Tim Cook Threatened to Remove Uber From the App Store Over iPhone Tagging Tactics

[kdarling]

And then a kid inside the car will be killed by the car choosing the outsider over the occupant, and there will be outrage in the other direction.

Yep, which is why I said it becomes difficult to determine priority, something which drivers often are given slack about, but computers might not get that same freedom.

I'd like my car to defend me and my family first, others second. That's how everyone else would drive.

That's assuming your family is inside. What if it's you and your golfing or drinking buddies? You still want the car to put priority on its occupants over an outside child?

Moreover, what if it's your own child darting into the street to try to say goodbye to you? A human driver is going to do anything to avoid that child. But not a car programmed to always put its occupants first.

 

[ActionableMango]

I'm most definitely not a fan of Uber (I consider them to be on par with the mafia), but I can actually understand why they did this. Maybe the right way to do it would have been going to Apple directly from the get-go and try to get Apple to help root out the problem and identify the scammers for Uber?

How reasonable and moderate of you.

 

[sentiblue]

The Uber CEO proves himself to be more and more of an arrogant and greedy bastard everyday. Showing apparent disrespects for his customers is such a stupid thing to do.

 

[Abazigal]

Genuinely curious.. AFAIK, you're not a fan of Samsung at all. Yet, it seems like you're willing to give Uber a "free pass" simply because you have no other alternative. Is it.. fair to say that much?

Yes and no.

You have a point in that I may be biased because I like the Uber service and cannot opt to not use the same way I can choose to not use a Samsung phone.

However, the deeper reason is that in a sense, I just admire the way Uber simply muscled its way into a new market and totally disrupted the system with a new product which simply worked way better, while making the incumbents seem like complete idiots in the process. Despite the fallout.

Where have we seen this happen before? Apple under Steve Job's tenure. The way the iPhone made every smartphone before it seem like a joke. The way the iPad reinvented the tablet market. The way the MacBook Air redefined the ultra book. And all the upheavals that ensued in the market subsequently. That was fun to watch.

And to some extent, that's why I actually kinda admire Donald Trump. Because he won the elections even when it seemed like the whole world was against him. Just like how Apple has clawed its way to the top of the pecking order despite decades of critics chanting "Apple is doomed!"

I love a good underdog story, of how a new world order displaces the current world order in the greater scheme of things, even if the end result is that you create a system which may be worse than the current one. If you have seen the movie "fight club", you might know what I mean. Every revolution in history, be it technological, cultural or political, has been like this. To break the rules, you create new rules, and in turn, become part of the new status quo.

It's all just so philosophical. And wonderfully ironic when you think about it.

I just can't accord Samsung the same credit because well, simply, they haven't earned it. Not when their product philosophy is to "beat Apple" instead of making good products true to their own company ethos.

To put it succinctly, Samsung hasn't earned it.

 

[PaulRustad007]

Which would a human driver choose?

the car.....

 

[chrisbru]

Here's where I am conflicted. I love the service, even as I find some of their practices deplorable, and as long as Uber continues to operate in my country, I will never use another taxi for as long as I live.

The taxi companies really have only themselves to blame for becoming so lazy and complacent and allowing themselves to be disrupted by a better, more efficient service. The uber drivers I have encountered are way more polite, knowledgeable and have a better attitude overall compared to the taxi drivers I have come across.

That's why I pick any other ride sharing app before Uber... But still Uber before a cab.

 

[jeremiah256]

Yep, many people think this is a major problem with autonomous cars that's going to have to be dealt with, sooner or later.

If a kid darts out in front of a car, a human driver is usually going to avoid them at all costs... even if it means slamming their car into something else or driving into a ditch. Heck, many people have already done this for even pets in the road.

This first time a child in the street is killed by a self-driving car that could've easily avoided her by hitting say, a parked car instead, there will be a public backlash and a cry for programming that puts outsiders above occupants at times. Then it becomes a moral quagmire determining what combinations of people are worth more than others.

According to the CDC, if you remove the risks of the driver being alcohol-impaired, distracted, driving at high speed, or lacking visibility, the chances of an accident go down. All things that highlight the benefits of autonomous vehicles.

- autonomous vehicles will follow the speed limits, where the breaking distances take into account safety issues like kids darting between cars

- the lack of excess speeds will decrease the possibility of deaths even if there is an accident

- autonomous vehicles will follow industry best practices on distances between vehicles, so if a baby falls out of a bus, they'll be safe

- autonomous vehicles don't get distracted, get blinded by the sun, or day dream

- autonomous vehicles' 'vision' is becoming beyond what a human could hope to see in terms of degree of visibility and distances

- autonomous vehicles can react faster than a human and when vehicle-to-vehicle communication becomes standard, safety will jump by a magnitude

Not saying it's ready for prime time today, but in 5-10 years, there will be no argument that a autonomous vehicle is a much better driver than a human.

 

[Analog Kid]

Here's where I am conflicted. I love the service, even as I find some of their practices deplorable, and as long as Uber continues to operate in my country, I will never use another taxi for as long as I live.

This is why Uber gets away with their deplorable practices.

We can have long arguments about what the problems are with traditional taxis, and I know you live in a different place than I do so the problems are probably different for each, but understand that you just started a conversation with "I know what this unscrupulous, misogynistic company is doing is unethical, often illegal, and broadly destructive to society, but it's convenient so I help keep them in business".

However, the deeper reason is that in a sense, I just admire the way Uber simply muscled its way into a new market and totally disrupted the system with a new product which simply worked way better, while making the incumbents seem like complete idiots in the process. Despite the fallout.

Muscling in is a good choice of words, actually. The reason we have rules and laws is because winning is easy if you only care about one narrow objective and don't take into account how your success affects the larger society.

People like that Uber lets you hire a car by an app. Simple as it was, that is the user facing feature that endeared Uber to the world.

Problem is that they didn't just innovate to win-- they also chose to cheat, bully and deceive their way to success. In my mind, that completely invalidates their contributions.

The taxi industry looks like it does because of years of experience leading to layers of regulation. Uber is going to be re-teaching us all the reasons the taxi industry became what it did. Once Uber is no longer competing against an entrenched taxi industry, do they strike you as the type of company that will continue being as good as they can to their customers, or do they strike you as a company that will do anything to earn an extra buck? Ten years from now, Uber won't look much different than taxis did 10 years ago and we'll realize that what made Uber look shiny was that it was an upstart without history, not that it was fundamentally better.

That in itself doesn't bother me so much. What bothers me is two other things that are going to happen in that time:

• we're causing permanent damage to society by, for example, further normalizing pervasive violations of privacy and by undercutting the wages of yet another part of the service sector.
• we're enriching a man and his investors as a reward for patently bad behavior.

If Uber went away, someone else would fill the void. Probably even in Singapore. And without Uber's shady strong-arm tactics, there might be several services competing for your business. The innovations are already seeded into society, we can safely kill the company off now.

 

[vikingjunior]

1/3 of all wrecks in NYC involve Uber drivers. They're all in such a dam hurry weaving in and out of traffic cutting people off and just driving dangerously. This is the problem with predetermined fares.

 

[Analog Kid]

Not saying it's ready for prime time today, but in 5-10 years, there will be no argument that a autonomous vehicle is a much better driver than a human.

And it won't matter. People are much more forgiving to human error than they are to machines, and they invariably trust themselves more than they should.

The problem here isn't statistical, it's psychological. Look at the number of traffic deaths compared to airline crashes or terrorist attacks and then look at the attention and resources people apply to each.

I'm with @kdarling on this. Those little Waymo cars are going to be much less cute splattered with blood, and people are going to be more sympathetic to a dead or maimed 8 year old blond girl trying to save a bunny rabbit than the fat rich bastard who could afford the first generation self driving car. Fix that problem though and the fat rich bastard is going to wonder why he should pay to risk his life every time some dumb kid darts in front of his car.

 

[dilbert99]

Here's where I am conflicted. I love the service, even as I find some of their practices deplorable, and as long as Uber continues to operate in my country, I will never use another taxi for as long as I live.

The taxi companies really have only themselves to blame for becoming so lazy and complacent and allowing themselves to be disrupted by a better, more efficient service. The uber drivers I have encountered are way more polite, knowledgeable and have a better attitude overall compared to the taxi drivers I have come across.

Also add the govenment for charging larger amounts for taxi licences.
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I wonder how they found out about the geofencing.
And if Uber did it, how can we be sure that other companies and their apps don't do that, too?

I'd say a disgruntled uber employee.
You can't know what other apps do apart from automatic scanning, there are just too many to do maually.
I guess Apple could manually target the high profile apps as a warning to others.

 

[developer13245]

It's about time Apple toughened up against the big companies in the App Store.

If you're an independent developer, your app is removed immediately at the slightest infraction.

If you're Facebook (background silent audio), Spotify (in-app purchase violation), or now Uber, you get a slap on the wrist and a meeting with the CEO.

Uber should have been booted from the App Store the moment this was discovered.

Yup, they'd get a no-warning, shadow ban like any other ex-developer with their dev and personal accounts locked and emails to Apple bounced as undeliverable. Call up Apple and they be like "what account" we can't discuss closed accounts with anybody because we already deleted your data and you don't exist, sorry.

Yup. The little guy gets knee capped, and the big fish get a "Sit Down".

Face it. We are living in the era of a "Tech Mafia". The politicians are in their pocket, and we all are their suckers.

Tony Soprano would be impressed - maybe some of these made men will end up in the same place.

 

[ds2000]

Here's where I am conflicted. I love the service, even as I find some of their practices deplorable, and as long as Uber continues to operate in my country, I will never use another taxi for as long as I live.

The taxi companies really have only themselves to blame for becoming so lazy and complacent and allowing themselves to be disrupted by a better, more efficient service. The uber drivers I have encountered are way more polite, knowledgeable and have a better attitude overall compared to the taxi drivers I have come across.

I agree completely; I lived in London for 4 years and took a black cab twice (prior to Uber launching). The short journey cost me 10-12 pounds, once the driver refused to take me home because "he was on his way home and I'd have added 15 minutes" - why stop then *******?

Uber came out, the cost was 5-8 pounds, the drivers were more polite, I didn't have to wait outside trying to flag a car down in a battle against other people.

Things move on, the black cabs didn't.

 

[Abazigal]

You know, hundreds of responses later, no one has stopped to asked the obvious question - so what exactly is Uber getting away with on Android?

 

[Radon87000]

You know, hundreds of responses later, no one has stopped to asked the obvious question - so what exactly is Uber getting away with on Android?

What makes you think Uber isn't sneaking its way through another api on iOS even now?

 

[Abazigal]

What makes you think Uber isn't sneaking its way through another api on iOS even now?

I don't. But at least I now know that if and when they do pull another stunt like that, Apple has my back.

 

[diipii]

Uber is good and would be a reason to select a phone that offered it.

 

[davie18]

Yes you said you were inconvenienced but some things are more important than yours or my convenience.

LOL that's easy to say when you're not affected dude.

It's a pathetically childish and illegal way to protest and it doesn't gain them any support from the general public but if anything has the opposite effect.

If they want to protest, sure, go and protest. WHy not do it in a legal way which doesn't negatively affect innocent bystanders? WHy do you think innocent people just HAVE to be punished by the arsehole black cab drivers? It's just not necessary like you're suggesting for some bizarre reason...

Yes their tactic gets them more (very negative) attention but there's no way it gets them more support unless you can prove me otherwise.

 

[kdarling]

You know, hundreds of responses later, no one has stopped to asked the obvious question - so what exactly is Uber getting away with on Android?

No one asked because 2) the topic has become the way Apple deals differently with big companies, and 1) it's a trumped up non-issue in the first place, especially since you already give Uber your name and credit card so they certainly know who you are.

 

[Abazigal]

No one asked because 2) the topic has become the way Apple deals differently with big companies, and 1) it's a trumped up non-issue in the first place, especially since you already give Uber your name and credit card so they certainly know who you are.

Which is why you use Apple Pay.

 

[kdarling]

Which is why you use Apple Pay.

What for? Oh you mean so Uber doesn't have one of my credit card numbers? Sure. And/or use Paypal if that's a concern.

Personally I don't feel that restricted to how I pay, because in the rare case every five years or so that a card number gets compromised, the bank simply sends me a new one overnight. Now sure, if I were a poor student using a debit card, or I used only one card, I'd worry about such things.

 

[I7guy]

You know, hundreds of responses later, no one has stopped to asked the obvious question - so what exactly is Uber getting away with on Android?

I already posted that. iOS app probably meets app guidelines but android has some underhanded stuff going on.

 

[Radon87000]

I don't. But at least I now know that if and when they do pull another stunt like that, Apple has my back.

Ah so you don't know if they are doing something like that again right now. Just because they got caught once doesn't mean they won't try again and they may even succeed for all we know because now Cook has proved that he will warn them in advance every time they violate a rule. If he had removed the app which is something Jobs would have done and brought them under leash we could be more confident

Hence it's not material whether they are doing this on Android as it could also be happening on iOS

I already posted that. iOS app probably meets app guidelines but android has some underhanded stuff going on.

fingerprinting devices is allowed on Android. Unlike Apple there is equality in the Play Store. Flux and other apps get the same treatment as the rules are the same for everyone albeit less stringent

 

[Abazigal]

Ah so you don't know if they are doing something like that again right now. Just because they got caught once doesn't mean they won't try again because now Cook has proved that he will warn them in advance every time they violate a rule. If he had removed the app and brought them under leash we could be more confident

Your argument makes absolutely no sense.

That Tim Cook is willing to personally step in shows that he does have the interests of his users in mind. At the end of the day, Uber removed the offending feature from their app and that's what matters. I am willing to wait and see if anyone at google is willing to go the distance, but I won't be holding my breath. I won't be surprised if the android uber app is somehow a worse offender in this regard.

I think the narrative here is very interesting. That people are alarmed and concerned that this could happen on ios shows how much regard people have for iOS's security. That nobody raises the red flag with regards to android goes to show that people have seemingly accepted that android is full of bugs and teeming with this sort of shenanigans, to the point that this is considered expected and normal.

In short, I trust Apple to look out for me, the user, in this regard more so than Google ever will.

 

[I7guy]

Ah so you don't know if they are doing something like that again right now. Just because they got caught once doesn't mean they won't try again and they may even succeed for all we know because now Cook has proved that he will warn them in advance every time they violate a rule. If he had removed the app which is something Jobs would have done and brought them under leash we could be more confident

Actually I'm confident Jobs wouldn't have done anything. But we can ARGUE that point till the cows come home. Good for cook delicately handling a situation that turned out to be a win-win for both sides.

Hence it's not material whether they are doing this on Android as it could also be happening on iOS
fingerprinting devices is allowed on Android. Unlike Apple there is equality in the Play Store. Flux and other apps get the same treatment as the rules are the same for everyone albeit less stringent

So you admit the shady practices happen on android, but don't really know if they happen on iOS. It seems Apple employees figure it out and unlike android care for their customers privacy.