To remove the functionality completely? I don't see that.
We are still back to square one.
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iOS 14 Privacy Features: Approximate Location, Clipboard Access Warnings, Limited Photos Access and More
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We are still back to square one.
Like other APIs and other code that is part of the OS it's not something that can be removed. But like many other features it can be used or not used, and in this case even enabled or disabled. So the option to disable it does what's desired if someone doesn't want to make use of it. Like turning off WiFi or Bluetooth disables those (without removing support for WiFi or Bluetooth from the OS).
Apples and tomatoes.
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are essential in a smartphone. Contact tracing is not.
If the "optional" API has to be built right into the OS, that is a poor design.
I can block the Android from downloading the tracing API and it still works perfectly fine on Android 10.
Not even close... Apple's password manager is 100% useless for Windows, Linux, and Android (not to mention useless on other browsers on iOS or MacOS). Firefox and Chrome also had this feature for a while... Apple is late to the game.
Turning it off is turning it off. All kinds of APIs and OS functionalities are there that many people don't care about or use. The semantics of something actually being there or not doesn't make that much of a difference if it's disabled and not in use. If the particular semantics are important essentially on principle of some sort, then in this case it's something to perhaps contact Apple about to provide feedback.
Chinese people don’t necessarily have “limited wifi”, though there is no unlimited mobile data. I am also curious why they don’t include that option in iOS outside of China, given it is there already.
The level of willingness to defend every single Apple's decision or implementation here is unreal...
Turning it off is turning it off? Really? Look at the control center's Wi-Fi and Bluetooth switch.
Again and again I have pointed out, I do not want a Pandora's box on my device.
This implementation is bad. Android can work just fine on the latest OS WITHOUT this tracing thing built right into it.
There are good reasons why it was integrated in the OS, one technical and one related to privacy:
- The existing iOS Bluetooth stack cannot reliably be used by apps for contact detection purposes, particularly when the app is not in the foreground. This is why, for example, the Australian CovidSafe app (which does not use the Apple/Google API) does not work reliably.
- The API is designed to give apps that use it only limited access to the raw data to protect the users' privacy. Ironically this is why some countries do not use it, but with very mixed results (see above).
If you have no exposure notification app installed, the API does nothing.
Thank you for trying to explain how it works.
But we are still back to square one. iOS's number one competitor can make this optional on their OS.
Don't get me wrong, I think the tracing is good to have. But do at least give me the choice of not having it on my phones.
Once we lose that freedom of choice, it is gone forever.
Here's a riddle: if Apple wanted to lie to you and surreptitiously track you, why wait until the publicly visible exposure notification API came along? They could have easily tracked you all along with code hidden deep inside the OS, and you'd never know.
"Since you are already hemorrhaging, might as well put another wound on you."
Same kind of mentality.
Also, I thought I have made it clear from the get go, I am more concerned about it being misused by app developers.
Why leave that Pandora's box in there?
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That is exactly why there needs to be voices of opposition.
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With an approach like that anything and everything is in question. Nothing can really be said about anything as nothing can be trusted in any way no matter where it comes from or what it's about. It's rhetoric that basically makes it all moot.
i don’t thinkthe phone broadcasts any WiFi unless -
- you enable it to join unknow networks
or
-it sees a WiFi SSID that it knows
Or
- you have joined a hidden SSID in the past (any hidden network) and it sees a hidden network. Then it will ask it if it is one that it knows
Why not allow us to create an album that we grant authority?
Then point share requests to that album. We can move pictures in/out the album we allow the request to use.
I never understood this at all... it's not like you share an iPhone like you do with a computer.
Yup. I don't understand why Apple didn't solve it that way.
Likewise, I wish I could have a special contacts group which stuff like WhatsApp gets.
No, but just because I want to upload a photo or two to Facebook doesn't mean I want Facebook to see my entire library.
If you don't believe iOS will disable Contact Tracing with no app installed, why do you believe Google doesn't already have Contact Tracing enabled on your device?
(Which, by the way, and I don't know why this has to be pointed out so much: your OS vendor could already collect way more data using Location Services, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and so forth if they wanted to. They didn't need to add this Contact Tracing API to spy on you. If anything, if they did it to spy on you, it would be quite a footgun since now people are suspicious.)
ok, I see that. I thought it was for people who want to hide photos when other people saw their phone.
I do not recall I have said anything about "iOS will disable contact tracing with no app installed".
I simply said, I want to have it optional in the OS.
And it still does not change the fact that the choice to NOT have it on the phone is not offered.
I do not need to believe Google doesn't already have it enabled on my device, because it is in fact simply not on it.
The google play services are already blocked from downloading it.
(I find it interesting that you guys love to tell me what I shall want or what I think.)