I respect people’s right to use apple products, but please stop asserting “privacy”, big corps doesn’t give a shit.
I hate the term sideloading. It’s a made-up propaganda word to make it seem scary or wrong to install software on your device. All in the name of corporate profits.
Yea, who are google and apple to tell us what to do with OUR devices that WE OWN anyways?
I will never buy a smartphone(or a computer) that I can’t replace the stock OS on, because the transaction for me and the device maker should end when I buy their device, period.
The entire business model of selling me a device only to then extract the maximum possible amount of data points, sell that data to fuck-knows-who(compromising my privacy, and possibly safety), and maximizing targeted ads to attempt to manipulate me is beyond absurd.
“Warning: If you unlock your phone, it might explode or you might become a terrorist. Also we won’t pay your money back even if there is faulty hardware because there is non zero chance you might have caused it while unlocking”
I like the term sideloading. It describes an installation method we don’t otherwise have a word for.
I’m loading a software package from the side – from a system running parallel to the target system.
I do hate the use of the term to try to demonize a completely standard practice. Like when using wget to request files from a fileserver was described as hacking.
Apple does give a shit about privacy… in the same way that companies care about gay pride. Right now privacy is still a selling point for Apple compared to other companies. This is why they are still so loud about on device AI and pretty much silent when any of their features require cloud processing. But am under no illusions that will remain the case forever.
As far as “dumb phones” are concerned; they don’t exist anymore. It’s still a device with an OS, GPS (as required by the law that created the Amber Alert here in the US), and an Internet connection, that makes calls using VoLTE or similar. Most of the ones you can buy today run things like KaiOS which has an App Store and comes with Google Maps preinstalled.
If you want real privacy you need to disconnect from the Internet which pretty much means no phones at all now that everything is VoIP.
Apple has 2x very publicly resisted government demands for user data and campaigned against laws to institute backdoors into their software and services. They’re not perfect by any means but they are by far a lesser evil.
A fully capable Linux phone is the dream, but most people aren’t going to use one. For the majority of people, I would recommend the company that refused to listen to the US and EU about weakening the security of their products over the one with the business model of relying on advertising to you and selling your data.
And they have proven if the government makes a law requiring access they’ll do it. They have done it for China and Russia.
That’s literally any company though. If you want to legally operate in a certain country, you need to abide by the country’s laws. Sure, pirate FOSS projects could exist. But that’s not the kind of shit that will be sold in retail, because it would literally be illegal to sell.
This is like complaining that Japanese phones can’t disable the camera shutter sound. It’s because Japan regulated the shutter sound, because upskirting was a major issue. So phones legally sold in Japan are required to have the shutter sound permanently set at a high volume, even when the ringer is silenced. That isn’t the phone maker’s fault.
Apple campaigned against regulation like what you’re complaining about. It isn’t Apple’s fault that the regulation was passed anyways.
Well yeah they kinda have to at that point in order to continue conducting business in that country. What about this is specific to Apple?
They just do that for brand optics. Because researchers found the apple privacy settings off/on made no difference to the packet of info sent to apple. Their privacy is a facade.
The issue in one of the cases (San Bernardino) had nothing to do with iCloud data, and everything to do with the data on the device itself. The FBI request was a backdoor into the device. Apple (rightly) refused to add a backdoor to access the phone.
You are referencing data that goes to Apple’s iCloud servers, which Apple was happy to provide because they held the encryption keys. Since then, they have enabled an E2E encryption feature for iCloud data.
I am happy to discuss Apple’s shortcomings, but let’s be clear on which ones we’re discussing
Its the don’t track privacy type settings where you opt out, research found it was a toggle button that did nothing.
They only tout privacy to gain market, they would sell us out for a dollar
Is this separate from Advanced Data Protection, which is E2E encrypted data on iCloud?
“Don’t track privacy type settings” isn’t very descriptive, so apologies if I’m sounding any way I’m just trying to be clear about what the complaint here is.
And to be clear, is this a privacy concern exclusive to Apple?
Totally unrelated to the E2E, I will have to search for it. It was a year or two ago. Apple claimed turning off the data collection kept your use private to you, but was just a lie, they collected all your data anyway.
And yes, its an IPhone setting not an android setting. Google is another issue.
Ok please let me know when you have more information I am very interested to know.
Apple has 2x very publicly resisted government demands for user data and campaigned against laws to institute backdoors into their software and services.
Indeed.
They also immediately folded in China after being given the ultimatum of comply or die.
All it would take is Trump to give the same ultimatum…
Yeah I would expect the same of any company. They have to comply with the laws of the country they do business in. This same requirement compelled them to finally add USB-C to iPhones and allow alternate app stores.
I wouldn’t blame Google for doing the same, so I’m not going to blame Apple for it either. Do you actually expect any company their size to do any different?
To the extent they’re legally able to, Apple has absolutely resisted compromising their device security features to aid law enforcement.
Good thing Trump’s distracted by gold baubles.
You’re saying the same thing as the top of the thread. All of this is for now. At some point it could be advantageous for Apple to stop resisting US demands. It is important to understand and prepare for that while also accepting, for now, Apple provides the most corporate privacy of the corporate privacy options in the US.
The three of us are in agreement.
Honestly haven’t heard that one. I’ve only heard “I used android for freedom. If android is becoming a shitty apple, I’ll just use the better apple”
That’s sort of where I’m at right now to be honest. Google has removed or plan to remove basically everything that gave Android an edge over iOS. Meanwhile Apple, for all their flaws, has actually put out some pretty compelling offerings with the iPhone 17 line both hardware- and software-wise, and has made meaningful improvements in the realm of repairability and side-loading, albeit under regulatory pressure. At this point, it’s looking like going to be harder than I’d like to choose between the two when I go to replace my phone in 3-5 years - provided both companies stay on their current trajectories.
Here’s how I think about it:
Google’s business model involves advertising to you, tracking your activity, mining your data, and selling that information to other entities while also using it to advertise to you more. It’s their main profit-driver. You are the product.
Apple’s business model is to sell you the hardware, give you the software and make it (mostly) depend on the services to keep you locked in. You (the user) are not the product, their devices and services are.
Of the two, which is the lesser evil?
Normies are not going to fully convert to Linux phones and open-source software any time soon. In the meantime as far as privacy is concerned, Apple can do much worse and Google can do much better.
Apple’s transitioning to a services based company, which includes ad tech. They’re better than Google only for now. The enshittification of their OS’s has been ongoing, and will only get worse. macOS has had so many super user features removed, and so many iOS walled-garden regressions added.
I’m not going to argue this point, but am more interested in discussing issues they currently have than issues we think they’ll have eventually. If we’re gonna vilify a company let’s make sure we’re doing it based on stuff that’s actually happened so we know they deserve it.
To be fair, a lot of those features have been getting added back, a lot of walled-garden regressions removed as well. I guess this part is more subjective and based on your workflow. The feature churn itself is the only true constant.
That’s been my reason to switch. When Android 12 removed or hid a lot of the functionality and customization that I used daily on my Pixel 4a5g, I switched to an iPhone. It’s a shame I had to sell back my iphone 14 pro to my provider (due to the plan I had chosen), otherwise I’d have kept that one, but I’m currently running the 16 Pro, and intend to keep that for another 4 or 5 years.
There is no word called sideloding it’s called installing software
“Sideloading” means “defeating a walled garden to install software”
That’d be like saying “I totally trust Google with all of my so-called offline documents by using their totally online suite. They totally wouldn’t like, be analyzing the contents once I am online or anything, would they?”
Comparatively they are better. Its a duopoly in terms of mobile OSs and one is made by a company who mines data and sells ads as its core. The other sells hardware and subscriptions.
I use linux and I wish for a full featured marketable linux phone someday that can compete but with privacy they absolutely beat google.
I have never owned an iphone amd I am currently debating on getting a pixel to move to gOS.
I’m all for linux, I miss the market before iPhone domination. Weird ass symbian phones, windows phones, nokia taco phones, there was all sorts of stuff. I wish we could have a market like that with lots of diverse phones that all run different operating systems. I also wish we could step away from app stores and we could just start building websites again, phones are fast enough now
The problem is not with Android its with Google But apparently android is from Google even though its open source. Sure, linux phones are nice but they are nowhere near stable.
The problem is we do everything with mobile phones now even banking and security is a big lead here The Banking apps may need to make sure each and every linux phones are secure and may not have any loopholes Which is tedious Even installing a custom rom can hinder the default security sometimes. If any problems arise neither linux phones nor banks can give any warranty As of now android is more secure and stable and theres a lot of time ahead of linux phones to succeed
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It’s really funny seeing people who defend capitalism trying to avoid capitalism problems with individual actions instead of organizing themselves and fighting for the interest of their own class
Thia guy i know to a tee. He’ll defend capitalism to the death and say how the left is evil and anarchy capitalism is the only way.
Idiot. And he pitches about everything in life capitalism causes. I point this out and he says well yeah but thats just bad capitalism not good capitalism. Also he loves fElon, so there’s that.
Does anyone remember r/hailcorporate and its brief moment of fame before the popular subs banned mention of it and its own mods started running a crypto scam?
It was annoying. Couldn’t mention any brand name in any context without getting an “/r/hailcorporate” comment.
Yeah I find it hilarious that anyone thinks apple cares about privacy. They clearly have been cultivating that image but it rings pretty hollow to me. They just chose something that would be easy to say they care about that an ad company clearly also doesn’t care about.
I’m so glad someone else is seeing this.
Watching people say “I’ll just use an iphone because android is too locked down” really reinforces my opinion of the average person.
Listen. I’ll be the first to pirate and the first to ditch giving companies like Amazon or Google my money.
But I draw the line at my phone. I tried GrapheneOS and had so many issues with things like banking that it’s just not viable for most people.
I love my iPhone for what I use it for and it works as intended. I listened to yall and removed windows for Linux and that was a shit show too. Nvidia drivers ugh. WiFi just stopping etc. easier to use windows to load the one app of stream I use and do some dev work.
I understand. When my Win10 PC was approaching End Of Life, I switched to Linux instead of buying a new computer. I’m fairly familiar with Linux since all my servers are Debian, and it’s been great. I tried three distros and they all were unstable due to my hardware. When I asked what I should do, I was told I should buy a new computer that was compatible with Linux. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I’m using Ubuntu now on that computer, and it’s more stable, but I’ve still had to use a boot drive to roll back TimeShift after a hard crash.
And this is my man issue. Time. Time is precious and I don’t want headaches where I don’t need them. That is phone and pc.
Sure I’ll make life harder and more expensive by not shopping at massive companies. Or not using Netflix or Disney so I have to shop elsewhere and build a media server, on Linux, but most people just want to turn on a pc open stream and play Factorio.
Honestly? Skill issue.
It takes some time and effort to get up to speed on community driven operating systems but it’s a much happier life once you do.
I’m a software engineer mate. It’s not a skill issue, it’s a time issue. The last thing I want when I’ve finished debugging for clients is to come home and debug my own machine or phone.
Maybe it’s a young man’s game. I have the same issue with my media server, I was happy to sink a few weeks into setting it up but it fills me with dread that something goes down and I need to spend more time fixing things. But I’ll do it with piracy as I see the benefit of not giving money to streaming services.
Edit: all I want from this community is a little nuance in that Linux or Privacy centric phones are not for everybody and they should respect others peoples choices. I’d rather spend my time rock climbing and running these days than sat near a computer outside of work. Although it’s winter coming so I game more then.
I’m also a SWE and pretty old. I also spend time outside hiking and rock climbing.
I run Linux on all my machines aside from a couple macs but Linux is my daily driver.
It doesn’t have to be a hobby.
Its been like 5+ years since I’ve run into a major problem that couldn’t be resolved quickly. I have much more serious problems trying to use windows at this point.
If it’s not a skill issue, it’s a mindset issue.
To me, using an OS that isn’t hostile and actively making itself worse for profit is worth the time investment.
It helps a lot to use popular, well supported distros like Mint or Fedora but even on Arch basically every problem I have is my own fault for breaking something.
I literally told you it’s a time issue.
Listen if that’s the hill you want to die on then crack on pal, but I’m just saying it’s not for everybody.
In the grand scheme of things I’ve more important things I can channel by hatred of the current world than on what Operating System I use. Every minute I spend debugging is a minute I’m not doing something else.
For what it’s worth it was Fedora that I tried and it sucked, as I said. The WiFi would just die randomly and even if it takes 5 mins to fix ive never had to do that on windows. It’s literally plug and play.
I respect where you’re coming from, But the mentality of Linux users to say “skill issue” in these situations is the #1 reason why Linux isn’t more adopted. Is it a skill issue on the user’s end or is it a skill issue on the Linux developers’ end? Maybe they should make more automatically functional out of the box software. Doesn’t feel too nice to be told that does it?
Not everyone has time to become skilled in computing. Additionally, Linux users are so deep in the computing rabbit hole that they don’t even appreciate how deep in it they really are. What strikes them as basic or fundamental is really confusing for a lot of people.
It is not acceptable to just blame the user and say that the problem is that the user is a fool. That could maybe be a reasonable standpoint if 99% of people were using the software without issue, but we all know that isn’t the case with Linux.
Someone wants to boot up their computer and get on Wi-Fi and play games with their updated drivers. Windows provides that out of the box, without them needing to do anything. That is factually a better experience than needing to screw around reading a bunch of guides and forums and running commands that you don’t understand for potentially multiple hours. Blaming that on the user just means that the users continue to have a bad experience. If that’s the view the community wants to take, fine - But then don’t complain when the majority of people don’t want to use your thing.
Exactly this.
HeThey told me, a software engineer, it’s a skill issue. For me it’s a time issue. Time is precious, in fact my most precious asset and gone are my days of playing with operating systems. I just want to load steam and play Factorio.The other thing these people don’t realise is a lot of engineers are using windows at work too. Our tiny company of engineers is all in on Windows and does exactly what we want. I’d prefer Mac but windows is fine.
I’m in the same boat. That said I was able to play Factorio on steam out of the box with Bazzite on my laptop. Other things were not as straightforward though so I’m still not daily driving it.
People are saying this?
Are they idiots?
Someone actually said that to me the other day. (I am no longer friends with that person). I think its because people (especially americans) see that almost everyone is using iPhone so their tiny social media influenced brains say “If EveRy oNe USes ipHonE it beTteR”. Meanwhile us sensible people just sit here internally screaming.
Bizarre thing to end a friendship over?
We weren’t the closest friends, and we fought too much anyways.
iPhone users
Yes
First of all: writing this from my iPhone. I’ve been on various android phones, including flashed to Sailfish and alternative ROMs, and I kinda hate being on an iPhone now. But - it works.
Look at the incentives of Google and Apple. Google sells ads. That’s it. Any operation at Google other than that is just a small side hustle. Apple sells hardware and 30% commission on apps/media. Apple’s incentives to fuck over the privacy of individuals is far smaller than Google’s incentives. That’s it.
Let’s go through the list:
- Android vendors (Samsung et. al): Zero incentive to not sell you out. Also, no recurring revenue throughout device lifetime (except selling your data), so zero incentives to provide more than absolutely minimal software support after sale.
- Open Source ROMs: All the incentive, but zero funding or business model. Continually fighting against Google. Thus, not really an option for ”normal” people. I won’t hand my mother a flashed phone, and she won’t be able to flash one on her own.
- Sailfish: Had incentives and a business model. When I used it, the developers could barely keep the web browser patched. Tell me that’s good for privacy.
- Apple: Has incentives to patch and update older phones (recurring revenues from AppStore and iCloud), and doesn’t really sell any ads themselves.
Apple are anti-consumer assholes with a clear objective of creating lock-in under the guise of ”privacy” and ”security”, and they really want to force people into buying more hardware. Agreed. But they are the only major phone vendor that doesn’t have incentives to actively screw you over.
Is a flashed ROM ”better” for ”privacy”? Probably. Should you get your mother an iPhone? Yes.
Apple: Has incentives to patch and update older phones (recurring revenues from AppStore and iCloud), and doesn’t really sell any ads themselves.
Don’t fall for Apple PR, they sell you out like everyone else does: https://ads.apple.com/
Of course they do.
But they have recurring revenue streams other than just ads, unlike the Android vendors. Meaning - they probably won’t fuck me over as hard as Google.
Edit: also, note that the ads they sell via your link are on their own platform, i.e. within their own ecosystem. The revenue here is most likely peanuts compared to the AppStore commissions.
From the security standpoint and the patching standpoint, you are 100% straight on accurate.
Unfortunately, Apple Microsoft and Google all sell ads. They are also all working on training AI with your data.
The upside is, as far as ad companies go, they’re not just handing over the data that “bleachedbluejeans23@apple.com likes red squirrels to be vendors” They sell client code where the client pulls the ads directly from apple’s platform.
They’re all collecting dossiers on you. They have all identified you and their systems with whatever emails, payment cards, what have you that you use on their systems. And they have a database with all of your intimate desires and wishes and wants and how much money you make.
When Google started doing this, they threw up the don’t be evil banner. You can’t just give all this information to a company and then trust them not to use it forever.
So where can my mother buy this excellent non-tracking phone?
She can’t. No one sells it.
Of course everyone is collecting a shitton of data. Out of the two (realistic) alternatives we have today, Apple has, by far, a better track record. Still bad, but they have far fewer incentives to be shitty than Google. Googles only incentive is to be shitty and sell ads. Pick your poison.
There’s always a flip phone, they’re coming back I hear.
Google had a better track record till then didn’t.
but they have far fewer incentives Hard disagree. They just have better PR.
Apple and google are in the same market, selling the same stuff, both selling ads. Google’s hardware being somewhat cheaper hardly makes their ads a more significant incentive.
Linux Phone with waydroid is the way
Probably excellent. Can my mother buy it over the shelf, in a store?
If not, what’s the best alternative currently available over the shelf, in a physical brick and mortar store, for my mother?
Mothers use iPhones anyways. For now iPhone might be okay but someday it will start to suck so hard that you can’t stand using it, just like what’s happening to Windows. That’s why we need to consider start using Linux phones so your mother can ditch iPhone for it.
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The fact that there are only two operating systems and both are locked down is a major problem. Unless a company like Valve invests heavily in a linux phone it is unlikely to ever go mainstream enough for developer or device support.
We need governments and legislators to force these systems open. To enshrine the right to control the things you own and criminalize any attempt to curb people’s ownership or control. That is the first step. Once that’s in place, the environment for a third option to exist will be in place.
There are more than these 2, they are just ubiquitous.
Sailfish is another one, UBPorts, Danctnix, … They have no marketshare worth considering for companies so they lock their services down to the 2 big ones and everything else in their eyes is “unsupported” at best and “not secure” at worst.
I’d LOVE to know how many of the comments here were made on an iPhone.
Apple is kicking and screaming all the way on this side loading path.
As soon as Google got away with it, Apple will refer to Google and happily claim an even playfield and everyone is left holding the shortest stick.
