
Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company - eklavyaa
https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/03/apple-is-now-the-privacy-as-a-service-company/
======
nafizh
Lots of negativity/skepticism here which is reasonable I would say given tech
companies' abuse of our trust. I for one, am happy that Apple can afford to
offer privacy as one of its strong suites. Whether they can do it because of
their business model or not is moot IMO. Everyone is here to make money, I
would rather have someone who doesn't have to sell every aspect of my life to
do it.

~~~
tfha
The biggest problem that I have is that it's privacy built on a closed source
platform that works extremely hard to wall users in and create substantial
vendor lock-in.

As someone who has tried multiple times to dip their toes into the Apple
world, I can tell you that it's highly hostile to users who try to pick and
choose how much they want to be an Apple citizen. If you don't agree to sign
up for Apple cloud on the latest iOS, it feels like 80% of the basic functions
for a smartphone get locked away from you.

And they have viral aspects to their lock-in as well. Have a single family
member who isn't on iMessage? Looks like they don't get to participate in your
family discussions anymore.

Their privacy features are a selling point today, but your privacy is 100% in
their control. If the executive team made the decision tomorrow to switch
Apple into a fully panopticon ecosystem, they'd be able to switch over in a
year with little visibility for their users that this transition was
happening.

If you are in the Apple ecosystem, you under heavy lock-in pressure and you
are fully putting your faith in Apple that the directions they go in the
future will be directions that you are happy with.

That doesn't feel secure to me.

~~~
geofft
This is quite at odds with my experience with my iPhone, so I'm confused.

I don't have an iCloud account. I'm not sure what "basic functions for a
smartphone" I'm unable to use, but, I don't want my photos backed up to iCloud
- I'll handle that on my own, for the photos I actually want somewhere other
than on my local device. Everything otherwise seems to work.

I don't use iMessage. I've ticked the little box that says to use regular SMS
and not iMessage. (This was back when there were stories of people getting
stuck on iMessage and losing messages when they switched to another OS, and I
wasn't sure I wanted to buy into the Apple platform permanently. I could
probably switch back now, since I've been a regular iOS user for years and I
hear that [https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-
imessage/](https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/) works.) Multi-
party SMS works fine. Multi-party Signal, Hangouts, Slack, etc. chats also
work great. Similarly, I don't use FaceTime, but I've got tons of messaging
apps that support video calls on their own.

Generally things have been fine, so I'm curious what specifically hasn't
worked for you.

~~~
kvark
I find Apple extremely annoying when you disable iCloud: they keep reminding
you to enable it on every occasion (updates, freeing up space, going through
photos, etc).

~~~
geofft
Hm, is that a matter of personal taste? I get the prompt for each major
version update, but since it takes a few clicks to get back in after an
update, one more doesn't bother me. I don't get it on point releases. There's
a message about iCloud photo backups when looking at space usage but it's not
even a popup/dialog, you can scroll right past it. So it doesn't bother me.

Looking harder, I think what's happening is I _do_ have iCloud, I just don't
use it. I don't have automatic backups of photos, I don't have iCloud Drive
(what it prompts me for on software updates), etc. Everything is unchecked
except Find My iPhone. I haven't had any downside from having iCloud in this
active-but-unused state.

------
adarsh_thampy
Apple's strategy is simple.

They want to retain control over their customers; at the same time, force the
developers into relying entirely on Apple as a middle man so that they can't
cut Apple out of any transactions.

This way, Apple gets their cut and user's get some level of privacy.

That they can get away with this arm-twisting as "privacy" is to give credit
to their brand positioning.

~~~
1-6
Apple's strategy is simple because they had no strategy. They're pretty far
behind with software and had no real cloud offering besides iCloud. They're
doubling down on what they can do which is to convince people to avoid moving
their life online.

In reality, I don't think people will go back to Cloud 1.0 but at least Apple
will keep companies in check while they rot away to oblivion.

~~~
satyenr
> They're pretty far behind with software

Examples? They are a platform vendor and have done no worse than other
companies when it comes to their platform. Sure macOS has stagnated somewhat,
but so have nearly all desktop platforms. Windows 10 started gaining momentum
only when Microsoft realized that they had no scope in mobile space and had to
save the last fort they had left. And to be honest, I do not consider Windows
10 to be massively superior to macOS. There is a reason they are building a
Frankenstein's Monster by grafting a Linux kernel on top of Windows.

And iOS, despite its problem, can't be considered as worse than Android -- the
later has its own problems.

At this point, OS platforms are as good as they are going to get. Barring a
paradigm shift in computing, all we are going to see are incremental
improvements. And IMO, that is not a bad thing. I, for one, do not want to see
an interface redesign every other year.

> no real cloud offering besides iCloud.

That is like saying Google and Microsoft have no cloud offering besides Google
Drive and OneDrive respectively. Or are you talking about GCP/Azure? If so,
how is that relevant? Apple, unlike the other two, remains a consumer focused
company with limited investment into enterprise.

> In reality, I don't think people will go back to Cloud 1.0 but at least
> Apple will keep companies in check while they rot away to oblivion.

What does that even mean?

> They're doubling down on what they can do which is to convince people to
> avoid moving their life online.

Are you suggesting iCloud is not online?

------
yholio
It's a devil's bargain: now we have to choose between walled gardens that
offer some privacy and extract their revenue from lock-in, and more open
systems that live off spying our data.

Truth be told, the software development cost of these systems (Android and
iOS) is not that huge, a reasonably good open source alternative could
probably be created for less than a billion dollars, knowing how financially
efficient are open source projects compared to commercial companies. That's a
few cents per smartphone user per year, for the next decade, negligible
compared to hardware costs.

If this order of magnitude funding could be secured for a well organized open
source project, we could have the best of both worlds, a truly open ecosystem
with privacy at it's center.

~~~
zimpenfish
> the software development cost of these systems [...] is not that huge

> probably be created for less than a billion dollars

I don't think I've worked anywhere that's put more than $500M into a single
software project. That is "huge" cost.

(Except maybe Yahoo! but even then I'm not sure.)

~~~
cromwellian
They're sunk costs now though. How much more needs to be added to Mobile OSes?
Can't they just innovate functionality though installed apps?

~~~
zimpenfish
GP was, I believe, talking about a whole new mobile OS, built from the ground
up for privacy and an open ecosystem rather than just innovating on the
existing platforms.

------
nanokilo
They’re offering privacy, yes, but not as a service. They’re still very much
in the business of selling devices to their customers, and this business model
is incidentally one of the main reasons they, unlike Facebook or Google, can
afford to offer such comprehensive privacy measures.

------
pmontra
In other news "Apple’s privacy reputation at risk with new iTunes class-action
lawsuit"

> The plaintiffs allege that a third party can purchase a list of iTunes
> customers based on different demographic requirements, like a list of
> unmarried people who have a taste for a particular genre of music:

> The lawsuit further alleges that the third-party beneficiaries of this
> listening data match it to other sensitive personal information gathered
> about iTunes users from various sources, and then resell that information on
> the open market.

[1] [https://thenextweb.com/business/2019/05/27/apples-privacy-
re...](https://thenextweb.com/business/2019/05/27/apples-privacy-reputation-
at-risk-with-new-itunes-class-action-lawsuit/)

~~~
r00fus
Their main claim revolves around "iTunes & Pandora data" based on a 3rd party
aggregator's claims.

Interesting that they mention Pandora - is that how the data got
exfiltrated/aggregated?

All the claims in the suit mention "publicly available information" but the
references given don't present actual harm to the class.

It'd be very unlikely to me that this class action goes anywhere.

------
afpx
When I was a teen, my uncle, who was an executive at Oracle at the time,
yelled at me for admitting on a medical form that I smoked pot. I said, "But,
it's confidential, right?". He told me, "It may be confidential now, but it
won't always be. Databases are forever." Apple won't be a privacy company in
10 or 20 years.

~~~
hellofunk
I think we are living at just the dawn of a long and very privacy obsessed
era, that will probably become more intense as the decades pass, and the
generations. I don’t see why a company that pounces on this reality now won’t
be still successful at it decades from now.

~~~
afpx
Because, eventually, Apple will lose revenue, and their shareholders will
demand profit. And, Apple will be sitting on a trove of data, or metadata, or
predictive models built from that data.

~~~
hellofunk
That sounds speculative. Why will they lose revenue eventually? Do you think
40 years from now they will be in a worse position than today? After all, they
are today in a better position than 40 years ago. Perhaps a privacy-focused
company will actually perform better in a society obsessed with privacy, and
eventually, their competitors who don't share these perspectives will be the
ones that lose revenue.

All we can do is speculate.

~~~
afpx
It’s not speculation, just logic. Shareholders seek as much profit as
possible. The moment that being PrivAAS is worth less than not being one,
they’ll switch strateg

~~~
hellofunk
It seems logical to me that a company that is privacy-focused in an era of a
privacy-obsessed customer base will actually make more profit.

------
Razengan
I love this. Apple is one of the only companies (alongside perhaps Mozilla)
with the brand muscle to get away with shooing third-party vultures away from
a user's implicit information, like the new protections against inferring your
location through IP addresses, the option to share your location only once,
and enforcing other restrictions like requiring "Sign In With Apple" on all
apps that offer Facebook/Google sign-in. [0]

Some developers may balk at giving up all that tasty data, but as a user, this
is _GREAT._

Regardless of how you feel about Apple on the whole, who else do you think can
afford to put their foot down against predatory practices in favor of the
user?

[0]
[https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=06032019j](https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=06032019j)

------
fyoving
It's worth remembering that Apple's privacy spin began with people noticing
that Siri is a joke and other ML powered functions in Apple's software are not
nearly as good as the competition's, so the company line basically became "our
software sucks because we don't spy on you" and because tech journalists are
predisposed to hate everyone else and really love framing their stories as
rivals dueling they gladly adopted that narrative.

~~~
TomVDB
Why is that worth remembering when the end result, being privacy conscious is
much more important than the reliability of Siri?

~~~
fyoving
Says who? Personally I prefer sophisticated software that works to this ill
conceived fear mongering notion of privacy.

~~~
TomVDB
We all have our own preferences.

But whatever they are, that still doesn't mean that Apple failure with Siri as
alleged reason to focus on privacy is relevant when the end result is better
privacy.

------
Corrado
I've been an Apple fan for a long time but for the past 10 years or so I've
been using more Google products. Well, I think that is changing. Google is
proving itself more and more untrustworthy and Apple is moving in the right
direction.

For example, I've been using Android phone ever since the second iPhone came
out and have been very happy. I signed up for Google Fi as soon as I could and
have been rocking a Nexus or Pixel device every since. However, this PaaS push
by Apple, and Google's more recent announcements, have pushed me over the
edge. I want to get cameras on my home. I want to sign up for things using
email. I want to be able to use my personal devices without having to worry
that law enforcement can back-door them. I think Apple is the only company
that is taking this seriously and can be trusted to do it right.

------
pidg
As a non-iOS user, can someone explain what is happening in this image?:

[https://techcrunch.com/wp-
content/uploads/2019/06/2019060317...](https://techcrunch.com/wp-
content/uploads/2019/06/20190603174213_461726.jpg)

Does the 'X' mean "selected" or "don't share"?

~~~
lucaspm98
From my iOS experience I would expect the 'X' to delete all of the text in the
field, but it's very confusing considering the toggles below it.

~~~
basch
I agree, my interpretation of that user interface would be that X clears the
field and lets you type something else.

------
thefounder
Still they were/are part of PRISM so keep in mind that the privacy offered
depends by various U.S agencies.

~~~
nabla9
Privacy is not all or nothing issue. If you have privacy against commercial
use but not against various U.S. agencies that's better than nothing.

Any service where you can reset your password/token that is known only to you
after you lose it is not safe from government warrant. It can still be safe
from mass collection like PRISM.

~~~
thefounder
I agree though I believe the abuse of privacy rights by the government is the
worst kind of the two, capable of inflicting the greatest damage.

------
craigsmansion
Next up: Aaas, Anonymity as a service...

The bottom line is, only _you_ care about your privacy, because you're the
only one who _can_ care about your privacy. You can do that by voting, and by
running Free Software.

Effective privacy and anonymity are based on control:control of your software,
control of your hardware, control of your life.

Everyone asking you for control in exchange for anonymity or privacy does not
necessarily have your best interest at heart.

Apple's business model is about monetising control, and now they're extending
that by ostensibly selling some of that control back to you. Apple will only
grant you privacy as long as it doesn't interfere with them taking control.

~~~
DonHopkins
Daas: Doxing as a Service, on an Open Identity Marketplace (meBay). Users can
selectively sell their anonymity and personal information, consensually doxing
themselves to the highest bidder, and Apple gets a 30% cut.

~~~
pxtail
Applause, that's how disruptive unicorns are invented.

------
olivermarks
My cynical side read this as cheap/free = google/android who own your data in
return for their services

vs expensive = Apple who are selling you some degree of perceived privacy
baked into the operating systems of their primarily hardware offerings, which
you pay more for.

~~~
wycy
Sure, but that's the always-acknowledged reality. Either you're paying for the
product, or you are the product.

~~~
t0t4lnoo3
> Either you're paying for the product, or you are the product.

Where would you place an app like Signal?

~~~
satyenr
Will signal continue to be free if they have a billion users like WhatsApp?
Who will fund the infrastructure and development?

------
mlang23
Apple was the first company to take accessibility seriously. And that is
definitely a market where it likely didn't make a lot of revenue, if any at
all. Just consider this, if you think every niche market is irrelevant.

------
mcv
It's good to see at least one tech giant wants to compete on privacy, rather
than selling our data. It's great that Apple does this. And yet, I find the
Apple ecosystem closed and restrictive. I'm not eager to get an iPhone and
would much rather use something like Lineage OS, for example.

------
saulio-g
They’ve been building up to this point, taking this lead by presenting at EU
data conferences in Brussels, and calling for stronger US data protection law.

Facebook on the other hand, has announced they are now a Privacy focused
company (whilst appealing the Cambridge Analytica fine of £500k) and gearing
up with legal teams. Not walking the walk.

I wouldn’t say they are a privacy-as-a-service company, I’d suggest they are a
company that are future proofing their revenue streams by enforcing privacy
rules on their development / APP environment.

Remember Apple control their environment. It’s a closed shop. So perhaps these
changes are really protectionism against Regulation.

------
amelius
Their marketing campaign ("what happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone")
is of course providing a false sense of security ...

~~~
qrbLPHiKpiux
With Apple apps, sure.

With third party apps, no.

~~~
amelius
Well, Safari is an Apple app. And Onion browser for Tor isn't.

------
zaro
Is it only me imagining some kind of scenario where, if this gains traction,
suddenly 3rd party developers will have to share revenue with Apple for being
able to use the Apple sign in.

------
b1daly
I don't think there's any need to pretend Apple is marketing this simply as a
virtuous act. They have competitive advantages in some areas, and not in
others. They are taking advantage of such an advantage.

------
nadc
From reading the developer documentation it looks like developers need to
implement & maintain Sign In with Apple as a new SSO method:
[https://developer.apple.com/sign-in-with-
apple/](https://developer.apple.com/sign-in-with-apple/)

When I read the keynote highlights I assumed Apple were extending the existing
(iCloud) Keychain/Safari integration to include username generation, and
obfuscated email generation resolving to your iCloud account. Since they
implemented 2FA codes auto filling in the QuickType bar in iOS 12, they
could've extended this UX further, or used 'Siri suggestions' to complete
email verification.

I assume they didn't take this approach as it's harder to present a consistent
call to action to initiate sign up, but it seems like a missed opportunity to
me.

Does anyone know of a password manager that allows you to generate unique
email addresses as a part of the core UX?

~~~
davidy123
Ideally, they would work with Solid, a standards based approach to
decentralized identity, to provide a general solution, rather than creating
yet another new one.

~~~
nadc
I find Solid incredibly interesting academically, and watch it with interest,
but I'm sadly skeptical that it'll find traction— it requires both substantial
development resources (as apps need to be rewritten to its standards) and a
change in consumer behaviour.

I'm reminded of this Steve Jobs response from WWDC 1997 [1]:

> One of the things I've always found is that you've got to start with the
> customer experience and work backwards for the technology. You can't start
> with the technology and try to figure out where you're going to try to sell
> it. And I made this mistake probably more than anybody else in this room.
> And I got the scar tissue to prove it.

The beauty of the implementation I described is that it could work with any
existing (web) app with little-no development effort while leveraging
affordance users already have from using Touch/Face ID to authenticate
Keychain, Apple Pay etc.

Until a proposal like Solid is widespread, I'd love for a browser/password
manager vendor I trust (for me, Mozilla or Apple) to integrate with a privacy-
forward email vendor for unique email addresses to provide a less
'fingerprinted' approach to auth, useful today with all legacy (web) apps.

[1] [https://youtu.be/FF-tKLISfPE](https://youtu.be/FF-tKLISfPE)

~~~
davidy123
I don't disagree with what you're saying. But it's also reasonable to focus
just on working with those who see the same thing you do, and develop widely
usable systems based on that. That's where everything comes from, basically.
If we keep pandering to the lowest common denominator, the results will always
be compromised.

GDPR is having a big impact on these discussions. Organizations don't want to
own data any more. It would be a true tragedy of more collapsing of the net if
it came down to using one of a few big providers, without alternate options.
Yet we're seeing this happen, since many sites now only offer login via social
media, with no option via email. IMO, these sites should be boycotted.

~~~
nadc
Relatedly, it seems Apple is planning to make 'Sign in with Apple' mandatory
for every iOS developer using any third party sign in:
[https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/3/18651344/wwdc-2019-apple-f...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/3/18651344/wwdc-2019-apple-
force-ios-developers-sign-in-third-party)

------
LiamMcCalloway
Are we so brainwashed that we barely can feel outrage at a title like this?
How about privacy as a basic human right?

~~~
cftorres
Finally I've found at least one coment related to this point. Everyone seems
so atonished because of a new alternative for monetization, they forgot that
privacy is a right that tech companies must fulfill. We are running fast
towards a content distopy.

------
riazrizvi
Apple delivers privacy from 3rd party developers and at the same time retains
all that user data for itself, shoring up its unfair competitive advantage as
a non-neutral-platform who makes major forays into its partners’ businesses.
Eg health apps, maps, news, podcasts, imusic, etc, etc.

~~~
nabla9
User data has less value for Apple.

The main economic incentive to collect massive amounts of user data comes from
two-sided market (users and advertisers). Google, Facebook are in that market.

------
ngcc_hk
It is good to have alternative.

Except in china I guess. That place seems somehow everyone is making exception
like people are different kind of human. They are the same human. Should have
the same human rights.

~~~
kmlx
from wikipedia on human rights:

> The onset of the Cold War soon after the UDHR was conceived brought to the
> fore divisions over the inclusion of both economic and social rights and
> civil and political rights in the declaration. Capitalist states tended to
> place strong emphasis on civil and political rights (such as freedom of
> association and expression), and were reluctant to include economic and
> social rights (such as the right to work and the right to join a union).
> Socialist states placed much greater importance on economic and social
> rights and argued strongly for their inclusion.

------
bashwizard
That's all fine and very good for the consumer. Now they just have to get the
fuck out of PRISM and I'll start taking them seriously in the privacy realm.

~~~
merpnderp
Do they have an option? It was my understanding that national security letters
are involved.

~~~
RantyDave
That's not the point though. Either they can offer privacy, and have a way by
which the whims of the government cannot affect that, or they can't.

~~~
freehunter
That's why Apple puts so much emphasis on functions working on your phone and
not in the cloud. At the keynote they said "this happens on your phone and
nothing is sent to Apple" at least half a dozen times. If it's stored on your
phone, it's not subject to Prism and is encrypted so the government can't pry
through it at will.

------
hesarenu
They had to focus on privacy to separate out from the competition. Also this
distracts the focus on walled garden criticism and freedom to own the devices.

------
eoinmurray92
And you need to pay an absolute premium for this pricacy - I've plotted the
price of iPhone prices increase here and even after adjusting for inflation
the price growth is really high. Especially if you look at the flagship phones

[https://kyso.io/eoin/iphone-prices](https://kyso.io/eoin/iphone-prices)

------
kkarakk
Give me an example of Apple not bowing down to chinese censors and i just may
believe you.

[https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/25/18020508/how-china-
compl...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/25/18020508/how-china-complicates-
apples-chest-thumping-about-privacy)

~~~
RantyDave
But that's censorship - and Apple are not aligning themselves to any "free
speech" kinda line.

------
cftorres
I don’t get how this is a value proposition. Privacy should be included in any
service related to technology and data. It’s not a plus, they are trying to
charge for an obligation. We are losing our rights for the creation of new
markets.

------
digianarchist
If Apple really wants to help me then they need to create a product to wean me
off Gmail.

~~~
saagarjha
iCloud has a mail service.

~~~
neilalexander
It's feature-lite though, by comparison.

------
YeahSureWhyNot
I highly doubt apple isnt collecting inform on users of their services, they
just aren't letting anybody else access it. Its matter of time before Apple
builds something that uses all the info they have collected.

------
randall
Control f "china". Nothing.

I have a hard time trusting anything that doesn't message how iMessage is end-
to-end secure but Apple operates in China.

Nobody has ever talked about that.

------
kfrzcode
Is there an existing alternative service (read: FOSS) that would auto-generate
temporary emails and manage identity for services like "Login with Apple"?

~~~
paxys
There are lots of temporary email services, most or all of which are blocked
by major sites.

------
paxys
I am clearly in the minority here but I think "Sign in with Apple" is terrible
for consumers. You keep your email address hidden from service providers,
sure, but you are also placing your online identity entirely in the hands of
Apple. If you get on the wrong side of Apple's algorithms, there is zero
recourse. At least in the case of Facebook and others the third party still
has your email address so you can always start using that to identify
yourself.

~~~
srfilipek
> If you get on the wrong side of Apple's algorithms, there is zero recourse.

I don't follow what you're implying.

~~~
CamelCaseName
I think I understand the GP.

Let's say I sign up for an online game using Apple's secure sign in because I
don't want to share my information.

Some time passes, and I've invested 250 hours into the game, when Apple
decides to ban my account for whatever reason (perhaps I've refunded too many
apps, maybe the credit card that pays my Apple Music expires, my country gets
sanctioned by the US gov. etc.)

Apple would, presumably, shut down email services for me. Meaning, I won't be
able to log into that game any longer. With no alternative log in method
(which would defeat the purpose of using Apple's sign in) I would likely lose
access to that game forever.

~~~
alextheparrot
Isn’t this just a general SSO problem - I assume the same would happen if
someone signs on with Google/Facebook/Twitter and is banned from one of those
services?

Is the idea here that there’s a higher chance of this account type being
banned without recourse because of the number and type of ecosystem
interaction points (App Store, subscription services, etc.)?

~~~
foobiekr
Unlike Google, where high-profile Twitter shaming is basically the only
effective technique for resolving issues, for consumers the Apple stores are a
legitimate place to go and complain.

It’s not perfect but on the spectrum of bureaucratic chaos, Apple is a lesser
offender.

------
tambourine_man
“Apple is now a privacy-as-a-service company”… as well. Assuming it’s its
defining characteristic is a bit over the top

------
jasonsync
_I for one, am happy that Apple can afford to offer privacy as one of its
strong suites._

But can you afford to buy it?

------
KrishMunot
I rather pay Apple with my money than the other companies with my privacy to
use their product

------
bhhaskin
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't
exist.

------
paulcarroty
Apple makes good products, but they build closed ecosystem for premium price.

So, I not use they products, maximum run macOS in VM sometimes.

And if will be forced to use a smartphone (maps in new city for example), it
will be iPhone, 'cause I prefer privacy vs "open source with spy" by Google.

------
tanilama
Paraphrase it: you are paying Apple a premium to not sell your data.

~~~
TheRealDunkirk
And I, for one, am OK with that. I'm glad there's a vendor who is baking a
device's lifetime of backchannel personal data "monetization" into the upfront
price, and I keep my privacy.

------
p4bl0
I still can't access Techcrunch and other Oath website on mobile. Instead of
the article I land on a GDPR cookie page and I can only say "OK" there is no
way for me to refuse tracking or turn off part of the cookies like on _every
other websites_. WTF?

------
buboard
The ‘service’ here is the apple developer subscription of $100/year. Apple is
pandering to its beloved developers here, because, let s be real, the public
doeskin care.

------
fluffycat
Sure sure, If you avert your gaze from China.

------
tzakrajs
But Tim Cook said they were a Health Services company. What if privacy is part
of human health?

------
appleshore
Except the iOS Mail app is so exceptionally bad one is forced to use Gmail or
another app.

~~~
saagarjha
Anecdote: I’ve been using the iOS Mail app exclusively ever since Inbox shut
down. I don’t feel “forced” to use another app at all.

------
blatchcorn
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/)

~~~
dijit
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
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
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.dav...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=at.bitfire.davdroid&hl=en))

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
> My experience is that on Android I had to have many third-party integrators
> to get things up and working

That you have to buy/install CalDAV AND CardDAV connectors is indeed a weird
shortcoming of Android. On the flip-side you _had_ the option to do so.

Also, in the age of everything-SaaS, a one time payment of $10 for basic
infrastructure isn’t all that bad.

> 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.

What Email app did you use? Gmail (which obviously treats Gmail better) or
something else?

> But the experience of actually using it is so incredibly poor

Different strokes to different folks I guess.

I never experienced Android to be that different (or worse) when using my own
standards-based providers.

That said _iOS_ feels a lot more coherent if you stick to Apple apps all the
way. But not being able to set another default browser or email client is just
weird.

~~~
dijit
> That said iOS feels a lot more coherent if you stick to Apple apps all the
> way. But not being able to set another default browser or email client is
> just weird.

in this, we agree.

> What Email app did you use? Gmail (which obviously treats Gmail better) or
> something else?

Samsung mail, I couldn't find any decent alternatives, maybe this is my
shortcoming for not knowing what is available?

>Also, in the age of everything-SaaS, a one time payment of $10 for basic
infrastructure isn’t all that bad.

Except I'm paying to use a connector to use /my/ infrastructure. But, I don't
mind paying for software, so long as it's good and well integrated. DavDroid
was half decent, worth the money if you consider the effort involved, but not
"good".

~~~
josteink
> Samsung mail, I couldn't find any decent alternatives, maybe this is my
> shortcoming for not knowing what is available?

Oddly enough, one of the best options I found was Outlook. No really!

Simple to setup, easy to use. No need to fiddle with 2000 settings.

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zoobab
Not open source, and if it was, the cloud is someone's else computer.

------
A7med
NSA probably have full access to the backend of this service

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snrji
This headline is pure propaganda.

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thatoneuser
ITT people who are blowing off privacy as though it's not valuable while
simultaneously talking about Apple lock in like they're the only company to do
that.

Idk what yall are on but privacy is valuable to most of us. That comes with a
cost and it's not hard to see why - selling private data is how companies make
more profit while charging less than apple. Don't wanna pay? You lose privacy.
Want privacy? You pay. It's that simple. At last apple gives an option,
meanwhile idk how Facebook and Google and all don't face regulation for the
egregious privacy violations they commit.

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dancemethis
Yeah, right. And I'm Napoleon.

There is no privacy with proprietary software.

------
hsnewman
Declaring your something doesn't mean your that. Show me.

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snickmy
I feel Apple is abusing their dominant position (single app store) to force
all the developers to implement & maintain Sign In with Apple as a new SSO
method: [https://developer.apple.com/sign-in-with-
apple/](https://developer.apple.com/sign-in-with-apple/)

I'm really curious to see how this will fly with the Antitrust

~~~
ojilles
I suspect perfectly fine, actually. Why would this somehow trigger just above
a certain threshold?

