I want to talk about this because of a conversation I had with a colleague on a lunch break a few days ago. I am a doctor, and I was talking to him about how angry I was (and still am) about the fact that the COVID vaccines, when they were first invented, were not made public, but instead were patented and sold. This basic fact made millions of people around the world suffer. I was rambling about how scientific information should always be free. How we should be able to use the internet as the greatest library our ancestors could have only dreamt of, instead of putting information behind paywalls. Even back in med school I was an avid user of sci-hub and I wasn’t ashamed of it one bit. I still use sci-hub to keep up with new researches so I can treat/inform my patients better. And I hate how some of my colleagues think that I am stealing others’ work.
Anyways, so I was rambling on and on. I sometimes do that. And my friend said something so strange and unrelated (in my eyes) to the conversation. He said “Look at you, defending open access to medical information for everyone, yet you only use Apple products.” I was like, “What? What do you mean?” He explained, “Man, all the things you use are made by Apple. Your laptop, tablet, phone, watch, earbuds or whatever, made by the company that is one of the main adversaries when it comes to right-to-repair and open source software.” So you need to see here, I’m not a tech guy. It’s just not my field. My job only requires me to read textbooks and keep up with new researches in my field, which any device can do. So I was like, “I… I don’t think I follow.” So he briefly explained what open-source software is, and how it’s related to my idea of free and open access to information for everyone, but this time it’s not in our field but programmers’. And when I almost reflexively said “Well we’re not programmers” he said “I mean, when it comes to software, it’s the programmers’ and developers’ thing. But free and open source is an idea. It applies to everything. And I think you’re supporting a company that opposes your views by buying their products.”
We didn’t have much time left so that was the end of that conversation. And I have been thinking about it since. When buying tech products I mainly care about if they are integrated with each other or not. Like if I turn on Do not Disturb on my watch, I want my phone, tablet and laptop to go quiet as well. Or I like being able to answer a phone call on my laptop. And I love the aesthetics of Apple products, at least more than what other companies have to offer.
Every evening since that conversation I’ve been looking up stuff related to open source software. Linux, distros, the philosophy behind it all, Linus Torvalds, Steve Wozniak, Arch, “read the wiki”, terminal, GUI, AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA my brain is filled with so many things at this point that I don’t understand anything at all.
So, TLDR; I’d love to hear your opinions about Apple. Most people (myself included) buy Apple devices because of the ecosystem, the design, privacy (?), consistent updates (especially on mobile), or for you might say, a lack of knowledge in the field of tech. Do you support Apple or are you against them, or are you indifferent? Do you think people who are not in the tech field as well should look into and use open source software? Leave your thoughts below! ^^
While Apple claims to be private there really isn’t any proof since all their software is proprietary. On top of that, on my home network where I have a ton of devices and my wife has one iPhone, Apple sure gets a LOT of calls back to home base. So I’d say they collect a ton of data. Not private. But they do not sell it as much. Since you can look at how they make their money is primarily through hardware. That being said it still isn’t the only way.
You might want to check what those calls are, specifically. Out of the box they use the iCloud Private Relay to hide network traffic, essentially a VPN. If you go onto the wifi settings of her phone and turn off the “Limit IP Address Tracking” it will likely be a lot less chatty. Otherwise there is iCloud stuff, but overall they do not collect all that much data at all (they allow you to request a copy of what they do collect on their privacy page). You might also help her review the privacy settings on her phone, there are many things that can be disabled.
Right but this all completely neglects my first point, you don’t know if they are telling the truth.
That alone doesn’t make them anti-privacy,
While I suppose you’re right, the fella up there shares some of the other real reasons. Airtags too. They can recognize me with my android because I’m around enough Apple users and their devices flag mine. Apple’s mesh network for find my iPhone is the single greatest example that they don’t truly want you to be private, at least not from them. From others yes I will agree, but not from themselves.
An idle iPhone sends about 5 data transmissions to Apple per hour (and a couple of transmissions to Google), an idle stock Android device sends about 40 transmissions per hour to Google. So yes they are less invasive than Google (Google is one of the worst privacy offenders in the world, so it’s easy being less invasive than them), but they still do a lot of tracking, and it’s gotten worse over time (they added tracking analytics to their stores now, for example). So of course high product prices aren’t enough for Apple, data has to be collected, too.