That’s really all any of Google’s “free” products are. Everything they do is to collect data to feed AdWords. They are an ad business masquerading as several other tech businesses, and all roads lead back to AdWords.
Apple is primarily a hardware company. Their ad business is successful in a basic-ass, privacy-friendly way, because to show ads on their platform, you have to pay apple, no competitors there. Google literally lives from ads, this is just not a comparison made in good-faith.
It is a comparison made in good faith. I'm sick and tired of being forced to use proprietary software, which means being forced to endure bugs I can't fix, and while it's not feasible to live a modern life Stallman-style, you can already get pretty far.
Apple is the antithesis of this. One company shows up and makes all decisions for you, and you have no recourse, and that's it. If you don't like it, sucks to be you, go buy something else (I did).
But it’s a mobile device — swapping OS is not a trivial feat, not even on the android side. Especially if you care about security (pinephones for example don’t care at all).
Their macs on the other hand allows safe booting of other OSs, see the Asahi project.
Linux desktop is completely insecure, the unix permissions are meaningless for single-user systems (an npm install can steal/encrypt all your family photos, ssh keys, browser config). That same model is applied for pinephone, with an insecure hardware (physical access means complete control, no secure boot, a single SD card swap completely compromises the device)
A few weeks ago there was an article about Microsoft, Bing and Edge and their tracking of users, and it struck me that if Microsoft cared about mobile at this point, they are in a pretty good position to push a de-Google Android.
Microsoft has all the expertise in partnering with vendors and getting them to ship their operating systems, they have a rough idea about how to run an app store and they have access to developer. A de-Google, privacy focused Microsoft Android, with a Microsoft store, the ability to run native Android apps and perhaps .Net application, pushed by Microsoft sales and vendor channel seems pretty interesting to me.
But Microsoft doesn't care about neither privacy, nor mobile and practically no phone manufacturers really care to ship anything but Android at this point.
practically no phone manufacturers really care to ship anything but Android at this point
I sure as shit can't blame them - for a decade, Google tied Google Mobile Services (including things like Google Maps and the Play Store) to shipping Google's Android exclusively. If OEMs wanted to fork Android and drop Google for Microsoft, they'd (up until at least 2018) lose their license to GMS for all handsets sold. That changed in 2018 [0], when Google were told by the EU they would "... also need to stop preventing phone makers from using forked versions of Android" (from [0]).
I'm sure Google wouldn't pull any other licensing tricks to keep Microsoft or Huawei from making a competitive fork of Android now though! /s
In the second quarter of 2021, mobile devices accounted for 63 percent of YouTube viewing time worldwide. In contrast, consoles and connected TVs reported a share of views corresponding to three percent and 14 percent of the total, respectively.
Consoles I don't use either, but I mainly use my PCs for watching it. I find it so extremely inconvenient to watch it on my phone that I never do that at home.
Respectfully, I'm not sure it was entirely Huawei (the company)'s decision. Being a major multi-national from mainland China, calling them "an arm of the CCP" isn't really fair, but neither is it entirely false.
More to the point - I tried to avoid being misleading; the arm-twisting (we know of) ended in 2018. But between the precedent, and the dozen other proprietary Google frameworks and legal agreements that could be serviced to this end in confidential OEM deals, I'm completely unsurprised nobody else has really stepped up.
Amazon's Fire phones and Fire tablets were certainly another example at forking Android (and providing replacement versions of the services), but Amazon had to find a hardware OEM that didn't already make Android devices for anyone else, due to Google's anticompetitive licensing requirements.
They know how to run an app store, but they know zero about making it a success. Everyone abhors the windows app store :) even the Mac one is more popular.
Ha! This joke is straight out of radio Yerevan[0]:
Radio Yerevan was asked: "Is it true that there is freedom of speech in the USSR (in some versions, Russia), just like in the USA?"
Radio Yerevan answered: "In principle, yes. In the USA, you can stand in front of the White House and yell, “Down with Reagan!”, and you will not be punished. Equally, you can also stand in the Red Square in Moscow and yell, “Down with Reagan!”, and you will not be punished."
on the other hand you get it for free and their products serve a purpose... we are free to go for alternatives.
If we use it is because they are useful.
Do not misunderstand me, I am the first person to not be satisfied with these things. That is why I self host things most of the time and I avoid using Cloud services of any kind.
But "learning" about this public secret from Apple seems somewhat disingenuous. If Android is a cheap rip off device for collecting user data, what device is it a rip off of?! And doesn't Apple collect over 25 billion annually for offering similar services to Google?
[Added from article]
Ironically, despite Apple describing Android as a massive tracking device, an internal Google email from 2016 about Apple and Google’s deal shows how Apple wanted data sharing with Google to be reciprocal.
In the email, the Google exec notes that they told Apple that Google doesn’t share information about what users click on in Google Search.
However, a reply to that email includes a redacted data exchange proposal, raising questions about what user data Google could be sharing with Apple.
If Android is a cheap rip off device for collecting user data, what device is it a rip off of?
The device is a rip off of iPhone/iOS, obviously, but the intent behind them is different. Gmail didn't invent email, Google Maps didn't invent internet maps, Google Drive didn't invent cloud storage, Chrome didn't invent the browser... Google cloning and offering these products/services up was done with tracking added for the purpose of boosting AdWords revenue.
Google has ripped off many products, from many companies, adds in a bunch of tracking, and it becomes another arm of their data collection beast. The products they rip off may have not been used for collecting user data, but Google ripped them off and continues offering the services, because of the data collection possibilities.
In the email, the Google exec notes that they told Apple that Google doesn’t share information about what users click on in Google Search.
They don't need to share the information, because all the Google products collecting the data, and the services using it for profit, are all in-house. This doesn't mean they aren't collecting and using the data, just that it's their competitive advantage for AdWords and it's far more valuable for them to keep and use themselves.
The device is a rip off of iPhone/iOS, obviously, but the intent behind them is different.
As a developer I care a lot about intent, too: if we confuse what a program does with what it's supposed to be doing it gets hard to see what bug to fix.
And I also agree that in all those cases Google was motivated by the fear of being locked out. Locked out by open standards, ousted by Apple as they did with facebook, kept in the dark by Mozilla for refusing third party cookies or choosing a competing default search engine.
...Except that those fears in case of Apple were unwarranted. Apple sells "secure hardware" to customers, but is equally happy to sell those customers to Google, or anyone that pays a little to be in their app store. There are limits, but there are also limits to what Android allows.
So in practice, even though their intent might be different, the outcome barely is. I recently discovered about Stafford Beers' POSIWID [1] and I suppose that from that angle, Apple's attribution of Android is basically describing their iPhone just as well.
I think they meant it reports tracking data to Google, not that the phone tracks its environment with those techs.
Apple’s AirTag implementation is very elegant and does not result in user or AirTag location being revealed to Apple or other users. It’s hard to imagine Google shipping that kind of design.
Exactly. You can argue the morality of shipping a tracking device at all, but that's a totally different question than whether such a product should let the company track users or devices.
I don’t think that’s quite accurate. They emit a beacon that can be detected by other iPhone in the area which can relay the location to the owner like an air tag.I doubt the phone knows if it moved in that state. If there is no other iPhone around, nothing gets reported.
Which is a huge feature, loved by most users. Like, I wouldn’t be happy about losing/having stolen a device that is a small fortune, and contains my whole life.
Yes, it provides some ability to track stolen phones even when they're off, telling the user they're still being tracked even though it's off which is very much pro-consumer.
It's worth noting that even a device is turned off these days, there's a good chance there's some small chip inside still on, likely connected to the radio.
It's easy for Apple to say they don't link data between services when Apple offers no services of any particular value. Clearly Apple does not combine iOS data with their search engine, which doesn't exist. Then oddly it goes on to imply that separate sign-on for iCloud and App Store and iTunes are somehow benefits to the user when in my experience those are clear anti-features. I do not, ever, want to be prompted for my password when getting a free app from the App Store and that happens all the fucking time.
Clearly Apple does not combine iOS data with their search engine, which doesn't exist
That's ... correct? What was the purpose of this statement?
Then oddly it goes on to imply that separate sign-on for iCloud and App Store and iTunes are somehow benefits to the user when in my experience those are clear anti-features
They don't _force_ separate sign-on, they allow it. As in, obviously it is convenient to use the same Apple ID for everything, but if you have reason to want to use a different ID (privacy reasons, or older hardware with different capabilities) you can. Google does not allow this because it would dilute your ID (and therefore worth in ads).
I do not, ever, want to be prompted for my password when getting a free app from the App Store and that happens all the fucking time
Forced system wide sign-in is probably the worse.
Being unable to use an email app for gmail without having the account fully associated with the device.
Nope, almost impossible.
Because Gmail force to login with oauth2, and the embedded browser that you can have in any third-party mobile app is restricted to do the oauth2 by itself without going through the android official popup that will connect system wide.
Indeed you can still browse Gmail with the mobile web browser but it is very inconvenient, not ergonomic or limited and it is not like a email app.
Also, btw, when you connect to Gmail or any google thing in the web browser, your whole web browser will use this Google profile for everything also.
Are we supposed to be nice about our competitors in internal messages? Oops. Heck, I'm not even always nice about my company's own products, in internal messages.
Comments
That’s really all any of Google’s “free” products are. Everything they do is to collect data to feed AdWords. They are an ad business masquerading as several other tech businesses, and all roads lead back to AdWords.
You can use Android completely without any proprietary Google stuff. You can't do the same with iOS.
Apple is primarily a hardware company. Their ad business is successful in a basic-ass, privacy-friendly way, because to show ads on their platform, you have to pay apple, no competitors there. Google literally lives from ads, this is just not a comparison made in good-faith.
It is a comparison made in good faith. I'm sick and tired of being forced to use proprietary software, which means being forced to endure bugs I can't fix, and while it's not feasible to live a modern life Stallman-style, you can already get pretty far.
Apple is the antithesis of this. One company shows up and makes all decisions for you, and you have no recourse, and that's it. If you don't like it, sucks to be you, go buy something else (I did).
No one is forcing you to buy an iPhone and no one is forcing you to use proprietary software.
Their point is that with Apple you ARE forced to use proprietary software.
They never said anything about forced to use iPhone.
If Apple was primarily a hardware company, I could run Android on an iPhone.
Apple is about image and status. A walled ecosystem to maintain that image.
There is this:
https://projectsandcastle.org/
But it’s a mobile device — swapping OS is not a trivial feat, not even on the android side. Especially if you care about security (pinephones for example don’t care at all).
Their macs on the other hand allows safe booting of other OSs, see the Asahi project.
This is completely false. Care to provide any proofs?
Linux desktop is completely insecure, the unix permissions are meaningless for single-user systems (an npm install can steal/encrypt all your family photos, ssh keys, browser config). That same model is applied for pinephone, with an insecure hardware (physical access means complete control, no secure boot, a single SD card swap completely compromises the device)
Linux model relies on using trusted, signed, FLOSS apps from the repository. Show me malware in there.
A few weeks ago there was an article about Microsoft, Bing and Edge and their tracking of users, and it struck me that if Microsoft cared about mobile at this point, they are in a pretty good position to push a de-Google Android.
Microsoft has all the expertise in partnering with vendors and getting them to ship their operating systems, they have a rough idea about how to run an app store and they have access to developer. A de-Google, privacy focused Microsoft Android, with a Microsoft store, the ability to run native Android apps and perhaps .Net application, pushed by Microsoft sales and vendor channel seems pretty interesting to me.
But Microsoft doesn't care about neither privacy, nor mobile and practically no phone manufacturers really care to ship anything but Android at this point.
I sure as shit can't blame them - for a decade, Google tied Google Mobile Services (including things like Google Maps and the Play Store) to shipping Google's Android exclusively. If OEMs wanted to fork Android and drop Google for Microsoft, they'd (up until at least 2018) lose their license to GMS for all handsets sold. That changed in 2018 [0], when Google were told by the EU they would "... also need to stop preventing phone makers from using forked versions of Android" (from [0]).
I'm sure Google wouldn't pull any other licensing tricks to keep Microsoft or Huawei from making a competitive fork of Android now though! /s
[0] https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/18/17580694/google-android-e...
Yup, the lack of a YouTube app (and Google actively blocking MS's attempt to create one) was a large factor in the death of Windows Phone.
Really? I rarely watch YouTube on my phone. It's like watching video through a toilet roll. Much rather watch it on my computer screen or TV.
The one exception is a waiting room or long train ride but really if I have any bigger screen available I'd go for that.
In the second quarter of 2021, mobile devices accounted for 63 percent of YouTube viewing time worldwide. In contrast, consoles and connected TVs reported a share of views corresponding to three percent and 14 percent of the total, respectively.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1173543/youtube-viewing-....
Cool, I didn't expect that.
Consoles I don't use either, but I mainly use my PCs for watching it. I find it so extremely inconvenient to watch it on my phone that I never do that at home.
Huawei has a competitive fork of Android, but it's not interested in the West anymore, so it's not going to compete on the US market.
Respectfully, I'm not sure it was entirely Huawei (the company)'s decision. Being a major multi-national from mainland China, calling them "an arm of the CCP" isn't really fair, but neither is it entirely false.
More to the point - I tried to avoid being misleading; the arm-twisting (we know of) ended in 2018. But between the precedent, and the dozen other proprietary Google frameworks and legal agreements that could be serviced to this end in confidential OEM deals, I'm completely unsurprised nobody else has really stepped up.
Amazon's Fire phones and Fire tablets were certainly another example at forking Android (and providing replacement versions of the services), but Amazon had to find a hardware OEM that didn't already make Android devices for anyone else, due to Google's anticompetitive licensing requirements.
They know how to run an app store, but they know zero about making it a success. Everyone abhors the windows app store :) even the Mac one is more popular.
True this is exactly what I do and why Android can actually be better and more open than iOS.
I use iOS without any proprietary Google stuff, so you absolutely can.
Ha! This joke is straight out of radio Yerevan[0]:
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Yerevan_jokes
We had a different joke:
"America is so free, that I piss in front of Bush as he's passing by me."
"It's the same in Russia. I also piss when Putin passes by me. Except I don't take it out of my pants."
Now try using it without any proprietary Apple stuff :)
on the other hand you get it for free and their products serve a purpose... we are free to go for alternatives.
If we use it is because they are useful.
Do not misunderstand me, I am the first person to not be satisfied with these things. That is why I self host things most of the time and I avoid using Cloud services of any kind.
Yes, true.
But "learning" about this public secret from Apple seems somewhat disingenuous. If Android is a cheap rip off device for collecting user data, what device is it a rip off of?! And doesn't Apple collect over 25 billion annually for offering similar services to Google?
[Added from article]
The device is a rip off of iPhone/iOS, obviously, but the intent behind them is different. Gmail didn't invent email, Google Maps didn't invent internet maps, Google Drive didn't invent cloud storage, Chrome didn't invent the browser... Google cloning and offering these products/services up was done with tracking added for the purpose of boosting AdWords revenue.
Google has ripped off many products, from many companies, adds in a bunch of tracking, and it becomes another arm of their data collection beast. The products they rip off may have not been used for collecting user data, but Google ripped them off and continues offering the services, because of the data collection possibilities.
They don't need to share the information, because all the Google products collecting the data, and the services using it for profit, are all in-house. This doesn't mean they aren't collecting and using the data, just that it's their competitive advantage for AdWords and it's far more valuable for them to keep and use themselves.
As a developer I care a lot about intent, too: if we confuse what a program does with what it's supposed to be doing it gets hard to see what bug to fix.
And I also agree that in all those cases Google was motivated by the fear of being locked out. Locked out by open standards, ousted by Apple as they did with facebook, kept in the dark by Mozilla for refusing third party cookies or choosing a competing default search engine.
...Except that those fears in case of Apple were unwarranted. Apple sells "secure hardware" to customers, but is equally happy to sell those customers to Google, or anyone that pays a little to be in their app store. There are limits, but there are also limits to what Android allows.
So in practice, even though their intent might be different, the outcome barely is. I recently discovered about Stafford Beers' POSIWID [1] and I suppose that from that angle, Apple's attribution of Android is basically describing their iPhone just as well.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...
Those are some strong words from someone who makes it very hard to easily enable/disable gps, bluetooth, wifi
I think they meant it reports tracking data to Google, not that the phone tracks its environment with those techs.
Apple’s AirTag implementation is very elegant and does not result in user or AirTag location being revealed to Apple or other users. It’s hard to imagine Google shipping that kind of design.
It just makes stalking incredibly easy, elegant!
That's somewhat in the nature of a tracking device.
Exactly. You can argue the morality of shipping a tracking device at all, but that's a totally different question than whether such a product should let the company track users or devices.
Apple devices don't even actually turn off anymore when you try to power them down. They blank the screen and continue reporting their location.
I don’t think that’s quite accurate. They emit a beacon that can be detected by other iPhone in the area which can relay the location to the owner like an air tag.I doubt the phone knows if it moved in that state. If there is no other iPhone around, nothing gets reported.
I expect it knows if it is moving or not (via an accelerometer) but no way would it use GPS or WiFi to geolocate itself. Too much power.
No, it's even worse -- they say something like "your phone is still findable." Wtf?!
Which is a huge feature, loved by most users. Like, I wouldn’t be happy about losing/having stolen a device that is a small fortune, and contains my whole life.
Hang on, you don't have any backups?
It is still be a major headache to lose a $1000 device, that likely contains all the keys to your digital life, even when you still have backups.
Yes, it provides some ability to track stolen phones even when they're off, telling the user they're still being tracked even though it's off which is very much pro-consumer.
It's worth noting that even a device is turned off these days, there's a good chance there's some small chip inside still on, likely connected to the radio.
It's easy for Apple to say they don't link data between services when Apple offers no services of any particular value. Clearly Apple does not combine iOS data with their search engine, which doesn't exist. Then oddly it goes on to imply that separate sign-on for iCloud and App Store and iTunes are somehow benefits to the user when in my experience those are clear anti-features. I do not, ever, want to be prompted for my password when getting a free app from the App Store and that happens all the fucking time.
Here is a list of Apple's services: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Apple_Inc._services They are of value to most people with Apple hardware, and many without
That's ... correct? What was the purpose of this statement?
They don't _force_ separate sign-on, they allow it. As in, obviously it is convenient to use the same Apple ID for everything, but if you have reason to want to use a different ID (privacy reasons, or older hardware with different capabilities) you can. Google does not allow this because it would dilute your ID (and therefore worth in ads).
Change that simple setting?
I'm not even an iPhone user, but man ...
iOS doesn't respect the setting.
Forced system wide sign-in is probably the worse. Being unable to use an email app for gmail without having the account fully associated with the device.
You can still use mobile browser or third-party email apps?
Nope, almost impossible. Because Gmail force to login with oauth2, and the embedded browser that you can have in any third-party mobile app is restricted to do the oauth2 by itself without going through the android official popup that will connect system wide.
Indeed you can still browse Gmail with the mobile web browser but it is very inconvenient, not ergonomic or limited and it is not like a email app. Also, btw, when you connect to Gmail or any google thing in the web browser, your whole web browser will use this Google profile for everything also.
Are we supposed to be nice about our competitors in internal messages? Oops. Heck, I'm not even always nice about my company's own products, in internal messages.
It is the Google Pixel, an IRL tracking pixel.
Seems fair.