Apple Forces Developers to Remove Screen Recording Code From iOS Apps [Update]

Then use an android device?

 

This is exactly right. I think most people here would do well to understand this. UX and app developers use tools like this all the time and they aren't spying on their users to steal their info; now if this story was about a group of nefarious individuals using this tool to do such a thing, then THAT would be a story, but it isn't because that sort of thing doesn't happen with these tools.

If you're upset about stuff like this, then you pretty much need to stop using every website out there. Guess what? MacRumors has Google Tag Manager implemented and probably uses Google Analytics. Y'all going to stop coming to MacRumors next?

 

Completely agree - I've worked in places where tools like this are a godsend.

They should have mentioned it in the privacy policy though.

 

It does not matter if they do not share my passwords with their customers, it is the fact that they CAN access my passwords that I disagreed with. And with out consent!!

 

As somebody who uses glass box on our apps, this will hinder the customer experience massively.

Glassbox allows us to improve the customer experience dramatically and make for a better product. Glassbox is right in that we don’t spy on customers. We have tens of millions of sessions weekly so I challenge you to even try that!!!!!

Moreover it offers an auditing tool which not only benefits us, but the customer ensuring they have what they want and pay for.

All in all I see how consumers believe it’s a spyware tool but customers will only see a degraded experience as a result and make my job as head of CX much harder to do.

P.S. It’s also a case of customers NEVER reading privacy policies or T&C’s. I know this because we actually improved our read rate of these documents and made it easier for our customers to read and understand our policies through data and research supplied through our Glassbox integration.... If we didn’t have Glassbox, we wouldn’t have known this. Who suffers now?

 

I use Tapatalk. Do those analytics apps work through third party apps?

 

When the news broke out - everyone here was up in arms about Apple supposedly not caring about our privacy.

Now that Apple has done something, people are now criticising Apple for “robbing” them of the very functionality Apple was being castigated for allowing in the first place.

I am more convinced than ever that the majority of posters here have their brains hardwired to automatically criticise Apple over anything they do, regardless of merit, as a knee jerk reaction.

SMH...

 

Not generally, let's say in the case of MacRumors, they can directly install GA throughout the website to track user engagement and then if MR had an app, they could use GA, Glassbox, or similar tools to do the same thing on the app side. Third party platforms would need to provide an integration to developers for this to happen (for example, eCommerce businesses using Shopify have the ability from Shopify to implement GA code into their specific Shopify sites to continue tracking people from the website through the checkout process).

For Tapatalk specifically, looks like they tried to support GA but Google prevented that from happening due to a single GA per app policy, so instead site owners rely on Tapatalk to provide analytics directly to them.

The main takeaway however, is that web analytics platforms aren't inherently evil and able to pull user information into 3rd party databases outside of the site that a user is inputting information into. User inputted PII is still only between the end user and the company they provide that data to -- analytics platforms aggregate only specific pieces of information that a story can be built around, for the purposes of improving the customer journey & general user experience on websites and apps. I believe most privacy policies & terms of services do make statements about this sort of data collection (if someone does not then they absolutely need to be) and I do agree that ToSs and PPs need to be completely revamped in general so that end users will actually pay attention to them and fully understand what they're agreeing to.

 

I think what you are seeing is the result of a company overselling its privacy spiel. If Apple weren’t so aggressive with their privacy marketing and weren’t caught several times with privacy loopholes, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal.

One could also argue that the heavily pro Apple posters are also tunnel visioned as well. It is humorous to see people complain about something, pro Apple posters say it’s not a big issue, then Apple publicly addresses the issue implying it was warranted to be noticed.

This vicious cycle is what is entertaining to me on these forums

 

That’s probably the one thing I miss from the Steve Jobs era. He would have just told the critics to go screw themselves. This new Apple under Tim Cook seems too nice and responsive to criticism, to the point where they somehow feel like they have to issue a statement to every “gate” out there, even if they are clearly minor issues that have simply been blown out of proportion by media outlets trafficking in clicks and views.

 

They work through SDK's sending information back to vendors like Glassbox. Glassbox does not own the data.

--- Post Merged, Feb 11, 2019 at 4:15 AM ---

Absolutely. This is just a case of total misinterpretation by the media and creating a shout about something they are very ignorant of.

Let's not ignore the fact that Techcrunch themselves use analytics platforms such as NewRelic which have the potential to read anything on the site and send that back to 3rd parties:

https://apps.ghostery.com/en/apps/new_relic

Evil hypocrites? Probably just the latter but you look at it, all developers use in-depth analytics to improve CX and UI.

 

The web survived for a long time before all of this bloated javascript analytics BS took over. Apps did as well. It would have continued surviving without it. The problem now is that companies who use it have a leg up on other companies—but so does anyone who spies on someone else. The crappy thing is that it puts the good companies who respect their user's privacy at a disadvantage. This is how we've gotten to this place where foreign adversaries can use corporations like FaceBook to spread propaganda, and companies like FaceBook can learn everything about you and then have data breaches that leak it far and wide. We're in this cluster-frack of a mess because of these practices. I don't care if it makes your job easier or your company wealthier—you are still causing the problem by doing this!

 

Naivety at its finest.

Almost as obtuse as saying "Henry Ford created the Model T way before we had the latest and greatest BMW's. Why do we need them?"

This is all about the media sensationalising something they don't understand and spreading fear; Which is the by-product of naivety and ignorance.

(I hit send too quick!)

May I suggest you learn more about the tools and how they support UX design and Customer Experience?

ConversionXL is a wonderful place to start containing a comprehensive blog and many articles talking about session recording and analysis. The fact is all Apple have done is push these practices' underground. While the legitimate companies will suffer and in turn the customer, those with low business morals and standards will find ways around this and monitor customers in more intrusive ways, without any mention in privacy policies.

As with all these things. Regulation is key. Not outright banning solid products and practices.