And Aol, and Skype, and YouTube and Facebook and Yahoo and Microsoft[0]. The domestic surveillance nightmare never ends! We on HN laugh about this stuff and love to make noise about E2EE and whatnot, but the battle was lost decades ago. There's nothing left, privacy is a myth from a different era of the internet.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)#/...

> There's nothing left, privacy is a myth from a different era of the internet.

GNU/Linux phones (Librem 5 and Pinephone) are here to help.

Well they would be if anyone actually owned them.

Apple isn't an ad company.

Yes they have access to your data if it's not E2EE, but you don't have to worry about their core revenue stream conflicting with your privacy.

But Apple does have an ad-network, and they do sell access to it. It might not be Google/Facebook-level yet, but nothing stops them from continuing that path as a means to generate more revenue in the future.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2021/10/19/apples-... https://searchads.apple.com/

People always seem to ignore the obvious. In addition to advertising, Apple partners with third parties to sell stuff "directly" (with Apple as the middleman) to the computer owner after the sale of the computer is complete. Apple takes a cut. Music, e-books, software, etc. Apple wants credit card numbers for future use; most purchasers comply.

Buy stuff using an Apple computer and Apple makes money.

There once was a time when Apple computers were just computers, not an intended means for capturing further revenue after purchase by partnering with media companies and other sellers. There was no mandatory data collection after purchase. No submission of credit card numbers. I still have one of those Apple computers. The company changed. Whether that was in response to what other companies were doing, e.g., Google, "changes in the industry", etc., is left as a question for the reader.

A patent application from Apple some years ago described advertising embedded into the operating ssystem. (Imagine the computer refusing to boot until the user has viewed an ad.) Perhaps we could tell ourselves Steve Jobs was trying to protect computer owners from advertising by filing for claims to the most annoying advertising tactics imaginable, with the intent to never practice these inventions and to sue alleged infringers. No doubt online commenters will have more cogent explanations of what this application represents.

http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=H...

There was a time when Apple wasn't an iTunes company, and then that started making them obscene profits.

There was a time when Apple wasn't an App Store company, and then that started making them obscene profits.

So yes, there is a time now when Apple isn't an ad company. We'll see how that goes.

People always seem to ignore the obvious. In addition to advertising, Apple partners with third parties to sell stuff "directly" (with Apple as the middleman) to the computer owner after the sale of the computer is complete. Apple takes a cut. Music, e-books, software, etc. Apple wants credit card numbers for future use; most purchasers comply.

Buy stuff using an Apple computer and Apple makes money.

There once was a time when Apple computers were just computers, not an intended means for capturing further revenue after purchase by partnering with media companies and other sellers. There was no mandatory data collection after purchase. No submission of credit card numbers. I still have one of those Apple computers. The company changed. Whether that was in response to what other companies were doing, e.g., Google, "changes in the industry", etc., is left as a question for the reader.

There was a patent application from Apple some years ago regarding advertising embedded into the operating ssystem. (Imagine the computer refusing to boot until the user has viewed an ad.) Perhaps we could tell ourselves Steve Jobs was trying to protect us by filing for claims to the most annoying advertising tactics imaginable, with the intent to never practice these inventions and to sue anyone who does. No doubt online commenters will have more cogent explanations of what this application represents.

http://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=H...

Accidental dupe. Sorry about that.

They are absolutely an ad company [1]. And they absolutely track stuff about you [2].

[1] https://pocketnow.com/apples-ad-business-5-billion-growth-ap...

[2] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/01/android_ios_location/

"..According to Leith, Android and iOS handsets share data about their salient characteristics with their makers every 4.5 minutes on average."

According to https://searchads.apple.com/privacy, the only user information used when showing ads is:

* details provided in your Apple ID profile (location, email, etc.)

* history of App Store downloads and in-app purchases

* contextual information like "device type, iOS version, time of day, device location, and search query."

In other words, while there are some privacy concerns here (really just device location, I guess), it seems like Apple is just using data from the App Store itself to serve App Store ads. In other words, no different than if Facebook only used information about how you use the Facebook app/site, rather than tracking your behavior across the entire internet.

I'm curious why you think this is comparable to what Google/Facebook does.

You have the answer in your comment:

* history of App Store downloads AND ^^in-app purchases^^

So there is no difference in my opinion. Only PR jargon to make it sound better.