It's contrarianly cool to interpret Apple's "pivot to services" to mean adopting the privacy-invading Google/Facebook business model but that's probably not happening in reality.

You pay for the service with money though, which is kinda the opposite of what Google/Facebooks services are.

I pay Google for additional cloud storage. Doesn't mean they're any more careful with my data than they were when I was on the free tier.

From the non-encrypted ICloud, the eavesdropping on Siri conversations, to the non-encrypted spying about opened apps going through 3rd party server and some zillion other cases of Apple screwing up privacy... I'm not sure Apple cares about privacy beside their marketing propaganda.

Why do we need to take side ? big tech are like choosing between the plague and cholera.

The message to spread is not "Apple/Google is better for privacy", it's " Google & Apple are both screwing up our privacy and have awful anticompetitive practices, so buy an Android or IPhone whatever cause we don't have choices right now, but if you want things to change support Purism/PinePhone/Protonmail/EFF/FSF/etc."

We need people to realize the harm both Apple & Google ( & Amazon & etc.) are doing to our privacy and society rather than having them thinking one is the bad guy and not the other.

Hard to really know where Apple stands in comparison to the other tech giants. It feels like forever ago, but they all sang the same tune when Snowden leaked those documents a few years back.

We first heard of the government’s “Prism” program when news organizations asked us about it on June 6.

https://www.apple.com/apples-commitment-to-customer-privacy/

Compare this to:

Microsoft: We provide customer data only when we receive a legally binding order or subpoena to do so, and never on a voluntary basis. In addition we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers. If the government has a broader voluntary national security program to gather customer data we don't participate in it.

Facebook: We do not provide any government organization with direct access to Facebook servers. When Facebook is asked for data or information about specific individuals, we carefully scrutinize any such request for compliance with all applicable laws, and provide information only to the extent required by law.

Google: Google cares deeply about the security of our users' data. We disclose user data to government in accordance with the law, and we review all such requests carefully. From time to time, people allege that we have created a government 'back door' into our systems, but Google does not have a backdoor for the government to access private user data.

https://techcrunch.com/2013/06/06/google-facebook-apple-deny...

I have long wanted to believe Apple is fighting for its customers' privacy, but this new phone-home telemetry "feature" really stacks undeniable doubt against the likelihood that Apple is in my corner. I am starting to think that all the back-and-forth with the Justice Department and Bill Barr (https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/bill-barr-wants-apple-...) was encryption theatre and the US government actually wants people to use Apple devices. Think about it...Apple is a US company with major access to China and other world markets, and it writes its own software. Seems like the ideal partner for a nosy surveillance agency.

I just want a blazing fast aluminum laptop that doesn't betray me at every turn. I guess that's too much to ask these days.

Are you saying that implementing shady bypassing of VPNs to transfer who knows what data out of "your" machine without your knowledge is okay because it is not as bad as Microsoft, Facebook or Google? Is it really what we have come to? I think this is worse than Microsoft, because in Windows I can actually disable that and it doesn't try to bypass my firewall or VPN.

I think Apple wants you to know if you try to launch malware, even if you are on a VPN. I wouldn’t doubt that many of their engineers are using them.

"It's a shame if something happened to you, now give us your data, actually we just downloaded it"