Tile Writes to EU Accusing Apple of Abuse of Power

[Abazigal]

I feel bad for Tile, and Apple has not even announced a competing product lol. But the writing is on the wall. Perhaps Tile could sell itself to Google

They still have the android market to target, but the reason why companies like Spotify and Tile are doing this is simple. The Apple ecosystem is where the best customers are, and these companies likely will not see the same degree of profitability on Android.

Tile is getting desperate and it shows.

 

[randyhudson]

I think the point is the pop-up no longer offers an "Always Allow" option, so they'd have to use a deep-link to Settings (see my previous question).

Thank God. I don't need Tile to ever know my location. The stupid popups complaining about location and not being able to run in the background are the most annoying things about tile. When did I consent to letting Tile use my battery life and privacy so they could sell their "premium" service to other people?

 

[gnasher729]

Companies who don’t hire good programmers? Spotify’s complaint was a joke. 2-3 times the paying subscriber base and they complain that someone is hurting their success?

With Spotify the counter argument against them is that Netflix is doing just fine playing with Apple's rules. I had to find the Netflix website (that was really hard, until I found it was Netflix.com), subscribed there, and their app works just fine. Netflix doesn't pay a penny to Apple, and Spotify can do the same.
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I feel bad for Tile, and Apple has not even announced a competing product lol. But the writing is on the wall. Perhaps Tile could sell itself to Google

Oh, you mean they are complaining to the EU that a non-existing product is anti-competitive?

 

[EmotionalSnow]

With Spotify the counter argument against them is that Netflix is doing just fine playing with Apple's rules. I had to find the Netflix website (that was really hard, until I found it was Netflix.com), subscribed there, and their app works just fine. Netflix doesn't pay a penny to Apple, and Spotify can do the same.

Another argument against them: the fee they pay to Apple is for them being in the App Store. Apple has to keep the servers running and provide the payment platform, etc.

 

[malkovich87]

I wanted to like Tile products but they're a privacy nightmare. Location history without any way to delete it - no thanks.

 

[tomi03]

I have a better ecosystem controlling my music with Spotify connect than using my Apple Watch as Bluetooth controller with Siri activated, I can even listen to music on a freezer with Spotify using the web player. I am sorry but the Apple ecosystem is not the holy grail, you can sync between devices using different browser services, the copy paste using a broken feature and airdrop for small files is not exactly the best use of tech ever imagined.

Also everyone uses google, soon or later everyone is tracked.

 

[nikusak]

I'm not a fan of Tile, but Apple discouraging permanent location tracking for apps yet doing it themselves and launching a product in competition to Tile most likely using technology that isn't available to third party apps is abuse of market position...

I think Apple is free to use technologies not available to third party apps.

I just decided that if I ever need a “tile” tracker it’s not going to be from Tile.

What a waste of taxpayer money this complaint is.

 

[deg0ey]

I'm not a fan of Tile, but Apple discouraging permanent location tracking for apps yet doing it themselves and launching a product in competition to Tile most likely using technology that isn't available to third party apps is abuse of market position...

This is the only part where Tile might have a glimmer of a complaint here.

The way the article is written makes it sound like they're pissed that location tracking is turned off by default and that Apple made it that way specifically to hurt Tile (rather than because it's good business sense to improve user privacy). But if they're not even making the API available to third party developers and giving users the option to choose whether to enable it or not then it does seem a little more sketchy if they come out with a virtually identical product of their own with those features enabled by default.

(To be clear, I have no idea if that's actually how the situation works in this instance, but it's the only way I can see that Tile would have valid point rather than just complaining about nothing)

 

[Deedolito]

I feel bad for Tile, and Apple has not even announced a competing product lol. But the writing is on the wall. Perhaps Tile could sell itself to Google

History repeats itself - how is Fitbit doing these days? ;-)

 

[CarlJ]

I find it some combination of astonishing and hilarious that they’re complaining, in part, about a product that has not been acknowledged to exist, much less announced, or offered for sale, or shipped. They’re basically complaining about vaporware at this point.

And Apple tightening the screws on apps that continuously track your location is a very good thing, that a lot of people favor.

 

[1144557]

History repeats itself - how is Fitbit doing these days? ;-)

Fine, 25% of the market vs Apple watch 40%.

BUT they make a different product. They weren't making $300+ full featured watches. Their bread and butter was/is the lower end market for fitness wearables; the $150-160 and under.

But let's be real, their Versa line is just a cheaper Apple watch clone. And doesnt do near the same stuff

 

[REBELinBLUE]

I don't want to be tracked in the first place, and thankfully Apple makes that more difficult. If Tile can't get behind user privacy I don't want any part of them.

Were tile forcing you to buy their product?

Obviously the people who do buy Tiles do want to be, it's not about you

 

[Ubuntu]

Companies who don’t hire good programmers? Spotify’s complaint was a joke. 2-3 times the paying subscriber base and they complain that someone is hurting their success? Yet they don’t offer great software experiences, because they can’t? Really? Eg cant run their app inside safari, oh until recently. Send sound to iOS in an unusable compressed format which has to be uncompressed and then recompressed? Really? Way to support your users dudes. Finally, can’t even support stereo groups on Mac. Yet we all know that’s possible. Why improve, when you can complain?

tile? So hard to select privacy settings. Maybe hire some programmers who know how to direct customers to appropriate locations (like everyone else)?

You’re assuming the two are mutually exclusive, when they’re not. Whatever gripes you have with Spotify’s software experiences don‘t cancel out the fact that Apple’s double standards are bad. Remember, this is the company that won’t let Spotify, Netflix, Amazon and others mention the existence of a website to sign up. Should they just play by the rules and pay the 30% like everyone else? Totally! But Apple’s willing to make the UX experience ****, which is poor.

I’m not a huge fan of Spotify (especially now that they’re ruining podcasting) but you’re assuming that they‘re not allowed to have a valid complaint because of other issues in their company - that’s just not how it works.

And with Tile, yes it’s not the most complicated solution but if Apple then release their own product that doesn’t have that step there’s definitely a reasonable argument for an unfair advantage (although it’s a grey area because first party vendors always have an advantage).

 

[bkaus]

Don't confuse disagreeing with Tile's stance as defending Apple.

If Tile can't educate their users to set up their products correctly, that's on them.

Even if the user messes up the initial setup, Settings->Privacy->LocationServices isn't exactly difficult to find.

I think some of the users are asking themselves why Tile needs to track them all the time. It is necessary for the product to work and create a distributed tracking system... But, in my case, once I realized how it worked I totally lost interest.

 

[DevNull0]

I'm a long-time customer of Tile, and ordinarily i'd have a lot of sympathy for them. But they've been treating their customers horribly since day one and I look forward to seeing Apple rub their nose in it.

For many years they had a non-replacable, non-rechargable battery so they could limit the life of the tile devices to a year and then they expected people to throw the hardware away and buy new ones. Their basic software is extremely limited in functionality. If you want to actually use the Tile, you need to pay them $3/month. And this is not for anything that requires cloud infrastructure. If you want to get a notification when your tile and phone are separated (like if you're about to lose your keys), you've got to pay the monthly fee.

Tile aslo is horrible about collecting information for no reason. If you want to be able to use their feature having all participating devices look for a lost time, you have to opt in to sharing all your location data with Tile. There is no technological reason for that. It could simply share the Tile ID number across their network and then when a device is located that particular GPS location can be sent to the network. There's no need to know where every Tile user is at all times except that Tile wants to use and sell that information for unrelated purposes.

I haven't bought a new Tile device since before I heard that Apple just might be developing a competing product and if Apple does release a similar product I'll be an early adopter. I hope Apple destroys Tile.

 

[FaustsHausUK]

Given the now-frequent data breaches and security issues affecting companies large and small, I want as few companies as possible to know my location. I choose Apple devices because I trust them more than others (but still considerably less than completely). Tile are complaining that user privacy is affecting their profitability, essentially, so they can do one.

 

[Websnapx2]

I'm not a fan of Tile, but Apple discouraging permanent location tracking for apps yet doing it themselves and launching a product in competition to Tile most likely using technology that isn't available to third party apps is abuse of market position...

Apple discourages permanent location tracking for all apps from a privacy perspective. Also, you can have "Find My" location tracking set to "Never" and "Only while using App" — just like all apps. Apple is giving you options rather than push down the developer's preferences. There is no abuse here.

 

[cocky jeremy]

FTFY

You didn't fix anything. It's a very broad category. Tile didn't make anything that was difficult to reproduce or improve upon.

 

[MacLawyer]

Tile is in a panic for good reason. As a former tile user I found their product sucks.

 

[bobbie424242]

Proof that if your company has a competiting product with Apple, Google and Microsoft, you are in real trouble.
At some point this will become unbearable and it will have to be broken up by new laws.

 

[Websnapx2]

This is the only part where Tile might have a glimmer of a complaint here.

The way the article is written makes it sound like they're pissed that location tracking is turned off by default and that Apple made it that way specifically to hurt Tile (rather than because it's good business sense to improve user privacy). But if they're not even making the API available to third party developers and giving users the option to choose whether to enable it or not then it does seem a little more sketchy if they come out with a virtually identical product of their own with those features enabled by default.

(To be clear, I have no idea if that's actually how the situation works in this instance, but it's the only way I can see that Tile would have valid point rather than just complaining about nothing)

If you look in your settings, the "Find My" app doesn't have "always-on" as an option either.

 

[Baymowe335]

Wah! We didn't evolve to make anything better and now Apple is going to take our marketshare, poor us!

The are probably blaming the virus too.

 

[citysnaps]

They steal, and “improve” while macOS Catalina is still a mess, the MacBook Pro is basically trash, and no future improvements at least in quality are near, instead we have new ugly bands.

And Apple customers continue to open their wallets purchasing Apple products at premium prices, year after year, after year, propelling the company to being one of the most valuable in the world.

"instead we have new ugly bands."

Time to switch brands and find a bit of joy?

 

[Websnapx2]

Proof that if your company has a competiting product with Apple, Google and Microsoft, you are in real trouble.
At some point this will become unbearable and it will have to be broken up by new laws.

Not at all — just improve your product. Dropbox is a perfect example.

 

[cmaier]

I'm not a fan of Tile, but Apple discouraging permanent location tracking for apps yet doing it themselves and launching a product in competition to Tile most likely using technology that isn't available to third party apps is abuse of market position...

Yes, from their perch as the minority market platform that has much less than 50% of the smart phone market, Apple is abusing its position.

Just like when Burger King won’t let me sell hamburgers inside its stores.