, fuck Apple.
Also OSX ui is shit and annoying.
Planned obsolescence: the other day I was setting up a refurbished MacBook air from 2017. It officially runs only up to macOS 12. I wanted to install apple’s productivity suite iWorks (pages, keynotes, numbers) on it.
But the AppStore said I would need macOS 13 to download and install it. Why the eff doesn’t it allow me to install an older version of those apps, and why does the 2017 not support macOS 13?
So I installed Open core Legacy Patcher, built a macOS 13 installer. Installed 13 with absolutely no issues and finally was able to install iWorks.
Any non versed or risk taking user would need to buy a newer Mac… good job apple.
Conversely I have a dell xps from 2018 that run very well with fedora atomic (kde). I upgraded the SSD, WiFi card and replaced the battery. Should easily last me another 5 years
User repairability and serviceability should be(come) mandatory!
It’s Intel, you too can have fedora atomic, and it’ll likely last another 5 years.
If it would be my device and not a gift I would, yeah :)
Ahh, not so sure how great a gift an insecure computer is, but I imagine you have your reasons…
Uhm how would be it insecure?
OS hasn’t been updated for how many years?
Seeing as no-one’s answering the question in terms of privacy (although I agree with their sentiment)
Trust. You have to trust that they will respect your privacy. They actually talk a good game, are probably superior in privacy to the average android (but not GrapheneOS or Linux) in so much as they fend off other entities trying to hoover your data, mostly so they have exclusive access (at least to metadata, actual data may currently even be secure but that can change and possession is nine tenths and all that). At the end of the day, they’re a greedy mega-corporation and cannot be trusted if they need to keep that line going up this quarter. I much prefer transparent systems that keep me in control and possession of my data.
I like their hardware, excellent build quality (shame about long term support and e-waste though). Will probably pick up a cheap M1 Air once Asahi linux stabilises.
Yes, thank you for answering the privacy issue. To be honest, I use Apple products but not so much iCloud. I’m in the Proton ecosystem and I’m waiting for Firefox to become less terrible than it currently is, otherwise in the meantime I’m using Safari with AdGuard…
The problem with iOS is the lack of freedom and control you have as a user. Yes, Apple may be “better than Google” when it comes to some aspects of default privacy on their devices (being better than the worst is hardly something to brag about), but as a user the level of privacy you can achieve on your iPhone is always limited by the design of the operating system, where you are just a user with no permissions and no ability to modify or even replace the operating system entirely. You are locked into a proprietary ecosystem that you cannot get out of.
I don’t like closed systems, vendor lock-in, overpriced tools, or buying equipment that I’ll never truly own.
Golden cage.
Their way or no way.
It’s really simple.
Oh adding to that, ever since I received the knowledge: the support, guru or whatever appointment? Worse than doctors and I hate that too. Why??
Their way or no way
The one Apple product I still own is an iPad and I run into this constantly.
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Support for network shares in the files app is barely functional at best (“Just use iCloud!”)
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Mouse support is still super limited (“Just use touch!”)
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You can’t install applications from anywhere but the appstore (“sECuRIty”)
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You can’t install a proper browser or browser extensions (I don’t know even know what Apple’s excuse for this one would be)
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You can’t disable or modify window tiling (“It’s just like an iPhone, because fuck multitasking!”)
Apple sells the iPad as a computer replacement, but basically all its capable of is watching Netflix or basic note-taking. The longer I use this thing the more I want to buy some x86 tablet that I can just install Linux on instead.
Apples excuse is Battery Life since their mobile safari is apparently more energy conserving than other browsers.
It is true that a real Firefox on iOS/iPadOS is missing. But otherwise you can’t say that your iPad is ONLY used to watch Netflix 🤣 I mean, some people replace their computer with an iPad!
I’m being hyperbolic with that last part, but there’s so much basic computer stuff that the iPad can’t do that it feels like Apple only expects this to be a device to watch Netflix on.
I want to install VS Code (or a comparable IDE) and run/debug some Python scripts, can’t do it.
I want to open a terminal and use basic utilities like ssh, curl, tar, yt-dlp, rclone, rsync, etc, can’t do it. I literally need to install a separate app that lets me ssh into a Linux box so I can do basic stuff there. I’m SOL if I need to work with any data on the iPad’s file system though.
I want to install Godot and continue playing around with game development on the go, can’t do it.
I want to install Steam and play some indie games, can’t do it.
Procreate is pretty good, but I’d rather use Krita.
Which means despite the fact that I want to use it for more, all I do with my iPad Pro (“Pro,” lmao) is watch movies and TV from my Jellyfin server, occasionally draw if I don’t feel like sitting at my desk with a proper Wacom/Krita setup, and write my shopping list.
I agree, I myself am a programmer but hey not everyone is installing IDEs and game engines and Linux on their tablet. Steam could be interesting knowing that Apple authorizes alternative stores in the European Union. The iPad is not complete indeed, but it is just a consumer computer that targets people who do not want to complicate their lives as well as artists (Apple pencil).
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- They have their own closed eco system
- They think money is key and throw large amounts at their consumers
- All source code is closed
- They are based in USA
- They love AI
Like what another person said, hate is a strong word. But when it comes to Big Tech, I’m all for the word.
Might have missed adding something to the list. Will add more if I have.
If not USA, where ought they be based? Costa Rica?
For example in a country with actual privacy laws that also get enforced… like most of the EU or several east Asian countries.
Anywhere in Europe so GDPR can be fully used and so Apple will not have the same power over their users as they have today.
Anti-freedom
Profit-maximising
Literally killed the 3.5mm to increase profits
Acts holier than thou
If Apple had kept the 3.5mm port, we’d all probably still be having it on our phones and not have to deal with flimsy adapters.
i have it on my phone just fine, aint it crazy how cheaper phones have more features.
Few reasons, first is this:
. Seems like as long as something has a clean interface, or it looks shiny enough, then all its privacy faults are overlooked.Apple also seems to intentionally cultivate and sell their products as privacy-friendly, which is clearly not the case (see image above).
2nd reason is that I had an iphone 2g (one of the first models, I forget which one), and it had bluetooth support. An iOS update broke it, and when I reached out to apple, they lied to me and told me my device had no bluetooth module at all. They’re one of the worst offenders of planned obsolescence, and have become one of the richest companies on the planet because of it.
3rd reason: they sell overpriced products to mainly to high-income imperial-core consumers, selling an image of “upper-class professional”. Look at a graph of iOS market share worldwide, vs its market share in the richest countries. Apple didn’t even bother to condescend to make affordable products for the global south.
The markup on iphones is something outrageous, like 40% of the purchase price is going to the shareholders of apple, not the workers who built the phones. By buying apple, you are mainly supporting these wealthy parasites. Its also why other smartphone brands have higher performance at half the cost of iphones. They really bank on the fact that they’re selling an upper-class identity, and less of a phone.
4th reason: Their ecosystem is locked down in such a way as to make it difficult for open source development. iirc apple won’t even let you use the GPL for any app on their app store.
Wow, this is the most complete answer I have ever seen. But is it wrong if I stay at Apple? Are there any competitors on the Android side that are worth it (I am thinking in particular of a pixel on which GrapheneOS is installed)?
I don’t think it’s wrong to stay with apple, you could always just go with something else for your next phone, although if you are concerned enough about the privacy aspect, you could always sell your phone, and get some advice about which are the best smartphone models to run the privacy-focused android variants.
Some of them list the devices they work on, like lineageOS.
There’s ppl here a lot more knowledgeable than I am here that could help you choose one.
I was thinking about Nothing Phone 2. Does the brand give off a good image in terms of privacy?
I’m currently using Graphene and I love it. There are some features in this OS that i have never seen before. It feels like I’m just running a regular OS. I don’t notice anything unusual.
One thing I really like with gOS is the ability to remove network permission on apps. I use Gboard with no network, and I have found it so far to be the best keyboard for me.
I’ll mention that a pixel with CalyxOS works great as well, no google code code other than AOSP which helps battery life a lot.
Some things like voice controlled companion or android auto are being implemented, but I never really gave a fuck about that stuff, being on bicycle or motorcycle only.
I wonder if younger millennials’ and Gen z’s overwhelming preference for iPhones over Androids is indicative anything in the future
Only in imperial-core countries, most Gen Z’s worldwide don’t use apple products.
apple products are coveted both in and out of imperial core; whether or not they can afford them.
my point is that the most well educated and leftist leaning generations we’ve ever had (i’m assuming) continues to place a premium on products like these and that makes the eventuality of breaking out of this imperialist cycle seem unrealistic.
