Post · bonfire.cafe

It's like clockwork that people feel the urge to bash Apple when you criticize Google.

Apple is certainly not without fault, but they're the only big tech company who gives a shit about privacy.

They also usually aren't sacks of shit to their customers and they are actually driving technology forward to be more useful to human beings (e.g. M-series chips).

Plus they're not cramming "AI" into everything. It's entirely optional to use any of the "Apple Intelligence" stuff and their operating systems are supported on hardware that doesn't even allow running it.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Adddendum: I will block you if you fart Apple-bashing toots into my replies.

CM Harrington

@octothorpe@mastodon.online · 2 hours ago

@thomasfuchs I agree with your general direction, but remember, Apple *absolutely* wanted to cram AI into everything. Take a look again at the WWDC keynotes from a few years back. Someone I think The Verge even made an ‘AI Supercut’. They just utterly failed to do so, got sued, and lost because of their failure to deliver.

Human Brain Enthusiast

@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io · 2 hours ago

@octothorpe I think they just got high sniffing their own farts at that WWDC keynote.

The important point is though, even when they become overburdening or make mistakes, eventually they listen to their customers.

CM Harrington

@octothorpe@mastodon.online · 2 hours ago

@thomasfuchs I guess. I have zero research to support my position, but I’m not sure they do any more than any other average company. There are plenty of instances where they very specifically did not do what the customers wanted, or, they did it only after so much incessant and loud feedback they were forced to confront it… or indeed, comply with the law.

We (Apple users) do however, hold Apple to a different standard than we do other companies, and over time gave them a lot of social capital.

sebsauvage

@sebsauvage@framapiaf.org · 2 hours ago

@thomasfuchs
Apple...? Like... Collecting all GPS positions in the day and sending them to Apple ?
Or blocking vpn apps on the appstore to please the Russian government ?
Apple "protection" of privacy is overrated.

(Signed by someone who has started computing on Apple ][, Lisa and Macs.)

elle

@elle@weathered-steel.social · 2 hours ago

@thomasfuchs when there are even better hardware vendors available, why do you feel the need to cape for a tech oligarchy?

sentientsponge

@sentientsponge@mastodon.social · 2 hours ago

@thomasfuchs Yea, I've always been an Android user and disliked Apple, but Google is just steamrolling ahead to turn themselves into a caricature of Evil Corpo. I've still no desire to own Apple products, but I'm rapidly feeling that way about Google as well.

Mark T. Tomczak

@mark@mastodon.fixermark.com · 2 hours ago

@thomasfuchs This is true, even if their incentive to do so is market-driven (they're a hardware company; data mining their users' PII beyond things like "tracking app store purchases" just doesn't have benefit outweighing risk).

Human Brain Enthusiast

@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io · 2 hours ago

@mark Perhaps, but they designed their business this way on purpose and by choice; so it's not an accident or a law of nature that it is this way.

(To be entirely fair, in some quarters their services business is starting to rival their hardware revenue. They're still seeing the light in long-term customer relationships though.)

Mark T. Tomczak

@mark@mastodon.fixermark.com · 1 hour ago

@thomasfuchs Well that's the thing... It may be a law of market that "elite hardware manufacturer that caters to elites is essentially in the overlap of computer hardware and luxury goods, where medium- and long-term reputation matters more that in the commodity-compute-for-free sector."

Not to remove choice from Apple or diminish the fact that they are making the right choices, only to note that they don't need to harvest data from users because products generated by big data aren't their revenue stream.