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Google photos on ios is literally a hostage situation. Remove key functionalities like copying an image or editing an image unless you give them full unrestricted access to your entire photo library. (The holy grail of surveillance capitalism data). Data extortion masquerading as a service.
I don't know if the format really applies. Complaining about one corporation stealing your data while using another's product that does the same seems a bit pointless, especially when there are cheaper, better alternatives. The putting a stick through your own bike tire format seems more appropriate.
What are the cheaper better alternatives? I would really love to have a phone that works with most modern things, is private and not by a big corpo, but as far I can tell, it doesn’t exist.
If Fairphone and Pine both don't meet your needs, then you can install a new OS on basically any android, though pixels work best. Even just getting root access to the phone opens up a ton of options for customization. There are communities on Lemmy that are all about this exact issue, though I don't know them off the top of my head.
The pinephone isn’t a realistic option. Great in theory but in practice it doesn’t really work in the real world where I unfortunately need WhatsApp to talk to a bunch of people.
Fairphone (or giving google my money to then install graphene) have the same problem — I either give up banking apps and contactless payments; or I have to give into the data hoard that is play services to gain access to those things.
I’m not saying apple is the hero here. I’m saying in a world where people actually need a smartphone to do a lot of things, it’s a better starting off point if you want to get some privacy (not storing photos in iCloud, etc) while retaining normal functionality.
I can see infer the telemetry my phone is sending (monitoring dns requests in pihole) and it’s miles better than any android (non degoogled) that comes in the house.
I also am in the real world. I don't need banking apps on my phone. WhatsApp is a terrible choice, so inwouldn't use it. You don't need these things you want these things.
How many people have you converted over to signal? I’ve done a whole 6. And before you say SMS, only if you live in a country where RCS is a thing, since group chats are a thing. I can do a lot, but it’s irrelevant if other people around me don’t.
Some have gone with signal, a group of people decided to do video chats with jisti. My family is all over the world so I understand why SMS is not an option.
But again, I don't care. Whatsapl is not an option. If people don't do it, well that is their problem. I never will need to communicate with someone badly enough to use WhatsApp.
Not that hard.
Anyone that claims Apple is stealing their data is drastically misinformed to the point where it feels like a rationalization.
Google does it, Facebook does it, Apple does not. Ask any engineer who works at these companies and they can confirm it.
It is frustrating to Apple engineers with how heavily restricted user data is. There are literally committees at Apple who default to No for any request. They do not profit off your data, they profit off the mark up on hardware and services.
Thinking it's a both/all sides thing is how much be enabled bad actors. The GOP is an example and anyone who falls for the corporate version is no smarter than anyone who falls for the political version. Luckily, it's not a lonely place to be.
Common sense is no longer common. Feelings have trumped all logic on the majority of Americans as well as the world population at large.
Yeah ask the engineers who work for a company who's whole schtick is to pretend to be privacy friendly that it does not steal user data. They'll definitely tell us.
Yeah well, Facebook had an ethics committee too, so they've always been ethical then huh?
But but but Apple is different…
Anyone who claims these companies have users best interest at heart are gullible people at best or a cult.
you need more of that "common sense" than using your feelings to dictate what multi billion companies are doing with your data.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-secretly-giving-governments-push-notification-data/
Yeah of course, they would be very wrong about that.
However, that doesn’t preclude a company from doing a good thing if they think that is what will make them the most money. If Apple’s giant marketing and product apparatus is going through the effort of selling privacy features, then that absolutely tells us they believe their customers care about it, and it suggests it probably goes into their design process. Maybe.
Apple sells walled-garden integration and privacy, but they do not sell openness and interoperability at all. In contrast, Google sells openness and interoperability, but not so much privacy.
Apple makes their money from hardware sales while Google makes their money from advertising. Again it’s consistent, smaller numbers of higher revenue users versus sheer scale.
I don’t trust either of these companies. Admittedly I do have some products from each still in my life that I’m phasing out, while I use a linux PC for most things. But when it comes to Apple in particular, I have to question how many “hurr durr sent from my iphone” jabs are sent from privacy-invading android phones that have multiple giant corporations’ tentacles in their firmware.
Note that given that this is Lemmy, I assume the proportion of comments posted from primarily FOSS devices is 1000x higher than for other sites/apps, I assume many of those comments are from privacy-respecting devices!
Apple absolutely does collect personal data from its users and uses that data to target advertising. They openly disclose this in their policy statements.
Stating that
is unjustifiable when Apple makes BILLIONS from advertising.
They also have been fined by European regulators when their practices ran afoul of privacy law.
Just because they're not as bad as Google (quite a low bar) it doesn't mean they're as good as they try to sell you on.
Lesser evil is still lesser evil.
It's hilarious how the people who choose more evil have such hatred of the lesser evils, it's like the evil has invaded their monds.
That is absolute bullshit. I worked for Apple, training Siri. Through false positive we heard unsuspecting people having sex and dealing drugs while their real names and addresses were on the screen.
https://gizmodo.com/apple-agrees-to-95-million-settlement-in-siri-eavesdropping-lawsuit-2000544806
You're wrong about that, you're wrong about politics, and you made voting for a genocider your entire personnality. It's pretty sad really
Siri has always been a mess. That's not the data this thread is about.
Photos, got any anecdotal bullshit on that?
You're an apple idiot aren't you? Look it's ok to admit you've been dumb as fuck overpaying all these years. We all make mistakes. Think about how scientologists feels.
Lmao I've witnessed literal sex cults that were less cultish than an apple campus.
Insulting the person in a internet discussion is an immediate loss.
Keep those emotions in check, it makes you look a fool.
I didn't insult you sweetie. As I said, we all make mistakes. Just admit you're been fooled. No dishonor
What kind of moving goalpost is this? "Apple does not harvest your data". "Uh they absolutely do, they literally (used correctly this time) got caught listening to people" "Nu-uh only pictures".
Won't someone think of the trillion dollar corporation?
These are the logical fallacies I love to see. Keep justifying shovelling all your data into Google, you'll show them!
Ah yes, "logical fallacies", the internet dork's favorite counter argument.
Google and Apple are both Trillion dollar companies, both are a problem.
Yeah, my bad. I must have replied to the wrong comment there. Your's was too trite to be worth a reply.
Talk is cheap. Show me the code.
Become a security research and they will
If missing the point was an Olympic sport you'd be a gold medalist.
What’s the point? criticising me for complaining about an issue that is on my grandma’s phone that I encountered?
Like yes we get apple is shit, so is android. My grandma is 90 and not loaded with cash I can’t just put her on graphene os.
This is a real way she’s having her data mined. Because other parts of the family insist on using google photos for the “family album”.
The what did you expect with apple as if everyone is a tech savy person with enough free time to maintain a custom rom and money to just straight up buy a new phone when they learn there’s isn’t perfect just ends up dismissing valid criticism.
Couple things here
You made a criticism, other people are allowed to criticize what you said.
Using the excuse of "not loaded with cash" is one I'm confused about. New or used, Pixels (Or some Motos if the Pixel is not available in your country) are cheaper than iPhones.
You seem tech savy enough to use Fedi/Lemmy, why not help them transition to a better solution for their privacy by either buying an ente subscription where they manage hosting and you dont have to worry about that, or using (free) Immich which you have to host yourself but is well worth setting up. You can even import all of your google photos albums and photos 1:1 into Immich as they are on GPhotos.
It is valid to criticize apple. They are a company who likes to taught "privacy" when they are not any better than any other phone manufacturer, no one has denied this. You just seem to find it impossible to be able to criticize both Apple, and consumers who seem to know better (You seem to be aware of Custom ROMs, as you brought it up first).
No one is trying to attack you or your family here. The OP commentor made a joke out of an observation. A valid obervation, as why would you expect Apple or Google to take your privacy in consideration. Yes, it sucks. Yes, it should change, but that change is not going to come from continuing to get fucked by them. You dont need a custom ROM to use Immich or ente. You dont have to allow companies to fuck you. The longer you let them, the harder it is to get out.
Also personal tangent, theres no "maintaining a custom ROM" unless youre building your own ROM. Most recommended custom ROMs auto-update, and dont need any more "maintainence" than an iPhone or stock android.
Did we just compare buying a certain brand of phone to being a serf? Really? No nuance with you people. Because a person being forced to work the fields to live is the same as you having to buy an iPhone.
The answer to this strawman of yours is “no” though.
No, I don't think we did. You seem to be missing the point. The comic is expressing a concept, it is not comparing owning a phone with owning a car or with being a serf.
Technically it's Foxconn that pays their wages and taxes. The comic obviously has a point though. Minus the Fairphone (overpriced for its spec and likely going to get shorter software support than any iPhone since the 5 it 5S), the options are all shit and include some form of modern slavery. IPhones just get the most attention while Samsung literally runs a country. We can't just all stop owning modern electronical devices altogether.