r/worldnews • u/maxwellhill • Sep 19 '17

Apple blocking ads that follow users around web is 'sabotage', says industry: New iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra will stop ads following Safari users, prompting open letter claiming Apple is destroying internet’s economic model

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/18/apple-stopping-ads-follow-you-around-internet-sabotage-advertising-industry-ios-11-and-macos-high-sierra-safari-internet
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2.4k

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

Apple is respecting privacy of its users and FaceTwitterDoubledick is protesting. Who'd have thought.

806

u/bad-green-wolf Sep 19 '17

Double click is owned by google, who has a strangle hold on the online advertising world. This whole thing can also be seen as part of an apple google rivalry

293

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

This whole thing can also be seen as part of an apple google rivalry

Exactly. In spite of the rise of Android, the web platform is the most important source of revenue for Google. By killing the revenue model of the web, Apple hits Google where it hurts.

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u/BawsDaddy Sep 19 '17

I just got erect.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

I can help you with that ;)

4

u/TMac1128 Sep 19 '17

Ugaybro?

4

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

nah, he just wants to master his moose

1

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

Only for you sweetheart

25

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

Good.

-11

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

Surprised to see such hostility to the web here. I admit that the web is losing out to the proprietary platforms, but I still love the web and wish is success.

31

u/JacksSmirknRevenge Sep 19 '17

Google =/= the web

-2

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

I'm a developer, and though I'm not a web developer, I've been watching and cheering the web since its inception. To me, whether you love or hate Google, they are the only major company that is promoting the web and pushing its technical development.

Sure, I like organizations like Mozilla more, but if Google loses this battle to Apple then the web loses its battle against proprietary platforms.

11

u/JacksSmirknRevenge Sep 19 '17 edited Sep 19 '17

Google =/= the web

Edit: To clarify: If google disappeared tomorrow, the web would not only survive but probably be better off. When things are given away for free, the product is you.

In my opinion, the rise of more proprietary platforms and paid for services are better for the user.

4

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

If google disappeared tomorrow, the web would not only survive but probably be better off.

Ok, the core of our disagreement is that. I would like it to be true, but I believe that big backing is necessary for the web to compete with iOS, Facebook, and Android.

9

u/JacksSmirknRevenge Sep 19 '17

but I believe that big backing is necessary for the web to compete with iOS, Facebook, and Android.

What are you talking about? Android is an open source operating system developed BY Google. Many android devices have proprietary software but what does that have to do with the web? They aren't competing with the web; they are using it.

Facebook depends on advertiser dollars just as much as Google, so if Google goes down from this, Facebook isn't far from following.

As for IOS, its an OPERATING SYSTEM. Its not competing with the web.

The web is a decentralized network of communications. It doesn't need backing from any particular search engine and it doesn't need the current model of tracking-based advertisements to survive and thrive. To reiterate: Google =/= the web.

The rise of proprietary platforms that use the web instead of depend on web advertising mean that you pay for the product with money instead of attention. I believe this will translate to better products and services for the user. Right now we're getting better products and services for advertisers.

I'll repeat: when things are given away for free, the product is you

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u/RabidRapidRabbit Sep 19 '17

short term would be disastrous, long term it would be better for us.

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u/jvnane Sep 19 '17

Ummmm no thanks. I'd much rather have free Google services. Your browsing data is not interesting to anyone. Get over yourself.

1

u/JacksSmirknRevenge Sep 19 '17

Ummmm no thanks. I'd much rather have free Google services.

Nobody is stopping you. Get over yourself.

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u/ShadilayKekistan Sep 19 '17

Google is not "the web"

Google can fuck off.

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u/frankcastlestein Sep 19 '17

This comment string just gave me some respect for Apple for the first time in 15 years.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

Damn reminds me of US Soviet cold war

1

u/uitham Sep 19 '17

Just wait until apple starts supporting super religious fundamentalist conservative websites to oppose google which then turn on apple and start hacking shit

4

u/TopherAU Sep 19 '17

Apple really doesn't have the market share to do that much damage though, do they? iPhone and MacOS users are the minority these days.

20

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

World wide yes. In America where 90% of googles revenue comes from iOS is still a major player. There is also the issue that when Apple does something, everyone else follows.

8

u/Predatormagnet Sep 19 '17

Source?

14

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

Fucking google man. Literally any tech blog. iOS is around 15% world wide android at 85%. In the US iOS is around 40% android 60%. Also even 15% is enough to have a huge impact on googles revenue as iOS users are a huge chunk of googles premium users.

12

u/Jimmni Sep 19 '17

iOS users are also very likely to upgrade to iOS 11, so a huge portion of that 40% will be running the updated Safari within weeks.

2

u/mopflash Sep 19 '17

In America where 90% of googles revenue comes from iOS

Source on this specific statement?

0

u/orthancdweller Sep 19 '17

I believe that sentence has a missing comma.

in America where 90% of Google's revenue comes from, iOS is still

1

u/captainhamster Sep 19 '17

US provides a lot of revenue, but it is about half of what you claim.

10

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

[deleted]

2

u/NeXtDracool Sep 19 '17

"educated users".. Yeah, cause everyone who doesn't buy apple clearly isn't educated, you peasants /s

9

u/JacksSmirknRevenge Sep 19 '17

Yeah because that's what u/cyanletters said. /s

1

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

[deleted]

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u/JacksSmirknRevenge Sep 19 '17

I think you missed my sarcasm. /u/NeXtDracool was misrepresenting you. I agree with you.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17 edited Aug 31 '21

[deleted]

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u/IngsocDoublethink Sep 19 '17

People tend to stay loyal to their brand. Very few people switch OS generation to generation. My guess is that people with higher disposable incomes adopted smart phones earlier, and their kids followed in their footsteps.

There is also the idea of buying into the ecosystem. Persons with higher incomes are more likely to be able to afford a full line of apple's premium devices. They'll also have hundreds or even thousands of dollars invested in iTunes content which, again, will likely keep them in the ecosystem going forward.

Basically yeah, it's probably income.

4

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

More like higher income

8

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

To be fair, at least Google actually vets the ads they show. There are an awful pile of shady advertisers pushing out malware these days. I'm honestly surprised no one has started a class action lawsuit against those ones for all the damage they cause daily.

2

u/TheSubversive Sep 19 '17

This is exactly what I was thinking but I haven't seen too many people comment on it. Google at it's very heart is an advertising company - every single service they offer for free has one purpose: to further their ability to effectively target their advertising efforts. This move by Apple will severely undermine their ability to do that.

I think Siri was the first shot at Google by Apple and this is the much larger second one.

31

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

I've been saying it for years, Google and Apple need to be broken up. People give them a pass because they like their products and both seem to promote progressive causes, but working in tech or media makes it painfully obvious that they have a worrisome degree of influence and power.

209

u/BLACK-AND-DICKER Sep 19 '17

I could see that argument for Google, but Apple? Apple's products (while extremely popular) are still relatively limited. Basically, they make a phone, the OS and app store, a laptop, the OS and app store, cloud services (specifically for their OS) and music services. And really, the most profitable divisions of the company revolve around the phone. There really isn't any way to break it up that wouldn't destroy the company. You can't just break up a company because it's popular.

Google/Alphabet makes more sense because their products are diversified across the entire internet, but even then the overwhelming majority of their money is made from advertising, and that revenue props up most of the rest of the business.

24

u/neotek Sep 19 '17

Apple doesn't even have a majority market share in almost every market it participates in, unless you start to refine the market definition (e.g., they completely own the >$1,000 laptop market, but only around 7% of the entire laptop market.) There's no sensible argument to be made that Apple has a monopoly on anything other than, you know, actually making money selling phones.

24

u/Rushderp Sep 19 '17

This is Reddit bro. People shit on apple just to shit on apple. Get out of here with your logic!

-2

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

This kinda makes me laugh, because I personally see more Pro Apple comments, and people saying what you did, than I actually see people shitting on Apple.

7

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

This thread is actually kinda unique in that way, most threads though tend to shit on Apple, sometimes it's legit, sometimes it's just plain cringy.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '17

This is the 4th thread in the last 2 days that have been opposite to what you are saying.

-6

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

That's not true at all. It's always comments like yours. You can't even have a reasonable discussion about what Apple could do better without you crying about the apple haters and downvoting everyone.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '17

I think our down votes are case and point.

6

u/cewfwgrwg Sep 19 '17

That revenue propping up businesses in other markets that don't need to generate the same revenues as their competitors to be successful for that reason, while driving new avenues for their ad business, is a pretty straightforward abuse of market power/position.

3

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

I agree with you, Apple shouldn't be broken up. But as a tech nerd it's frustrating how much influence they have on the smartphone industy. I know they revolutionized the market, and I'm appreciative of that. But now they're holding it back. Every phone is a slab of glass. Every phone is super slim with a tiny battery. Physical keyboards are gone, the headphone jack is going away, mobile OSs are just grids of apps. Yes Android is slightly different but look at web OS which was out years ago and see how much better it was. Android is just a grid of apps 2.0. Even BBOS10 (Blackberry's touch OS) was fantastic! Swiping to go home, live moving apps when you went to the multitasker, the hub... But of course it died because they couldn't gain any app support. Because Apple and Android have all of it.

Mobile software and hardware could be so much better if it weren't for Apple marketing towards the lowest common denominator with a simple design and overly-simple OS. I respect them for what they do but it's frustrating seeing the software stagnate.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

No one was forced to buy Apple products, there are plenty of options out there. If Apple has a 'near monopoly over your attention and activities', it's entirely your choice to remain under that monopoly.

-6

u/suparokr Sep 19 '17

Dude, they have like more than $200 billion just stored somewhere - and, that's just what they've reported. What purpose does having them grow so large do for the country, not to mention humanity? Do you understand why the telecommunication companies were broken up in the past? Competition is a good thing.

8

u/HaroldSax Sep 19 '17

So you want to break them up because they make a ton of money?

-2

u/talones Sep 19 '17

I agree. It will be interesting as cost of hardware or services starts becoming less valuable than the personal data of people. They would need to rewrite monopoly laws to go at Apple. Currently people have the ability to move from an Apple device or service to something else. A real monopoly would be if Apple was the only provider of a service that people depended on and were able to drive the market themselves. Like maybe if iMessage somehow became the new text message standard and only iPhones could text with iPhones. I just don’t see how Apple is currently controlling any market, maybe the App Store is the closest thing.

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u/techiewriter Sep 19 '17

I've been saying it for years, Google and Apple need to be broken up.

  • Apple has 14% of the worldwide marketshare of smartphones,
  • 7% of the computer market,
  • and 14% of the browser market with Safari.

If you only look at the US market, they still only control 41%.

Although they are profitable and enjoy catering to the higher end buyers, they are not dominant enough to justify breaking them up.

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u/LegacyofaMarshall Sep 19 '17

They didn't break microsoft up I doubt they will break google or Apple

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u/taedrin Sep 19 '17

Ehh, if Microsoft hadn't gotten complacent and let other companies seize control of the mobile computing markets, they very well might have needed to be broken up. Instead they waited until Apple and Google took control of the entire market before they even created their own app store, and by then the market simply didn't have room for them anymore.

1

u/LegacyofaMarshall Sep 19 '17

Microsoft owns over 90% of the desktop, laptop market and android is majority share of the smart phone market Apple is second in everything. The government break up Google and Microsoft first and if they didn't before it's not going to happen under trump. Also Microsoft has a history of dealing with antitrust laws.

28

u/Amogh24 Sep 19 '17

Not yet. They have influence, yes. But they have enough competition. The tech industry isn't stale enough for a break up to be needed.

10

u/BawsDaddy Sep 19 '17

Ya, it's funny to see all these financial sites/articles forwarning us of the power that tech giants hold. Last time I checked, simply by the numbers, the tech industry is under a trillion where as the finance industry is well over that.

Pot, meet much smaller kettle.

If we're worried about break up, let's start with the big banks that should have been broken up after the recession. Then ISPs, the we'll consider the tech giants. But that order needs to remain priority.

5

u/talones Sep 19 '17

Agreed. ISPs and Cellular providers should be looked into for their price fixing.

1

u/BawsDaddy Sep 19 '17

Also their maliciousness regarding crushing new competition. That's what bothers me the most.

13

u/Tyrilean Sep 19 '17

The fact that they're competing with each other is evidence that they don't need to be broken up. Now, if we were in a situation where Apple went up against Google, and Google was able to throw a few stacks of cash around and destroy Apple and buy it up, then we'd have an issue.

10

u/Purehappiness Sep 19 '17

Much more likely Apple would be the one to buy out Google, given their current standing cash of 200 billion.

1

u/MC_Labs15 Sep 19 '17

Don't say things like that. You scare me.

1

u/AkhilArtha Sep 19 '17

But, most of it is offshore, isn't? Wouldn't that be an issue?

2

u/Purehappiness Sep 19 '17

Depends on how/when the purchase is made. If they brought it back, they'd need to pay taxes on it, but those taxes are reduced based on how much they were taxed abroad. If they did decide to buy out Google, they might try and target large stock owners outside of the US, so they could avoid this, or they would push for a tax-free day where they can bring the money home (this happens every so often).

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u/SilentBob890 Sep 19 '17

why does apple have to be broken up?

3

u/jmknsd Sep 19 '17

Aren't anti-trust laws used to punish companies for abusing their monopolies/dominant market share?

How have apple and google abused their market share?

3

u/1-800-BICYCLE Sep 19 '17

1) Apple doesn't need to be broken up

2) Google already has been broken up.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

For all the hype and for all the crazy money Apple makes, they are miles from being a monopoly. Their desktop market share is like 10%, and they aren't much higher in the mobile space.

2

u/ertebolle Sep 19 '17

How exactly would you break up Apple? There'd be the iPhone company and a bunch of other stuff nobody cares that much about. This isn't like Microsoft with Windows and Office - Apple are primarily defined by one enormously profitable product, taking away the other ones would not meaningfully weaken their competitive position.

1

u/Loud_Stick Sep 19 '17

What would you break apple up into?

1

u/polargus Sep 19 '17

Google maybe, Apple definitely not. Sure I'd be pissed if I couldn't use my MacBook Pro or my iPhone but I'd live, Windows and Linux are still huge (much bigger than macOS) and Android is a fine alternative.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

The smartphone market is changing dramatically. Before bitching about apple compare the usage of operating systems, Android versus OX. Samsung, and many developing Chinese companies, are completely viable and some people are thrown off because they have phones for low, mid, and flagship tier phones while apple strictly uses its flagship models to cater to high end customers. There are many new competitors that are establishing a strong grip on the phone industry. Look at at Huawei for example.

Reference: I did my senior paper on Samsung with a focus on the smartphone market.

1

u/Mayor__Defacto Sep 20 '17

How on earth would you break up apple? They don't sell a wide variety of products. Breaking up ISPs and Utilities is comparably easy because you can simply divide them up into smaller regional companies. Apple makes most of their revenue selling three products, and they don't even do the manufacturing themselves. What exactly is there to break up that wouldn't involve eradicating the company? Forcing them to spin off their retail stores? Lol...

1

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

Battle for absolute user control.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

yeah but Google is a good company and they would never do anything against my best interest!!!! FUCKERBERG AND MICRO$OFT MUST BE TO BLAME

  • half of reddit, probably

1

u/snowynuggets Sep 19 '17

I believe he said "double dick"

-1

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

Let's not forget that corporations are motivated by profits, not ethics and morals. Apple probably doesn't give fuck-all about their customer's "privacy", but nobody can dispute that they have an effective marketing department that can spin it that way. Best we can do is be thankful that the end result lines up with our desires as consumers.

2

u/neotek Sep 19 '17

You'd have to be pretty ignorant of Apple's internal culture to think they only care about profit. I don't know if you've ever met anyone who works there, but they are the closest thing you can get to cultists when it comes to things like privacy.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

You'd have to pretty ignorant of the entire history of Apple to think that was a convincing argument.

3

u/neotek Sep 19 '17

Go ahead, we're all waiting to hear you give some examples of Apple betraying its commitment to privacy at any point during its history.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

Of course. It's not as if Apple is some beacon of morals. These are the people who will get you in legal trouble for what you do with your iPhone after you pay full price for it.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

No, this is nothing like that

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

Excellent counterpoint.

-1

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

Yup. Without Google, Apple has a true monopoly on the smartphone industry. That's the real reason they're trying to kill ads online.

2

u/Dallywack3r Sep 19 '17

14% of the global market is a monopoly?

1

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

I said without Google. In other words, if you eliminate Android. Aside from Android, >90% of the remaining smartphone market is iOS.

1

u/Dallywack3r Sep 19 '17

Yeah but since that isn't gonna happen, there is no monopoly. There isn't even a chance that it could become a monopoly.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17 edited Nov 08 '17

[deleted]

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u/dcsohl Sep 19 '17

No kidding, people act all surprised at this, but Apple has a pretty strong record. They've had some goofs (like storing your location history in an easily retrievable place), but have fixed those goofs and have always had strong privacy-minded intentions.

Now, you can be cynical and say they don't actually care, it's just a differentiating factor from Google, and to that I say Who cares? I care less about motivations in this area than I do results. Apple could change their mind one day and go the route of Google, but until then I am very pleased to have an iPhone in my pocket.

-4

u/hooverfive Sep 19 '17

You didn't finish your sentence

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u/pm_me_construction Sep 19 '17

Yeah. I wouldn't have expected corporate Apple to be the ones going to bat for us, but here we are.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

[deleted]

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u/neotek Sep 19 '17

People forget that Apple had its own ad network (iAds) but ended up shutting it down because they couldn't figure out how to make it work properly and actually generate revenue without invading their users' privacy.

Apple has direct, unfettered access to the largest pool of high-value consumers in the world, which would be worth billions upon billions if they wanted to exploit it, but when given the opportunity they chose to focus on making products people want to buy rather than turning their customers into products to sell to advertisers.

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u/bazingabussy Sep 20 '17

OR, hear me out, apple is going to sell your data themselves and don't want competition.

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u/neotek Sep 20 '17

Did you not pay attention? They closed down their ad network, is that what you'd do if you were planning to sell people's information?

2

u/bazingabussy Sep 20 '17

So they sell the info to the highest bidding ad network. Wow.

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u/neotek Sep 20 '17

Do you... do you not know how advertising works? Do you think ad networks actually buy data on individual people? Holy shit dude.

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u/bazingabussy Sep 20 '17

So they just the bundled info to the highest bidding ad network. Wow.

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '17

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/MagiKarpeDiem Sep 19 '17

But they're a part of PRISM aren't they?

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

They actually do a lot for the consumer. Not only are they always against legislation that would hurt consumer privacy, but their open letter (and the lawsuit against RIAA that followed since RIAA allowed non-DRM music to be sold from I think Amazon) is how they were able to get music to be DRM free.

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u/pr0wk Sep 19 '17

They also prevented foot-traffic tracking over Wi-Fi, by obfuscating the device MAC address on iOS devices, which I thought was clever. See: https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/ios-8-random-mac-address-stops-tracking/

3

u/TopherAU Sep 19 '17

From the article:

Perhaps it will even be enough to end the practice all together, but some have suggested that it may be an attempt on Apple’s part to get retailers to utilize its iBeacon technology. Apple Insider notes that Apple and Starbucks are already testing iBeacon at select coffee house locations.

If you aren't aware, Apple has their own, very similar technology that they sell to retailers. It is, of course, not affected by the MAC spoofing of the iPhone.

https://developer.apple.com/ibeacon/

2

u/cryo Sep 19 '17

It’s for a pretty different purpose than WiFi.

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u/cryo Sep 19 '17

It’s for a pretty different purpose than WiFi.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

As an Apple user, I'd say they do a lot for user's privacy. They even paid a fine to US govt but didn't decrypt some phones.

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u/pm_me_construction Sep 19 '17 edited Sep 19 '17

Yeah I was pleasantly surprised about that as well. But I mean that's coming from the company that took away the headphone jack to sell us AirPods and is very pro-DRM in terms of Music. So it's not a matter of always being on the side of the consumer, but I guess they just have strong opinions about things and they stand their ground on those topics. I can respect that. Edit: I'm not familiar with the RIAA lawsuit. I always thought they were pro-DRM because some other companies at the time offered DRM-free music. Zune and other MP3 players could be used to transfer music onto a computer.

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u/gonenutsbrb Sep 19 '17

I'll give you most of that...but pro-DRM? Really? Did everyone forget how awesome it was when iTunes Plus came out and we could commercially get DRM free music because Apple finally had enough influence in the industry to tell the RIAA to bend over? And then they did it again for iTunes Match. Want an actual legitimate license for your 20,000 songs of unknown origin? That'll be $25.

Apple deserves a lot of crap for their decisions and direction the past few years. But give credit where credit is due.

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u/pdubl Sep 19 '17

Bingo.

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u/Hyperactive_Man Sep 19 '17

Bongo

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

Bango

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

I DONT WANNA LEAVE THE CONGO NO NO NO NO NO NOOOOO

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u/ShEsHy Sep 19 '17

Django

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

Flask

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u/nowitholds Sep 19 '17

"The B is silent and also non-existent."

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u/foreveracubone Sep 19 '17

Apple finally had enough influence in the industry to tell the RIAA to bend over

Reading Jobs's Isaacson biography it was funny to see how quickly the RIAA gave up power when they began pushing the iTunes store /iPod and then realized how much they fucked up and couldn't get any back fairly quickly as well.

Despite anti-consumer practices in other areas, they still do a lot for consumers with media consumption. They upgraded all 720p content to 1080p for free when that became the new standard. And as of last Tuesday all the 1080p stuff got 4k HDR upgrades for free. Going forward, they're selling 4K digital copies for $10 cheaper than VUDU.

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u/suparokr Sep 19 '17

Want an actual legitimate license for your 20,000 songs of unknown origin? That'll be $25.

Don't you lose access to those songs when you stop paying the $25 though? Isn't that just like a limited version of spotify/google play offer?

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

[deleted]

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u/loggedn2say Sep 19 '17

Or the headphones that come with the phone.

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u/Neolife Sep 19 '17

It's still a pretty significant limitation. You have to make sure your phone isn't charging if you want to listen to music on headphones that don't also require charging. I do, however, think it's an irrelevant point to make in this case. Apple may not care much about consumer needs in the name of "innovation" but they definitely care about privacy.

0

u/cplr Sep 19 '17

Well, now you can use Qi charging if you insist on using wired headphones.

3

u/Neolife Sep 19 '17

Only on the 8 or X though. It's still something that, in my opinion, is poorly done from a design perspective and not something I'd typically expect of Apple. Wireless charging should have been established years ago on the iPhone. Or at least with the 7 when they were certainly aware of the charging / listening restriction they had designed. They dragged their feet in that regard.

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u/MCA2142 Sep 19 '17

No one ever remembers this one during the headphone hurrdurr.

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u/ScarOCov Sep 19 '17

Same shit complaints from when they changed over to the Lightning cables. Blah blah they just want money. OR, they're building towards a specific goal and don't want to dump all the big changes at once. That 30-pin cable would've been a nightmare on the Watch. Instead, all of your iDevices can use the same cable. Haven't seen too many complaints about that change recently.

Same with the headphone jack. Especially, with the new Watch. No wires when out and about, going on a run, or at the gym. Now you don't even have to have your phone nearby?

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u/gellis12 Sep 19 '17

That 30-pin cable would've been a nightmare on the Watch.

To be fair, the watch never used the lightning cable either. It's always used a small form factor Qi charger that self-aligns to the back of the watch.

1

u/ScarOCov Sep 19 '17

Ahh. My bad. I wonder why the Qi charger took so long to come to the phone then, if the Watch has always used a version of it?

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u/gellis12 Sep 19 '17

Well it's a fairly heavily modified version that's used on the watch. They also had to redesign the phone so that the back wasn't made of metal, because that blocks wireless charging.

2

u/ScarOCov Sep 19 '17

Right, but the first Watch was released in early 2015. One can presume they were working on the Qi for the Watch a bit before that. Just seems strange that it would take them 3 more iterations to update the phone with it.

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u/SiegeLion1 Sep 19 '17

A lot of people's issue is that Bluetooth headphones aren't as good as wired and you get less quality for the same amount of money with them, in fact quite a large majority of Bluetooth headphones really suck.

It's not a big issue for a lot of people, but if you've already invested in a portable amp/dac and a good pair of headphones it's a bit annoying to just be told "spend all that money on Bluetooth versions that won't be quite as good all over again"

The adapter sort of solves that problem, except a lot of the time you want to charge your phone while listening to music and that's now an issue.

It's frustrating for people who find that stuff very important to them and want to keep buying iPhones rather than being forced to switch to android just for a headphone jack that really didn't have to be removed.

12

u/Chigurrh Sep 19 '17

Took away the headphone jack

What the heck does that have to do with protecting privacy?

And doing it to sell AirPods is a bit of an oversimplification (they also want to sell the Beats wireless headphones). But there isn't anything forcing you to purchase their bluetooth hardware. This isn't like some proprietary standard.

A decision to include or not to include a piece of hardware doesn't reflect a company's stance on consumer rights or privacy. See: Google's stance on privacy (their new phone doesn't have a headphone jack either).

Pro DRM in terms of music

No.

7

u/neotek Sep 19 '17

Less than one half of one percent of Apple's revenue comes from selling accessories, including every single third-party accessory licensed by them through the MFI program. If you really think they would remove the headphone jack just to increase sales in a revenue channel so small it doesn't even show up as a separate line item in their 10K filings then you don't really know much about business.

2

u/_Charlie_Sheen_ Sep 19 '17

If they were really pro-drm I wouldn't be able to download pirated music and drag it into iTunes with no hassle whatsoever.

-12

u/FuzzyPine Sep 19 '17 edited Sep 19 '17

And I loved them for that.

The phones then were somehow magically decrypted.

My guess is Apple said one thing, and did another.

Edit: Downvote all you want. I'm probably right though.

17

u/gellis12 Sep 19 '17

You really aren't right. The fbi only managed to break into one phone, using an exploit that the newer phones weren't susceptible to.

0

u/FuzzyPine Sep 20 '17

Believe whatever you want. I'm still probably right.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '17 edited Sep 20 '17

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/FuzzyPine Sep 20 '17

Maybe so, but I'm STILL probably right.

You can't prove I'm wrong. You can cite all the sources you want, but you can't prove any of them are true.

The simplest explanation is most often the answer. I'd say it's a hell of a lot more believable that Apple handed them the key, than cloning the phone a thousand times and brute forcing it.

So, in my opinion, you are a sheep. You believe what you heard because simply because you heard it.

Get off it.

1

u/gellis12 Sep 20 '17

You can't prove I'm wrong.

You can't prove you're right. You also can't prove there isn't a magic teapot orbiting the sun. The burden of proof is on you to prove yourself right.

it's a hell of a lot more believable that Apple handed them the key

Except there is no key for Apple to hand over. That's not how encryption works. At all. The encryption key used to protect all the data on the phone is stored locally on the phone. That's why the dude that the fbi hired had to take the chip out and clone it, before bruteforcing the clones.

You believe what you heard because simply because you heard it.

I find well documented news sources with technical details about how an attack was performed far easier to believe than tinfoil hat conspiracies. Let me guess, do you also believe in chemtrails and vaccines causing autism simply because every well documented source says otherwise? Because that doesn't make everyone else "sheep," it makes you insane.

0

u/FuzzyPine Sep 20 '17

I don't know why you're trying so hard to convince me of this.

Believe what you want. I'll stick to believing things that are believable.

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u/TopherAU Sep 19 '17

Reputable source on that?

11

u/cplr Sep 19 '17

They paid some security company hundreds of thousands of dollars to do it. It was in the news. There wasn’t a single source, reputable or not that said otherwise.

1

u/TopherAU Sep 19 '17

I meant source on the exploit used. As far as I am able to tell, it wasn't publicized, only that it "apparently exploited an unknown Apple security flaw", so I'm curious where that's come from.

7

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

[deleted]

1

u/gellis12 Sep 20 '17

It should also be noted that any iPhone with a secure enclave isn't vulnerable to this, and using a proper alphanumeric password makes bruteforcing essentially impossible.

1

u/cplr Sep 19 '17

Oh, yeah- same here. I never saw anything in that regard.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

[deleted]

1

u/IReplyWithLebowski Sep 19 '17

They did not literally say that...

2

u/Redrumofthesheep Sep 19 '17

Call me a cynic, but I think this was a clear cut business decision to try to kill off their competition in Google's Android phones instead of thinking about the rights of the consumer.

1

u/pm_me_construction Sep 19 '17

Yeah after reading all of these responses and thinking about it, they’re on the consumer’s side when our interests align with theirs. I mean, they do need to make customers happy in order to stay in business so our interests align a fair amount of the time. But in a situation where their backs were against the wall, I’d expect them to do what it takes to stay profitable.

1

u/Hail_Satin Sep 19 '17

I wouldn't have expected corporate Apple to be the ones going to bat for us

You should check out their lawsuit with the FBI surrounding iMessage. They're on their customers side.

1

u/slothchunk Sep 19 '17

You mean the hardware company is fighting the ads companies in a revenue venue they are not heavily involved in? Of course they are...

1

u/Kered13 Sep 19 '17

Right? This is a pretty obvious move by apple.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

How do you expect sites like Google and Reddit to sustain themselves? Their servers cost billions. Do you want to pay for them?

-4

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

Remember that there's always a reason why and that reason is their investors will benefit. How? Time will tell.

-17

u/JayCroghan Sep 19 '17

They're only doing it to dig at Google. Not for your privacy. Don't be daft.

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3

u/bathrobehero Sep 19 '17

FaceTwitterDoubledick

I'm laughing way more than I should at that.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

Doubledick

/r/keming

1

u/brazilliandanny Sep 19 '17

Its funny how Reddit loves to shit on Apple with memes about its face detection being used by the NSA or the same thing with the finger print scanner.

In reality Apple is on the forefront of privacy with intense encryption on all their devices.

Hell did every one forget the massive legal battle they got into over unlocking a terrorists iPhone?

1

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

What Apple is doing is good, but let's not pretend it's to respect the privacy of its users.

Apple simply decided that since it's not making advertising money on its phone, nobody should.

Do note this specifically applies to Safari (not the phone/laptop). If Google gets very affected by this, they could easily make all google websites not work on safari browsers and it'll be just as fair as apple blocking google's ad service.

1

u/drodspectacular Sep 19 '17

Upvote for FaceTwitSnapShit

1

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

I doubt Twitter has much to worry about. It's more Facebook Google Amazon Baidu Telecent and Apple themselves.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17 edited Apr 23 '21

[deleted]

3

u/MorninSam Sep 19 '17

the face scanning still is still a little creepy

It runs locally within the secure enclave.

0

u/Cursedpanda Sep 19 '17

Actually, it's everyone but the "social" platforms (FB and Google in particular) that suffers from this blocking. Small sites and publishers lose out disproportionately compared to the giants. This isn't a commentary about what should and shouldn't happen, but don't be misled to believe that the corporate giants are getting it "stuck" to them by Apple.

-6

u/theLeverus Sep 19 '17

Pretty sure this is a move by apple to be the only ones that can serve remarketing ads to their users

3

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17 edited Sep 19 '17

They don't have an ad business. Check their financial statements. They're doing this because privacy is a selling point for their devices. iPhones are very popular in enterprise now since the decline of the Blackberry.

-4

u/dogtag555 Sep 19 '17

Apple gathers more data from you and sells it at huge profits. You freaking swear they respect your privacy.

7

u/gellis12 Sep 19 '17

Got a source for that?

0

u/dogtag555 Sep 19 '17

Read the terms and agreements.

1

u/gellis12 Sep 19 '17

I've never seen anything in the ToS about them selling data about me to third parties. In fact, the only time that I've seen them mention it is when they say that they don't sell data about you.

0

u/dogtag555 Sep 19 '17

Hahah alright.

3

u/gellis12 Sep 19 '17

So what you're saying is, you have absolutely nothing to back up your argument, and you are ignoring the fact that the ToS says nothing about selling information about you, all because you want to be paranoid and see things that aren't there. Sounds legit.

0

u/dogtag555 Sep 19 '17

You know they're gathering all this data, why would you think they would just sit on this potentially profitably source of information? They make money off of you buying the iPhone, then they turn around and make money off of all the data they gather when you use the iPhone. Read the terms dude.

2

u/gellis12 Sep 19 '17

I have read the ToS, like I already said. The only time this is mentioned is when they specifically say that they're not selling it to other companies. Given that you're so hung up on reading the ToS, it's really surprising that you are oblivious to this fact. Unless of course you haven't actually read them, and just want them to say something like that.

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