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And Apple can choose not to do business with a human rights violating country, but they did anyways. Soooo..no moral high ground for Apple here.

Don’t remember Apple stating they were a moral company. They just stated they try to keep their customers data private.
BTW name one country on the planet that isn’t guilty of human rights violation?
 
There's one way in which Apple could take an even more proactive stance. As much as many of us hate Google and all it represents, we still use Google's search engine because it's streets ahead of junk competition like Yahoo and Bing. If Apple really does hate Google and all it stands for, it would do well to design a better one itself.

This might not actually be so difficult do to. The Google s. e. may be a great shotgun but it makes a lousy rifle (and it became tons lousier when they took away the "search within results" feature--Google should have tried to improve that rather than crippling their browser by removing it altogether). It should be possible to figure out a way to make a s. e. that doesn't give you page after page after endless page of meaningless and unwanted cruft and does more to help you find what you are actually looking for.

If Apple (or anybody else) could design a superior s. e., that would go a long way to putting Google out of business. If Apple were willing to dip into all those billions it has stashed away doing s. f. a., surely it could pull that off (and i. m. h. o. that would be a far more intelligent use of their money than futzing around with pie-in-the-sky projects that happen to amuse Tim Cook such as Virtual Reality).
[doublepost=1533687291][/doublepost]"Apple doesn’t respect privacy in a 100% reliable way" Damn right. It's a case of head-scratching schizophrenia that in some ways Apple goes to such elaborate lengths to protect our privacy but doesn't give us a way to switch off the camera on our iMacs or run an audio-only FaceTime.
 
I've been disappointed with Apple's privacy "stance", because it seems to mostly be posing. Sure, they don't collect a lot of data and anonymize what they do collect, aside from stuff that needs to be tied to personal info, like for billing. But why is it that the last several major iterations of iOS all automatically turn on every cloud "feature" by default?

I sign into iCloud on any device via the iCloud control panel, whether its mine or someone else's, and the phone automatically sets the photo prefs to upload every photo on the device to my iCloud account. I don't want my photos - or anyone else's for that matter - on my iCloud account.

I buy a new phone and I have to go through it and "opt out" of nearly every feature. I don't want or use Find My iPhone, Find My Friends, iCloud Photo Library, iCloud Photostream, iCloud Notes, etc. I have to turn everything off before I add my personal info. It makes buying a new iPhone really suck for those first couple of hours.

Speaking of new iPhones: for the first few days of ownership, I have to continually police my privacy settings, otherwise some of them "helpfully" turn on iCloud access and start sharing stuff with Apple. I still spot check every week or two just to be sure.

Thats just the iPhone. How about the Mac?

I have to keep my System Preferences panel open to the "Keyboard" pane, with "Dictation" selected. Why? Because thats the only place I can look to see if the microphone helpfully turned itself on. Its not like the old days, where one could select input devices, highlight the mic, and drop the volume down to zero - I also have to keep the Audio Midi Setup panel open, with the Built-in Microphone selected so I can make sure the mic is muted. If I reboot the machine, the mic gets turned on. Sometimes, when I switch user accounts, I find that the mic is active in the other account. Was it listening the whole time, even though the account wasn't active?

Random keystrokes bring up a dialog that asks me if I want to enable Dictation. No, if I wanted it, it would be set up already.

Signing into a forum or business account always brings up that ever-helpful dialog that offers to fill in the password with some complex batch of alphanumerics, so it can then save them all with Apple. How thoughtful: "We'll create and ultra-secure complex password (that isn't as hard to guess as a good passphrase but impossible for you to remember) and then save it for you so it can be shared amongst your devices via our cloud server. Which might be ours, or it might belong to either Google or Amazon, we forget. But its secure, trust us."

Why is it so important for Apple to get me to save everything I do with my computer on their servers? Why do they insist on handling my photos, notes, passwords, and documents? Why not just offer the services to people who want them and stop trying to get in the middle of everything? Is it so hard to have a card pop up during the setup of a new phone that says "We're going to ask a few simple questions and see if you would be better served by using our cloud services", and then ask the person if they do a lot of sharing, publishing, note-taking, etc?
 
Petty you can't say the same about Google.

Meanwhile on iOS 11.4.1, Apple's "disabled' the option "System" under Settings >> General >> iPhone Storage..

I wonder why (if i didn't know). You could previously turn off allot of crap you did't want... now you have no choice but to leave them on.
 
You completely missed the point didn't you?

It has nothing to do with me using them or not and everything to do with highlighting Apple's hypocracy.

Apple's only too happy to crow about privacy when it suits them but is even more happy to take kickbacks from Google to be the default search engine on iOS.
[doublepost=1533675750][/doublepost]
We've been over this before but it seems some people completely missed the memo that all of the data is completely anonymous and feel the need to regurgitate falsehoods


Apple also allows you to change the default search engine. Just like Firefox. If the user is ok with using Google then go for it. Also "all of the data is completely anonymous" that is the ultimate regurgitate falsehood.

Remember Google refused to update the original iOS Map app because it was trying to strongarm Apple into releasing more user information.
[doublepost=1533694931][/doublepost]
I buy a new phone and I have to go through it and "opt out" of nearly every feature.
BS! During the iPhone setup you have the option of skipping (opt out, not now or whatever you want to call it). When I updated to High Sierra all of my same options were still disabled. I will bet then when I upgrade to the new iOS all of the iCloud and app integrations will still be the same.
[doublepost=1533695364][/doublepost]
Tim Cook was CEO when iAd was discontinued, but not when it was started back in 2010.

As for dropping Facebook integration, that's something Apple has done, in both MacOS Mojave and iOS 12. https://appleinsider.com/articles/1...acebook-twitter-integration-from-macos-mojave
Also the marketing exec running iAd left because he was upset that Apple would not open up to releasing more data. He went on to describe the need of 3 levels of approval (which includes a board member) to get access to any data in the user's profile.
 
On of the reasons I’ll keep buying Apple products.

If only they cared about freedom of speech in the same way.
I assume you're hinting at Alex Jones here and if so I hate to break it to you but Apple, as a PRIVATE entity, is able to remove any content it sees fit to remove. Free Speech does not apply here.
 
I assume you're hinting at Alex Jones here and if so I hate to break it to you but Apple, as a PRIVATE entity, is able to remove any content it sees fit to remove. Free Speech does not apply here.
Besides that guy is a loon! He's been taking s**t for years now. Did you Bush was building FEMA camps to lock up anyone who voted against him?!?! LOL
 
Where is the non Scribd version? This is really crappy. Yes, I never want to subscribe to Scribd nor use facebook. It seems your servers are quite limited if you can't even host a simple document. Seems like you guys are in cahoots with facebook to get our private information.
 
Besides that guy is a loon! He's been taking s**t for years now. Did you Bush was building FEMA camps to lock up anyone who voted against him?!?! LOL
Oh I agree 1000000000%. Jones is ****ing nutcase in EVERY sense of the word
 
Apple:
Privacy is a right, unless you're in China.
Human rights are a right, but more so if you are a minority in the US.
Free speech is important, but not if we disagree with you as a company.

Used to work for them and love them, but this is what they've become.

Board should fire Tim and find someone who can build "insanely great" Macs, Mobile Devices, and Services, without all the other nonsense.

LOL.. the board should... you seem clueless what boards are there for. It's not to please internet forum users like yourself. Considering Tim just laid a $1trillion dollar golden egg for them last week, he isn't going anywhere fast and especially not from anything the board would do to him. I do agree the products are quite **** lately.
 
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Last month, the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce sent letters to Apple and Google parent company Alphabet with 16 multi-part questions about how the companies handle customer data.

house-committee-commerce-apple.jpg

Apple has since responded to the letter, reiterating the company's belief that "privacy is a fundamental human right" and that it purposely designs its products and services to minimize its collection of customer data.

Timothy Powderly, Director of Federal Government Affairs at Apple, responded on behalf of Apple CEO Tim Cook:Apple provided detailed responses to all 16 questions, and background information on location services, in its full-length letter.


Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Apple Responds to U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce: 'The Customer is Not Our Product'


LOL - should have just summarized it as: "Google it"
 
False equivalence. Is apple supposed to block google services from safari and remove their apps from the app store because you believe they are hypocritical?
El oh el. I see what you tried to do there. We're not talking about stripping them from Safari because they can't do that. Well they probably could but that would be a whole other issue. If Apple truly cared about user privacy as Cook likes to boast that they do then Apple wouldn't demand kickbacks from Google to be their default search engine and would remove them from iOS but as they say money talks....
 
It's no surprise that Google already has plans to scrap Android and move on to their next OS that shares a lot of the same philosophies as Apple/iOS.
There are already internal plans to scrap Android and introduce an OS locked down like Apple.
You mean Fuschia?? If so, you should probably clarify that as a rumor in some tech circles rather than your statement of fact. Unless you have a reference.
 
What services of Google's is Apple using? The only thing at this point I can think of is the default search engine, in which Google pays Apple handsomely to have access to. It's easy to swap it out for something else. It has also been rumored that Apple is working on their own search engine, and having recently hired Google's head of search and AI, I have a feeling we'll be seeing that come to fruition in the next year or two.

As for human rights in China, Apple has done more than any other company in making sure that employees are treated fairly at all of their manufacturers and suppliers. They have third party independent auditing teams that check in with them constantly to make sure high standards are being upheld. They've gone further than any other company in this regard. As for manufacturing in China, that's because there is not the infrastructure to handle it in the U.S. Could we someday? Sure, but there aren't enough skilled workers and high end equipment to handle everything that goes into not only building the iPhone but the supply chain behind it. That will take time as the U.S. is currently being pivoted from a services driven economy back into one where everyone works in a factory like the early 1900s.

Nice completely unrelated straw man argument there at the end, though.
If it's easy to swap out Google services then why don't they. Come on let's be real. Google analytics etc etc.
Apple have lots of shell companies that act as a middle man, and I guarantee that the privacy policies of those shell companies are not just a copy and paste job, (with the word Apple substituted of course), from the Apple website. If you think for one second that those shell companies don't engage in the kind of practices that Apple distance themselves from I have a bridge to sell you.
If I don't like how someone does something and it's fundamental, not just important, but fundamental to my thinking then I'd not do business there. If I was a black man and a member of the KKK offered to cut my hair for a cheap price, I'd decline. See where I'm going?
 
This is why Apple will always be the suppliers for computers, tablets, and phones for my company. Google is an advertising company, that’s it. As far as China goes, they are required by law to do certain things there. They have zero control over China’s policies. Google, hilariously, is fighting to get back into China.

Apple stood up to the feds in the face of harsh rhetoric. I respect them
[doublepost=1533710021][/doublepost]
If it's easy to swap out Google services then why don't they. Come on let's be real. Google analytics etc etc.
Apple have lots of shell companies that act as a middle man, and I guarantee that the privacy policies of those shell companies are not just a copy and paste job, (with the word Apple substituted of course), from the Apple website. If you think for one second that those shell companies don't engage in the kind of practices that Apple distance themselves from I have a bridge to sell you.
If I don't like how someone does something and it's fundamental, not just important, but fundamental to my thinking then I'd not do business there. If I was a black man and a member of the KKK offered to cut my hair for a cheap price, I'd decline. See where I'm going?

Prove it
 
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Let's see. Apple is fighting with Samsung yet they are buying their components for their phone. Apple can certainly condemn (comment) on Googles' privacy policy and still use their cloud based services. No hypocrisy here. And in addition, they are bound to adhere to local laws, which in some countries may be different than what we here in the USA are used to.

So what is your point? Did you quit buying apple products due to your conviction of their supposed hypocrisy. Did you put your money where your mouth is?
I've actually hugely stopped buying Apple products. I won't lie, I like them a lot and dislike Windows, but I'm looking for a way out.
Of course it's hypocrisy.
 
This is why Apple will always be the suppliers for computers, tablets, and phones for my company. Google is an advertising company, that’s it. As far as China goes, they are required by law to do certain things there. They have zero control over China’s policies. Google, hilariously, is fighting to get back into China.

Apple stood up to the feds in the face of harsh rhetoric. I respect them
[doublepost=1533710021][/doublepost]

Prove it
Prove they don't.
Seriously tho, tell me you don't believe Apple have shell companies with a straight face. While you're doing that, tell me that the T's & C's and policies of these shell companies are identical to Apple.
Yeah, I thought so.......

In fact, let me just ask you straight;
1. Do you believe Apple operate shell companies?
2. Do you believe Apple T's & C's/policies are all but identical to these shell companies.
 
Prove they don't.
Seriously tho, tell me you don't believe Apple have shell companies with a straight face. While you're doing that, tell me that the T's & C's and policies of these shell companies are identical to Apple.
Yeah, I thought so.......

In fact, let me just ask you straight;
1. Do you believe Apple operate shell companies?
2. Do you believe Apple T's & C's/policies are all but identical to these shell companies.

Proof? Links? Believing is irrelevant. Why not talk about aliens while you're at it.
 
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