I really respect Apple's privacy focused engineering. They didn't roll out _any_ AI features until they were capable of running them locally, and before doing any cloud-based AI they designed and rolled out Private Cloud Compute.
You can argue about whether it's actually bulletproof or not but the fact is, nobody else is even trying, and have lost sight of all privacy-focused features in their rush to ship anything and everything on my device to OpenAI or Gemini.
I am thrilled to shell out thousands and thousands of dollars to purchase a machine that feels like it really belongs to me, from a company that respects my data and has aligned incentives.
> to purchase a machine that feels like it really belongs to me
How true is this when they devices are increasingly hostile to user repair and upgrades? MacOS also tightens the screws on what you can run and from where, or at least require more hoop jumping over time.
Of course I wish the hardware were somehow more open, but to a large extent, it's directly because of hardware based privacy features.
If you allowed third-party components without restraint, there'd be no way to prevent someone swapping out a component.
Lock-in and planned obsolescence are also factors, and ones I'm glad the EU (and others) are pushing back here. But it isn't as if there are no legitimate tradeoffs.
Regarding screw tightening... if they ever completely remove the ability to run untrusted code, yes, then I'll admit I was wrong. But I am more than happy to have devices be locked down by default. My life has gotten much easier since I got my elderly parents and non-technical siblings to move completely to the Apple ecosystem. That's the tradeoff here.
> to a large extent, it's directly because of hardware based privacy features.
First, this is 100% false. Second, security through obscurity is almost universally discouraged and considered bad practice.
One of the most underrated macOS features is the screen sharing app - it’s great for seamless tech support with parents.
It works via your keychain and your contacts, and the recipient gets a little notification to allow you to view their screen.
That’s it - no downloads, no login, no 20 minutes getting a Remote Desktop screen share set up.
> I wish the hardware were somehow more open
Some of us are old enough to remember the era of the officially authorised Apple clones in the 90's.
Some of us worked in hardware repair roles at the time.
Some of us remember the sort of shit the third-party vendors used to sell as clones.
Some of us were very happy the day Apple called time on the authorised clone industry.
The tight-knit integration between Apple OS and Apple Hardware is a big part of what makes their platform so good. I'm not saying perfect. I'm just saying if you look at it honestly as someone who's used their kit alongside PCs for many decades, you can see the difference.
> My life has gotten much easier since I got my elderly parents and non-technical siblings to move completely to the Apple ecosystem. That's the tradeoff here.
Yeah, but this is hacker news.
You can buy most parts officially from Apple - I just bought a new set of keycaps to replace some on my MacBook Air. Couldn't do that 5 years ago.
You can install whatever OS you want on your computer - Asahi Linux is the only one that's done the work to support that.
You can disable the system lockdowns that "tighten the screws" you refer to and unlock most things back to how they used to be.
> You can buy most parts officially from Apple
But very distinctly, not all. Apple deliberately makes customers buy more than what they need while refusing to sell board-level ICs or allow donor boards to be disassembled for parts. If a $0.03 Texas Instruments voltage controller melts on your Macbook, you have to buy and replace the whole $600 board if you want it working again. In Apple's eyes, third party repairs simply aren't viable and the waste is justified because it's "technically" repaired.
> You can install whatever OS you want on your computer
Just not your iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch. Because that would simply be a bridge too far - allowing real competition in a walled garden? Unheard of.
> You can disable the system lockdowns that "tighten the screws" you refer to and unlock most things back to how they used to be.
And watch as they break after regular system upgrades that force API regressions and new unjustified restrictions on your OS. Most importantly, none of this is a real an option on Apple's business-critical products.
> How true is this when they devices are increasingly hostile to user repair and upgrades?
Not sure what you mean exactly by this, but to me their Self Service Repair program is a step in the right direction.
It was mandated by right to repair laws, it provides the absolute minimum, and they've attempted the price out people wanting to do repairs. The only way it could be more hostile to users is by literally being illegal.
They could go out of their way to make things actually easy to work on and service, but that has never been the Apple Way. Compare to framework or building your own PC, or even repairing a laptop from another OEM.
What you see hostile to repair I see as not worth stealing. What you see as macOS dictating what you can run from where I see as an infiltration prevention.
They certainly are worth stealing. They get parted out and Apple's hostility towards making parts available means those stolen parts are worth more.
What you see as anticompetitive payment processing on iOS, others may see friendly and harmless business model. HNers, be respectful when criticizing bigger companies like John Deere and Apple - it's important you don't hurt these customer's feelings and scare them off.
> MacOS also tightens the screws on what you can run and from where, or at least require more hoop jumping over time.
Can you explain what you mean by this? I have been doing software development on MacOS for the last couple of years and have found it incredibly easy to run anything I want on my computer from the terminal, whenever I want. Maybe I'm not the average user, but I use mostly open-source Unix tooling and have never had a problem with permissions or restrictions.
Are you talking about packaged applications that are made available on the App Store? If so, sure have rules to make sure the store is high-quality, kinda like how Costco doesn't let anyone just put garbage on their shelves
> Can you explain what you mean by this? I have been doing software development on MacOS for the last couple of years and have found it incredibly easy to run anything I want on my computer from the terminal, whenever I want.
Try sharing a binary that you built but didn't sign and Notarize and you'll see the problem.
It'll run on the machine that it was built on without a problem, the problems start when you move the binary to another machine.
Apple also left a very convenient hole in their boot loader to allow running another OS. Linux works pretty well these days
* on M1 and M2 variants.
* As long as you don't want to use any external displays
Really? I got a bunch of error upgrading my Arch-based Asahi and now chromium doesn't work anymore. Oh and no external display, or speaker.
Considering you need an Apple ID to log into the hardware, id argue Apple gatekeeps that ownership pretty tightly.
This isn't true.
edit: also, unless you are the digital equivalent of "off the grid", I would argue most people are going to need some sort of cloud-based identity anyway for messaging, file-sharing, etc. iCloud is far and away the most secure of the options available to most users, and the only one that uses full end-to-end encryption across all services.
It's optional and very easy to skip. Not like the requirement for a MS account on Windows 11, which is also skippable but not by the average user.
I have the same problem with graphics cards (not upgradable—and cost more than the pc they are in!)
Same with server parts using HBM—won’t let me upgrade memory there either.
That said, the apple ssd situation is abysmal. At least with memory they have reasons.
My MacBooks are built like a tank and outperform/outlive everything else easily for a decade. I don’t need more than 128GB of RAM or 2TB of storage… and I don’t need to repair what doesn’t break. It would be nice to have the option, but the time I save using an OS that just works like MacOS is worth more to me. And the best software in the world always runs on it. It’s a no brainier for me.
You can read the ifixit teardown before you buy it.
How true is this when they devices are increasingly hostile to user repair and upgrades?
I can neither repair nor upgrade my electric car, my furniture, or my plumbing. But they all still belong to me.
This is due to your capabilities as an individual, not the possibilities surrounding the items themselves.
> I am thrilled to shell out thousands and thousands of dollars to purchase a machine that feels like it really belongs to me, from a company that respects my data and has aligned incentives.
You either have have very low standards or very low understanding if you think a completely closed OS on top of completely closed hardware somehow means it 'really belongs' to you, or that your data/privacy is actually being respected.
"completely closed OS" is not accurate. apple releases a surprising amount of source code.
https://opensource.apple.com/releases/
The closed part has full control over your system, so the released code is useless for privacy/ownership.
Whats the alternative? Linux? Maybe OP likes that their OS doesnt crash when they close their laptop lid.
Crash? I understand people's gripes with ui, hardware compatibility, etc, but stability? All my Linux machines have always been very stable.
It's not that bad anymore (e.g. with system 76), but I understand the point.
I disagree with OP celebrating Apple to be the least evil of the evils. Yes, there are not many (if any) alternatives, but that doesn't make Apple great. It's just less shitty.
You hit the nail on the head. And it’s something virtually everyone else replying to you is completely missing.
Apple isn’t perfect. They’re not better at privacy than some absolutist position where you run Tails on RISC V, only connect to services over Tor, host your own email, and run your own NAS.
But of all the consumer focused hardware manufacturers and cloud services companies, they are the only ones even trying.
You miss the point. It's not that I enact authority over my system in every detail all the time, but I want the ability to choose authority on the aspects that matter to me in a given circumstance.
They just have really good marketing. You fell for their pandering. If you really care about privacy use Linux. But Apple ain't it. Closed source and proprietary will never be safe from corporate greed.
>https://archive.ph/Z9z0H
Linux doesn't give you privacy guy.
If you're using the web, your privacy is about your browser and your ISP, not your OS.
At times, it's even about how you use your browser. No browser will save you from telling google too much about yourself by using gmail, and viewing youtube videos, and using search. The AI's and algorithms collating all that information on the backend see right through "incognito" mode.
Telling people they can get security and privacy by using Linux, or windows, or mac just betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the threat surface.
You missed the point completely. The problem with a user hostile closed OS like Windows is that they collect a lot of data from your computer even if you never open a web browser. You have no clue what they collect and what they do with the data
If you're so focused on privacy why don't you just use Linux? With Linux you'll actually get real privacy and you'll really truly own the system.
Apple takes a 30% tax on all applications running on their mobile devices. Just let that sink in. We are so incredibly lucky that never happened to PC.
As much as anyone can say otherwise, running Linux isn’t just a breeze. You will run into issues at some point, you will possibly have to make certain sacrifices regarding software or other choices. Yes it has gotten so much better over the past few years but I want my time spent on my work, not toying with the OS.
Another big selling point of Apple is the hardware. Their hardware and software are integrated so seamlessly. Things just work, and they work well. 99% of the time - there’s always edge cases.
There’s solutions to running Linux distros on some Apple hardware but again you have to make sacrifices.
Even on the machines most well-supported by Linux, which are Intel x86 PCs with only integrated graphics and Intel wifi/bluetooth, there are still issues that need to be tinkered away like getting hardware-accelerated video decoding working in Firefox (important for keeping heat and power consumption down on laptops).
I keep around a Linux laptop and it's improved immensely in the past several years, but the experience still has rough edges to smooth out.
I have used several distributions and daily driven linux for long periods of time (2-3 years) since 2008. Even today multimedia apps have issues, these can be solved by going through online forums, but it's always a frustrating start. Usually upgrades to software will re-introduce these issues and you will need to follow the same steps.
Which Linux?
> Private Cloud Compute
That's such a security theater. As long as nobody can look inside their ICs, nobody knows what's really happening there.
Oh? https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/25/apple_private_cloud_c...
> "Today we’re making these resources publicly available to invite all security and privacy researchers – or anyone with interest and a technical curiosity – to learn more about PCC and perform their own independent verification of our claims."
https://security.apple.com/documentation/private-cloud-compu...
There are also a million dollars of bounties to be had if you hack it
They mean that security researchers can look at the code, not the hardware at the transistor level.
They've certainly engaged in a lot of privacy theater before. For example
> Apple oversells its differential privacy protections. "Apple’s privacy loss parameters exceed the levels typically considered acceptable by the differential privacy research community," says USC professor Aleksandra Korolova, a former Google research scientist who worked on Google's own implementation of differential privacy until 2014. She says the dialing down of Apple's privacy protections in iOS in particular represents an "immense increase in risk" compared to the uses most researchers in the field would recommend.
https://www.wired.com/story/apple-differential-privacy-short...
Does that mean you just don't bother encrypting any of your data, and just use unencrypted protocols? Since you can't inspect the ICs that are doing the work, encryption must all also be security theater.
Actually Apple has stated they are allowing security researchers to look at their infrastructure DIRECTLY.
They haven't done this.
That doesn't mean they get to know what happens inside the ICs.
Looking at a bunch of PCBs doesn't tell you much.
That's a fine bit of goalpost shifting. They state that they will make their _entire software stack_ for Private Cloud Compute public for research purposes.
Assuming they go through with that, this alone puts them leagues ahead of any other cloud service.
It also means that to mine your data the way everyone else does, they would need to deliberately insert _hardware_ backdoors into their own systems, which seems a bit too difficult to keep secret and a bit too damning a scandal should it be discovered...
Occam's razor here is that they're genuinely trying to use real security as a competitive differentiator.
The first release set should be downloadable now for inspection. (It's binaries only, source is released for select components)
That could be said of any device you own, ever.
I agree 100% with this.
Amongst all the big tech companies Apple is the closest you will get to if you want Privacy.
The approach that the big platforms have to producing their own versions of very successful apps cannibalizes their partners. This focus on consumer privacy by Apple is the company's killer competitive advantage in this particular area, IMO. If I felt they were mining me for my private business data I'd switch to Linux in heartbeat. This is what keeps me off Adobe, Microsoft Office, Google's app suite, and apps like Notion as much as possible.
Apple isn't privacy focused. It can't at this size with this leadership.
Privacy puts user interests first. Apple doesn't.
Try exporting your private data (e.g. photos) from any modern apple device (one that you paid for and you fully own) to a non apple device that is an industry standard like a usb stick, or another laptop. Monitor some network traffic going out from your laptop. Try getting replacement parts for your broken idevice.
Others aren't pretending to put your interests first, Apple though...
Think for yourself.
I don't comment here often anymore. Don't bother.
Couldn’t have picked a worse example. I can literally plug a USB stick into the iPad I’m typing on and export my photos directly onto it.
I can do all of those things, I do them regularly, except replace broken parts as that's not something I really have had to deal with much.
I purchased my first iPhone and Mac during Cook’s tenure, and strictly due to his serious stance on privacy.
>I am thrilled to shell out thousands and thousands of dollars to purchase a machine that feels like it really belongs to me, from a company that respects my data and has aligned incentives.
Build a desktop PC, yes like a nerdy gamer. ^_^
Install Linux
Been the way for years.
Gamer + Linux is asking for trouble though.
At least these days - it means asking for less trouble. It really is improving leaps and bounds. But I still dual boot on my gaming PC, but I run a lot of games on Linux in compatibility mode and it works well a reasonable amount of the time.
When is the last time you tried it? I did yesterday and outside of Activision and some EA games it’s great.
You can build a workstation with Ryzen Threadripper.
What I meant is it been more popular to build your own PC for gamers due to price and customization.
Or for laptops, Thinkpad and Linux :)
Of late I have been imagining tears of joy rolling down the face of the person who decides to take it upon themself to sing the paeans of Apple Privacy Theatre on a given day. While Apple has been gleefully diluting privacy on their platforms (along with quality and stability of course). They are the masters at selling dystopian control, lock in, and software incompetence as something positive.
It's most dangerous that they own the closed hardware and they own the closed software and then they also get away with being "privacy champions". It's worse than irony.
Nowadays, the only way to have a computer belonging to you is using Linux.
> actually bulletproof
Its only 'bulletproof' in PR and Ad copy, because for as long as the US is capable of undermining any tech company that operates within its purview with NSL's, the 'perception of security' is a total fallacy.
In other words, the technology is not bulletproof, no matter how hard the marketing people work to make it appear so - only the society within which the provider operates can provide that safety.
For some, this is an intolerable state of affairs - for others, perfectly tolerable.
"10:24 – Flushed the toilet" is certainly more easy to transmit than an audio file which then must be analyzed in a datacenter.
Let's see if they really care so much about privacy in 10 years, once LLM/AI has settled. But they do seem to respect it a lot more than Microsoft.
I understand we will be able to disable that just in case? I don't want a Microsoft Windows telemetry dejavu.
> I really respect Apple's privacy focused engineering.
Everytime you launch an app, Mac OS dials home.
This is flatly incorrect.
Before you reply that it’s definitely true, I encourage you to actually look up the details of the thing you think you’re upset about.
Mac OS calls home every time you execute an application. Apple is well on its way to ensure you can only run things they allow via app store, they would probably already be there if it wasn't for the pesky EU. If you send your computer/phone to Apple for repair you may get back different physical hardware. Those things very much highlight that "your" Apple hardware is not yours and that privacy on Apple hardware does not actually exist, sure they may not share that data with other parties but they definitely do not respect your privacy or act like you own the hardware you purchased. Apple marketing seems to have reached the level indoctrination where everyone just keeps parroting what Apple says as an absolute truth.
They send a hash of the binaries/libraries, and generate a cache locally so it's not sent again. That helps stop you from running tampered-with binaries and frameworks. No user-personal data is sent.
There is no evidence at all that they are trying to ensure you can only run things from the App Store - I run a whole bunch of non-app-store binaries every single day. To make that claim is baseless and makes me de-rate the rest of what you write.
There is always a trade-off between privacy and security. This still falls well under the Google/Android/Chrome level, or indeed the Microsoft/Windows level with its targeted ads, IMHO.
Choose your poison, but this works for me.
> They send a hash
My understanding is that they keep a local file with known malware signatures, just like the malware scanners on every other platform.
> macOS includes built-in antivirus technology called XProtect for the signature-based detection and removal of malware. The system uses YARA signatures, a tool used to conduct signature-based detection of malware, which Apple updates regularly
https://support.apple.com/guide/security/protecting-against-...
Doesn't Windows do the exact same thing?
I agree and want to emphasize a few things:
1. Most users are not capable of using general purpose computing technology in a wild, networked environment safely.
2. Too many people who matter to ignore insist, "something must be done."
3. And so something shall be done.
4. Apple is navigating difficult waters. As much as I disapprove of how they have chosen a path for iOS, the fact is many people find those choices are high value.
5. I do, for the most part, approve of their choices for Mac OS. I am not sure how they prevent malicious code without maintaining some sort of information for that purpose.
6. We are arriving at a crossroads many of us have been talking about for a long time. And that means we will have to make some hard choices going forward. And how we all navigate this will impact others in the future for a long time.
Look at Microsoft! They are collecting everything! And they absolutely will work with law enforcement anytime, any day, almost any way!
I sure as hell want nothing to do with Windows 11. Most technical people I know feel the same way.
Screenies every 3 to 5 seconds? Are they high? Good grief! Almost feels like raw rape. Metaphorically, of course.
Then we have Linux. Boy am I glad I took the time way back in the 90's to learn about OSS, Stallman, read words from interesting people, Raymond, Perkins, Searles, Lessig, Doctorow, many others!
Linus did all of tech one hell of a solid and here we are able to literally dumpster dive and build whatever we want just because we can. Awesome sauce in a jar right there
, but!
(And this really matters)
...Linux just is not going to be the general answer for ordinary people. At least not yet. Maybe it will be soon.
It is an answer in the form of a crude check and balance against those in power. Remember the "something shall be done" people? Yeah, those guys.
And here we are back to Apple.
Now, given the context I put here, Apple has ended up really important. Working professionals stand something of a chance choosing Mac OS rather than be forced into Windows 11, transparent edition!
And Apple does not appear willing to work against their users best interests, unless they are both compelled to by law, and have lost important challenges to said law.
If you want that, your choices are Apple and Linux!
7. Open, general purpose computing is under threat. Just watch what happens with Arm PC devices and the locked bootloaders to follow just like mobile devices.
Strangely, I find myself wanting to build a really nice Intel PC while I still can do that and actually own it and stand some basic chance of knowing most of what it doing for me. Or TO ME.
No Joke!
As I move off Win 10, it will be onto Linux and Mac OS. Yeah, hardware costs a bit more, and yeah it needs to be further reverse engineered for Linux to run on it too, but Apple does not appear to get in the way of all that. They also do not need to help and generally don't. Otherwise, the Linux work is getting done by great people we all really should recognize and be thankful for.
That dynamic is OK with me too. It is a sort of harsh mutual respect. Apple gets to be Apple and we all get to be who we are and do what we all do with general purpose computers as originally envisioned long ago.
We all can live pretty easily with that.
So, onward we go! This interesting time will prove to be more dangerous than it needs to be.
If it were not for Apple carving out a clear alternative things would look considerably more draconian, I could and maybe almost should say fascist and to me completely unacceptable.
> I run a whole bunch of non-app-store binaries every single day
if you are in the US, you need to either register as a developer, or register an apple id and register your app to run it for a week. that's how you run non-app store code. Both of those require permission from apple.
EDIT: Sorry, ios.
> If you send your computer/phone to Apple for repair you may get back different physical hardware.
I happen to be in the midst of a repair with Apple right now. And for me, the idea that they might replace my aging phone with a newer unit, is a big plus. As I think it would be for almost everyone. Aside from the occasional sticker, I don't have any custom hardware mods to my phone or laptop, and nor do 99.99% of people.
Can Apple please every single tech nerd 100% of the time? No. Those people should stick to Linux, so that they can have a terrible usability experience ALL the time, but feel more "in control," or something.
Why not both? Why can’t we have a good usability experience AND control? In fact, we used to have that via the Mac hardware and software of the 1990s and 2000s, as well as NeXT’s software and hardware.
There was a time when Apple’s hardware was user-serviceable; I fondly remember my 2006 MacBook, with easily-upgradable RAM and storage. I also remember a time when Mac OS X didn’t have notarization and when the App Store didn’t exist. I would gladly use a patched version of Snow Leopard or even Tiger running on my Framework 13 if this were an option and if a modern web browser were available.
It could help to compare to other makers for a minute: if you need to repair your Surface Pro, you can easily remove the SSD from the tray, send your machine and stick it back when it comes repaired (new or not)
And most laptops at this point have removable/exchangeable storage. Except for Apple.
>And for me, the idea that they might replace my aging phone with a newer unit, is a big plus. As I think it would be for almost everyone.
except that isn't generally how factory repairs are handled.
I don't know about Apple specifically, but other groups (Samsung, Microsoft, Lenovo) will happily swap your unit with a factory refurbished or warranty-repaired unit as long as it was sufficiently qualified before hand -- so the 'replaced with a newer unit' concept might be fantasy.
What makes you think it would be a new one as opposed to a refurbished used one.
> And for me, the idea that they might replace my aging phone with a newer unit, is a big plus.
It's called a warranty and not at all exclusive to apple whatsoever?
> Those people should stick to Linux, so that they can have a terrible usability experience ALL the time, but feel more "in control," or something.
Maybe you should stick to reading and not commenting, if this is the best you can do.
> Mac OS calls home every time you execute an application
Consulting a certificate revocation list is a standard security feature, not a privacy issue.
Further, there is a CRL/OCSP cache — which means that if you're running a program frequently, Apple are not receiving a fine-grained log of your executions, just a coarse-grained log of the checks from the cache's TTL timeouts.
Also, a CRL/OCSP check isn't a gating check — i.e. it doesn't "fail safe" by disallowing execution if the check doesn't go through. (If it did, you wouldn't be able to run anything without an internet connection!) Instead, these checks can pass, fail, or error out; and erroring out is the same as passing. (Or rather, technically, erroring out falls back to the last cached verification state, even if it's expired; but if there is no previous verification state — e.g. if it's your first time running third-party app and you're doing so offline — then the fallback-to-the-fallback is allowing the app to run.)
Remember that CRLs/OCSP function as blacklists, not whitelists — they don't ask the question "is this certificate still valid?", but rather "has anyone specifically invalidated this certificate?" It is by default assumed that no, nobody has invalidated the certificate.
Huh? It hashes the binary and phones home doesn’t it? Go compile anything with gcc and watch that it takes one extra second for the first run of that executable. It’s not verifying any certificates
With the sheer number of devs who use Macs, there is a 0% chance they’re going to outright prevent running arbitrary executables. Warn / make difficult, sure, but prevent? No.
The strategy is to funnel most users onto an ipad-like platform at most where they have basic productivity apps like word or excel but no ability to run general purpose programs.
Meanwhile you have a minimal set of developers with the ability to run arbitrary programs, and you can go from there with surveillance on MacOS like having every executable tagged with the developer's ID.
The greater the distance between the developer and the user, the more you can charge people to use programs instead of just copying them. But you can go much further under the guise of "quality control".
> not share that data with other parties but they definitely do not respect your privacy
not sharing my data with other parties, or using it to sell me stuff or show me ads, is what I would define as respecting my privacy; Apple checks those boxes where few other tech companies do
Their repair policy, from what I can see, is a thinly veiled attempt to get you to either pay for Apple Care or to upgrade. I got a quote to repair a colleague's MacBook Pro, less than 2 years old, which has apparent 'water damage' and which they want AUD $2,500 to repair! Of course that makes no sense, so we're buying a new one ...
> to get you to either pay for Apple Care
The problem with many self-repair people is they effectively value their time at zero.
I value my time realistically, i.e. above zero and above minimum wage. It is therefore a no brainer for me to buy AppleCare every ... single ..time. It means I can just drop it off and let someone else deal with messing around.
I also know how much hassle it is. Like many techies, I spent part of my early career repairing people's PCs. Even in big PC tower cases with easy accessibility to all parts its still a fucking horrific waste of time. Hence these days I'm very happy to let some junior at Apple do it for the cost of an AppleCare contract.
Why not pay for apple care? In the US it covers water damage
Agree. I recently went to an Apple store in Tokyo to buy an accessory. The Apple employee pulled up their store iPhone to take my payment (apple pay) and then asked me to fill out a form with my email address and there was a message about how my info would be shared with some company. I thought about going back and pretending to buy something else so I could film it. I questioned the store person, "It's apple supposed to be "Privacy first"". If it was privacy first they wouldn't have asked for the info in the first place and they certainly wouldn't be sharing it with a 3rd party.
At the very least Apple are better than Microsoft, Windows and the vendors that sell Windows laptops when it comes to respecting user experience and privacy.
I switched to iPhone after they added the tracker blocking to the OS.
Everything is a tradeoff.
I’d love to live in the F droid alt tech land, but everything really comes down to utility. Messaging my friends is more important than using the right IM protocol.
Much as I wish I could convince everyone I know and have yet to meet to message me on Signal or whatever, that simply isn’t possible. Try explaining that I am not on Whatsapp or insta to a girl I’ve just met…
Also it is nice to spend basically no time maintaining the device, and have everything work together coherently. Time is ever more valuable past a certain point.
> Apple is well on its way to ensure you can only run things they allow via app store, they would probably already be there if it wasn't for the pesky EU.
People have been saying this ever since Apple added the App Store to the Mac in 2010. It’s been 14 years. I wonder how much time has to go by for people to believe it’s not on Apple’s todo list.
If there was a time Apple was going to do it, it would have been when they switched to Apple Silicon. And they didn't.
Even if I have analytics disabled?
Genuinely asking: are there any specifics on this? I understand that blocking at the firewall level is an option, but I recall someone here mentioning an issue where certain local machine rules don’t work effectively. I believe this is the issue [1]. Has it been “fixed”?
[1] https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/01/14/apple-drops-exclu...
They're probably referring to the certificate verification that happens when you open any notarized application. Unless something changed recently, the system phones home to ensure its certificate wasn't revoked.
> Even if I have analytics disabled?
Yeah because what’s being sent is not analytics but related to notarizarion, verifying the app’s integrity (aka is it signed by a certificate known to Apple?)
This came to light a few years ago when the server went down and launching apps became impossible to slow…
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/12/mac-apps-not-opening/
> where everyone just keeps parroting what Apple says as an absolute truth.
You are free to verify.
> Apple is well on its way to ensure you can only run things they allow via app store
I don't think Apple's behavior actually reflects this if you look closely (although I can certainly see how someone could form that opinion):
As a counter example, Apple assisted with their own engineers to help port Blender to Metal (https://code.blender.org/2023/01/introducing-the-blender-met...):
> Around one year ago, after joining the Blender Development Fund and seeding hardware to Blender developers, Apple empowered a few of its developers to directly contribute to the Blender source code.
I'm assuming similar support goes to other key pieces of software, e.g., from Adobe, Maxon, etc... but they don't talk about it for obvious reasons.
The point being Apple considers these key applications to their ecosystem, and (in my estimation at least) these are applications that will probably never be included in the App Store. (The counterargument would be the Office Suite, which is in the App Store, but the key Office application, Excel, is a totally different beast than the flagship Windows version, that kind of split isn't possible with the Adobe suite for example.)
Now what I actually think is happening is the following:
1. Apple believes the architecture around security and process management that they developed for iOS is fundamentally superior to the architecture of the Mac. This is debatable, but personally I think it's true as well for every reason, except for what I'll go into in #2 below. E.g., a device like the Vision Pro would be impossible with macOS architecture (too much absolute total complete utter trash is allowed to run unfettered on a Mac for a size-constrained device like that to ever be practical, e.g., all that trash consumes too much battery).
2. The open computing model has been instrumental in driving computing forward. E.g., going back to the Adobe example, After Effects plugins are just dynamically linked right into the After Effects executable. Third party plugins for other categories often work similarly, e.g., check out this absolutely wild video on how you install X-Particles on Cinema 4D (https://insydium.ltd/support-home/manuals/x-particles-video-...).
I'm not sure if anyone on the planet even knows why, deep down, #2 is important, I've never seen anyone write about it. But all the boundary pushing computing fields I'm interested in, which is mainly around media creation (i.e., historically Apple's bread-and-butter), seems to depend on it (notably they are all also local first, i.e., can't really be handled by a cloud service that opens up other architecture options).
So the way I view it is that Apple would love to move macOS to the fundamentally superior architecture model from iOS, but it's just impossible to do so without hindering too many use cases that depend on that open architecture. Apple is willing to go as close to that line as they can (in making the uses cases more difficult, e.g., the X-Particles video above), but not actually willing to cross it.
> Apple is well on its way to ensure you can only run things they allow via app store, they would probably already be there if it wasn't for the pesky EU
What has the EU done to stop Apple doing this? Are Apple currently rolling it out to everywhere but the EU?
You’re way off base. Paranoid.
>Apple is well on its way to ensure you can only run things they allow via app store
that ship has well and truly sailed, this conspiracy might once have held water but Apple's machines are far too commercially ubiquitous for them to have any designs on ringfencing all the software used by all the industries that have taken a liking to the hardware.
> Apple is well on its way to ensure you can only run things they allow via app store,
What are you talking about? I don’t run a single app from the app store and have never felt a need to.
The EU is center-right-wing, and laughs all the way to the bank whenever someone like you falls for their "we externally pretend to be the good guys" trope. Leyen is pretty much the worst leadership ever, but they still manage to convince the politically naiv that everything is fine, because of GDPR, AI laws and huge penalties for big tech. Its sad how simple it is to confuse people.
I mean, the security features are pretty well documented. The FBI can't crack a modern iPhone even with Apple's help. A lot of the lockdowns are in service of that.
I'm curious: what hardware and software stack do you use?
Cellebrite Premium 7.69.5 iOS Support Matrix from July 2024.
https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/14344-cellebrite-premium-ju...
FBI and Apple „can't”, but 3rd party do and they do it cheaper every day.
> Apple is well on its way to ensure you can only run things they allow via app store
I'm very happy to only run stuff approved on Apple's app store... ESPECIALLY following their introduction of privacy labels for all apps so you know what shit the developer will try to collect from you without wasting your time downloading it.
Also have you seen the amount of dodgy shit on the more open app stores ?
It's a reasonable choice to do so and you can do it now. The problem starts when Apple forbid it for people who want to install on their computer what they want.
> Apple is well on its way to ensure you can only run things they allow via app store
I am totally ok with this. I have personally seen apple reject an app update and delist the app because a tiny library used within it had a recent security concerns. Forced the company to fix it.
No one is stopping you from using only the app store if you value its protection, so you need a more relevant justification to ok forcing everyone else to do so
What about all those libs and executables you likely install via brew, npm, cargo etc? Those are all applications
You are just joking right?
From a skill and trust point of view, Google is doing a lot better than apple will ever.
Including ondevice AI
Privacy is the new obscenity. What does privacy even mean to you concretely? Answer the question with no additional drama, and I guarantee you either Apple doesn’t deliver what you are asking for, or you are using services from another company, like Google, in a way that the actions speak that you don’t really care about what you are asking for.
End to end encryption by default, such that the cloud provider cannot access my data.
Easy.
> End to end encryption by default, such that the cloud provider cannot access my data.
The App Store stores a lot of sensitive data about you and is not end-to-end encrypted. They operate it just like everyone else. You also use Gmail, which is just as sensitive as your iMessages, and Gmail is not end-to-end encrypted, so it's not clear you value that as much as you say.
It’s honestly not worth engaging with the privacy fundamentalists. They are not arguing in good faith.
Apple doesn’t run open hardware, and supports features users want that involve opening a network connection back home? Hard privacy fail.
There's some weird[1] laws around privacy in Australia, where government departments are blocked from a bunch of things by law. From my perspective as a citizen, this just results in annoyance such as having to fill out forms over and over to give the government data that they already have.
I heard a good definition from my dad: "Privacy for me is pedestrians walking past my window not seeing me step out of the shower naked, or my neighbours not overhearing our domestic arguments."
Basically, if the nude photos you're taking on your mobile phone can be seen by random people, then you don't have privacy.
Apple encrypts my photos so that the IT guy managing the storage servers can't see them. Samsung is the type of company that includes a screen-capture "feature" in their TVs so that they can profile you for ad-targeting. I guarantee you that they've collected and can see the pictures of naked children in the bathtub from when someone used screen mirroring from their phone to show their relatives pictures of their grandkids. That's not privacy.
Sure, I use Google services, but I don't upload naked kid pictures to anything owned by Alphabet corp, so no problem.
However, I will never buy any Samsung product for any purpose because they laugh and point at customer expectations of privacy.
[1] Actually not that weird. Now that I've worked in government departments, I "get" the need for these regulations. Large organisations are made up of individuals, and both the org and the individual people will abuse their access to data for their own benefit. Many such people will even think they're doing the "right thing" while destroying freedom in the process, like people that keep trying to make voting systems traceable... so that vote buying will become easy again.