I'm not sure I agree with the assumptions that this article is based on. Could Apple have developed something like Voice Match to differentiate between less personal accounts, e.g. News or Apple Music without opening up access to contacts or calling? If the issue was privacy not technology then why wouldn't they at least start with those? This looks very much like retrofitting a privacy excuse that was never the main reason for HomePod's limitations.
The article doesn't say that every HomePod limitation is an intentional privacy-based decision.
However, Apple is also not racing to rapidly throw out ideas in the voice category because:
d) from your point of view but I've not seen anything to validate it
Are you completely unaware of “antenna-gate” and signal attenuation on iPhone 4? Signal attenuation was nothing new at the time but it exploded when exhibited on the iPhone 4. Heck, I even had a manual to a previous phone that had a drawing of a hand holding that model of phone and basically saying if held in that way the signal may be affected. Nobody cared. But when Apple released a phone that exhibited the same behavior as other cell phones it was suddenly front page, screaming headlines news.
That’s just one example.
Apple has around 30-40% market share in the US. I'd be surprised if it wasn't headline news. We have an inbuilt negative bias that the media exploits. Every big company makes headlines when something happens - Samsung's exploding batteries, Facebook's CA problems, Google's issues around diversity, tax avoidance, censorship, car crashes, demonitising some youtube channels, screw ups on messaging, email scanning, book scanning. And we are currently commenting on one of many articles about Amazon's Echo spying.
So far, Apple is deeply invested in pursuing such thoughtful contemplative efforts, while its rivals do not even seem to recognize this as an issue. That's not going to work out well for them.
That seems like a logical conclusion but based on the minimal fallout that Facebook has had since the whole CA thing, I’m not sure how accurate it is.
It’s interesting that CA had to close down because their business tanked, but Facebook, the originator of the data collection that CA used, seems to have only been slightly bruised.
Considering that, I’m not sure many people care about ethics or privacy.
... Zuckerberg and Facebook are doing absolutely fine no matter how much data they harvest from consumers. Ethics are for losers and Zuckerberg is a winner. Zuckerberg is practically a god on Wall Street because his highly profitable business can't be touched by any regulating bodies. Since the data-harvesting scandal, Facebook is doing as well as it ever was. So much for consumers worrying over loss of personal privacy. If consumers don't care what happens to their personal data, why should anyone else care for them? Tim Cook going around telling people that privacy is a right is simply wasting his breath. If anything, the Feds are going to keep going after Apple because they hate the idea of iPhone encryption. The Feds believe everyone should be snooped upon and that nothing remains a secret. Apple is now the criminal for not letting the intelligence agencies have a back-door to iPhones. Apple is said to be protecting criminals and terrorists, so screw consumer privacy. ...
If this is what you truly believe, and truly desire, then indeed the future is one to dread...
gmgravytrain said: Most people have nothing worthwhile to hide from anyone except some little white lies.
A person's interest in privacy isn't just limited to things that might be embarrassing or illegal. Medical records? Financial records? Contacts? Business info? Trade secrets? It goes on and on and on.
I care about my privacy, don't have a FB account, don't use my real name "anywhere", use a VPN daily, and Siri.... I wouldn't use it even if it was actually useful.
Whoever used personal phone list in Echo is stupid. The device isn't personalized to a specific voice. I got Echo throughout of my house and refused to do that because Echo once in awhile picked up sound from my TV and responded in a creepy way. That means anyone could just make a phone call from my Echo if I had the phone book in there. The only Echo I used for calling is Echo Show for my parents of which I only have a few contacts for Echo-Echo calls, not phone numbers.
I doubt more than 5% of consumers on the entire planet care about personal privacy.
I very much agree with this statement. Yet, this is a rather tricky one: You could most likely could replace 'personal privacy' with 'buckling up', 'drug side effects', 'controlling the stock market', 'the well being of people in remote countries', ... The essence of your statement is that only few are interested beyond their personal well being and those close to them. However, societies succeed by employing rules that are good not only for individuals, but for a population. Such rules put on certain constraints, like a seat-belt, or drug testing before releasing, but these constraints are beneficial for the survival of the population. The detrimental effects of unconstraint social media are becoming way too obvious at the moment. Therefore we need to employ rules for the survival of the entire population. If this is not done, the race to the bottom continues, and with it the corrosion of our western societies.
gmgravytrain said: Most people have nothing worthwhile to hide from anyone except some little white lies.
A person's interest in privacy isn't just limited to things that might be embarrassing or illegal. Medical records? Financial records? Contacts? Business info? Trade secrets? It goes on and on and on.
Yes. It's easy to forget in this age of confessionals that there are still many reasons to safeguard privacy, if not for yourself than for future generations who need to discover themselves. Most people have public and private lives. Some have secret ones too, and not only for illicit reasons. No privacy at all = humans akin to sheep.
gmgravytrain said: Most people have nothing worthwhile to hide from anyone except some little white lies.
A person's interest in privacy isn't just limited to things that might be embarrassing or illegal. Medical records? Financial records? Contacts? Business info? Trade secrets? It goes on and on and on.
Indeed. While many people might feel they have nothing to hide, they also probably feel they do have things they’d rather not have stolen from them.
I'm not sure I agree with the assumptions that this article is based on. Could Apple have developed something like Voice Match to differentiate between less personal accounts, e.g. News or Apple Music without opening up access to contacts or calling? If the issue was privacy not technology then why wouldn't they at least start with those? This looks very much like retrofitting a privacy excuse that was never the main reason for HomePod's limitations.
The article doesn't say that every HomePod limitation is an intentional privacy-based decision.
However, Apple is also not racing to rapidly throw out ideas in the voice category because:
d) from your point of view but I've not seen anything to validate it
Are you completely unaware of “antenna-gate” and signal attenuation on iPhone 4? Signal attenuation was nothing new at the time but it exploded when exhibited on the iPhone 4. Heck, I even had a manual to a previous phone that had a drawing of a hand holding that model of phone and basically saying if held in that way the signal may be affected. Nobody cared. But when Apple released a phone that exhibited the same behavior as other cell phones it was suddenly front page, screaming headlines news.
That’s just one example.
Apple has around 30-40% market share in the US. I'd be surprised if it wasn't headline news. We have an inbuilt negative bias that the media exploits. Every big company makes headlines when something happens - Samsung's exploding batteries, Facebook's CA problems, Google's issues around diversity, tax avoidance, censorship, car crashes, demonitising some youtube channels, screw ups on messaging, email scanning, book scanning. And we are currently commenting on one of many articles about Amazon's Echo spying.
So, it’s headline news because of their market share? Smaller players should be given a pass for the same issue because they’re smaller? The phone I had was not from a small player when its manual urged to avoid holding the phone in a particular way. But nobody heard about it.
Of of course all big companies make headlines when something happens. But the scale is frequently tipped against Apple, like with “antenna-gate”.
You cited Facebook/CA, but can you point to another company that had the same issue that was basically ignored? What company had a similar issue to this Echo one but was brushed aside? And you honestly think the general population knows about Google’s diversity issues and that those are on par with any negative headline around Apple?
The difference is that with Apple issues tend tobe overblown compared to similar things that get virtually ignored with other companies. Another commenter here even mentioned the Echo issue had about 20 seconds of airtime on the news last night. That’s nothing like “antenna-gate”, which had headlines for days over a common cell phone issue.
I'm not sure I agree with the assumptions that this article is based on. Could Apple have developed something like Voice Match to differentiate between less personal accounts, e.g. News or Apple Music without opening up access to contacts or calling? If the issue was privacy not technology then why wouldn't they at least start with those? This looks very much like retrofitting a privacy excuse that was never the main reason for HomePod's limitations.
The article doesn't say that every HomePod limitation is an intentional privacy-based decision.
However, Apple is also not racing to rapidly throw out ideas in the voice category because:
d) from your point of view but I've not seen anything to validate it
Are you completely unaware of “antenna-gate” and signal attenuation on iPhone 4? Signal attenuation was nothing new at the time but it exploded when exhibited on the iPhone 4. Heck, I even had a manual to a previous phone that had a drawing of a hand holding that model of phone and basically saying if held in that way the signal may be affected. Nobody cared. But when Apple released a phone that exhibited the same behavior as other cell phones it was suddenly front page, screaming headlines news.
That’s just one example.
Apple has around 30-40% market share in the US. I'd be surprised if it wasn't headline news. We have an inbuilt negative bias that the media exploits. Every big company makes headlines when something happens - Samsung's exploding batteries, Facebook's CA problems, Google's issues around diversity, tax avoidance, censorship, car crashes, demonitising some youtube channels, screw ups on messaging, email scanning, book scanning. And we are currently commenting on one of many articles about Amazon's Echo spying.
Agreed, it's Apple loons who think that there actually are people who seriously dedicte their time and energy to hating and conspiring against a near trillion $ company. It seems DED can no longer write an Apple article without bringing up the same companies that aren't really even in any significant way directly competing with Apple. Google is a search engine ad company, Amazon is an everything online store, Samsung is the everything electronics and appliances store, Apple is the iPhone/computer company, in what universe can you reasonably equate any of these business models ? constantly implying that since Apple is the only one succeeding at the computer business (which is their model) means the rest are implicitly evil and out to exploit and harm people is ridiculous. Apple's moral stance isn't a virtue of bieng inherently "good" but a feature of corporate branding, if Apple really cared about the environment or privacy they wouldn't advertise to us so much about their efforts, but they do because as you can see by this thread it sell more iPhones, if it didn't it be out the window i.e China.
So far, Apple is deeply invested in pursuing such thoughtful contemplative efforts, while its rivals do not even seem to recognize this as an issue. That's not going to work out well for them.
That seems like a logical conclusion but based on the minimal fallout that Facebook has had since the whole CA thing, I’m not sure how accurate it is.
It’s interesting that CA had to close down because their business tanked, but Facebook, the originator of the data collection that CA used, seems to have only been slightly bruised.
Considering that, I’m not sure many people care about ethics or privacy.
... Zuckerberg and Facebook are doing absolutely fine no matter how much data they harvest from consumers. Ethics are for losers and Zuckerberg is a winner. Zuckerberg is practically a god on Wall Street because his highly profitable business can't be touched by any regulating bodies. Since the data-harvesting scandal, Facebook is doing as well as it ever was. So much for consumers worrying over loss of personal privacy. If consumers don't care what happens to their personal data, why should anyone else care for them? Tim Cook going around telling people that privacy is a right is simply wasting his breath. If anything, the Feds are going to keep going after Apple because they hate the idea of iPhone encryption. The Feds believe everyone should be snooped upon and that nothing remains a secret. Apple is now the criminal for not letting the intelligence agencies have a back-door to iPhones. Apple is said to be protecting criminals and terrorists, so screw consumer privacy. ...
If this is what you truly believe, and truly desire, then indeed the future is one to dread...
Indeed. Profit motive has already trumped any compassion human beings had for each other. Now it's eroding ethics and our right to privacy. Black Mirror is truly bang on when it comes to thinking about the dark future that's in store for us if no one considers or cares about these issues.
I prefer "artifical" to "machine" intelligence. "Artifical" has a stronger connotation of "man-made" than does "machine". And machines are definitely NOT EVER intelligent. "Artificial" also has a connotation of imitating natural intelligence. Hopefully, such imitation remains as such and for purly pragmatic purposes, and doesn't eventually morph into something ugly such as attempting to replace human intelligence. But then, we humans must remain vigilant and be ever willing to "fight back.";-)
gmgravytrain said: Most people have nothing worthwhile to hide from anyone except some little white lies.
A person's interest in privacy isn't just limited to things that might be embarrassing or illegal. Medical records? Financial records? Contacts? Business info? Trade secrets? It goes on and on and on.
Indeed. While many people might feel they have nothing to hide, they also probably feel they do have things they’d rather not have stolen from them.
Or used to control them in ways they hadn't even considered.
I'm not sure I agree with the assumptions that this article is based on. Could Apple have developed something like Voice Match to differentiate between less personal accounts, e.g. News or Apple Music without opening up access to contacts or calling? If the issue was privacy not technology then why wouldn't they at least start with those? This looks very much like retrofitting a privacy excuse that was never the main reason for HomePod's limitations.
I’d be interested in knowing how well voice match has been implemented on HomePod competitors’ devices. It’s not unusual for blood relatives in a household to have very similar voices. A static appliance in the house using voice match to access individual accounts, playlists, etc. would need to have a very low fail rate at matching voices. Is the question that Apple can’t implement this as well as others, or is it that they have a higher expectation for quality before they’re willing to roll it out?
Other vendors did face recognition before Apple’s faceID, but their implementation was decidedly inferior. Could be the same issue with voice match on the HomePod.
I doubt more than 5% of consumers on the entire planet care about personal privacy. Most people have nothing worthwhile to hide from anyone except some little white lies. If Apple wants to go about advocating privacy, that's fine, but Apple is going to end up dead last when it comes to intelligent assistants. The best assistants know everything about the person they're working for. It would be stupid to hide things from your own assistant because you'd be hurting their efficiency. Siri is considered the most stupid assistant because Apple is handicapping Siri in so many ways.
... If consumers don't care what happens to their personal data, why should anyone else care for them? Tim Cook going around telling people that privacy is a right is simply wasting his breath. If anything, the Feds are going to keep going after Apple because they hate the idea of iPhone encryption. The Feds believe everyone should be snooped upon and that nothing remains a secret. Apple is now the criminal for not letting the intelligence agencies have a back-door to iPhones. Apple is said to be protecting criminals and terrorists, so screw consumer privacy.
The companies that data-harvest 24/7 are the ones that will always have the most value because they're turning high profits using endless amounts of free information. Almost no one cares about personal privacy, so it seems to me companies might as well use it to their heart's content. The way I see it, Apple is going to be the biggest loser for taking an ethical stance over privacy. Tim Cook obviously doesn't understand how much consumers love "free" services and they're willing to hand over their souls to keep those "free" services. To most consumers personal privacy isn't worth anything, so giving it up is not such a big deal.
When it comes to big business, having ethics is like trying to swim with an anchor tied around your neck. Only profits matter to investors and they don't care how profits are obtained. That's why the big hedge funds started loading up on Facebook stock despite the data-leak scandal. They surely didn't say, "Facebook is unethical, let's buy Apple instead."
1. People don't know what they want until they lose it. Just because many people don't care doesn't mean everyone doesn't care. 2. What laws did Apple break in encrypting iPhones? None. Of people didn't care about privacy, why do they use pass codes? Why enable touch ID? Why lock their doors?
3. Apple doesn't make money off Siri, do who cares if it's dead last? Siri does what I need it to do. 4. Apple is the most profitable company in the world. They do this with privacy in mind. They ain't hurting due to Siri's limitations.
We appear to be mixing things up here! To start with any information about you either posted or dictated by us needs to be secured! Security is important!
BUT! Siri's major failings as well as Home Pods is not security! Its inaction & lack of vision!
Asking a simple question about something and not getting an answer that correct or just points me to a web URL which is not what I want. It's the lack of conversational flow, so if Siri pointed me to a URL I should be able just to tell Siri to read it or at least give me a synopsis. This has nothing to do with security!
How about when I'm cooking breakfast and I ask Siri for a timer for my eggs and then ask for a second timer for my oatmeal can't do it!
The only security issue presently is Home Pod being locked to my iPhone so anyone can ask the HomePod to send a message as me. Now thats a security weakness which still hasn't been dealt with.
So stop finding reasons that Apple can't won't do this or that. Lets focus on what it should do that has nothing to do with security and when they fail to deal with something that does have to do with security lets get it fixed ASAP or at least limit the action until something can be done.
Basically, iPad's & Home Pods need to support multiple people and be able to discriminate in some fashion whom is the person is thats interacting with them! In the case of having multiple Home Pods, each one needs to discriminate the person nearest to them and if the person joins the other somehow the Home Pod needs to know what not to do!
I'm not sure I agree with the assumptions that this article is based on. Could Apple have developed something like Voice Match to differentiate between less personal accounts, e.g. News or Apple Music without opening up access to contacts or calling? If the issue was privacy not technology then why wouldn't they at least start with those? This looks very much like retrofitting a privacy excuse that was never the main reason for HomePod's limitations.
The article doesn't say that every HomePod limitation is an intentional privacy-based decision.
However, Apple is also not racing to rapidly throw out ideas in the voice category because:
d) from your point of view but I've not seen anything to validate it
Are you completely unaware of “antenna-gate” and signal attenuation on iPhone 4? Signal attenuation was nothing new at the time but it exploded when exhibited on the iPhone 4. Heck, I even had a manual to a previous phone that had a drawing of a hand holding that model of phone and basically saying if held in that way the signal may be affected. Nobody cared. But when Apple released a phone that exhibited the same behavior as other cell phones it was suddenly front page, screaming headlines news.
That’s just one example.
Apple has around 30-40% market share in the US. I'd be surprised if it wasn't headline news. We have an inbuilt negative bias that the media exploits. Every big company makes headlines when something happens - Samsung's exploding batteries, Facebook's CA problems, Google's issues around diversity, tax avoidance, censorship, car crashes, demonitising some youtube channels, screw ups on messaging, email scanning, book scanning. And we are currently commenting on one of many articles about Amazon's Echo spying.
Agreed, it's Apple loons who think that there actually are people who seriously dedicte their time and energy to hating and conspiring against a near trillion $ company. It seems DED can no longer write an Apple article without bringing up the same companies that aren't really even in any significant way directly competing with Apple. Google is a search engine ad company, Amazon is an everything online store, Samsung is the everything electronics and appliances store, Apple is the iPhone/computer company, in what universe can you reasonably equate any of these business models ? constantly implying that since Apple is the only one succeeding at the computer business (which is their model) means the rest are implicitly evil and out to exploit and harm people is ridiculous. Apple's moral stance isn't a virtue of bieng inherently "good" but a feature of corporate branding, if Apple really cared about the environment or privacy they wouldn't advertise to us so much about their efforts, but they do because as you can see by this thread it sell more iPhones, if it didn't it be out the window i.e China.
Says what authority? If you think the level of effort apple has put into environment or privacy values is equal to other corps you’re delusional.
That should be "flak" (without a "c"), not "flack." Flak is anti-aircraft fire; the implied analogy is that a person "taking flak" is akin to an airplane being shot at by gunners on the ground. A "flack," with a "c," is a human being—a P.R. professional.
There's also a subsequent reference to "Appel's rivals," which probably should be Apple's. Though Richard Appel does seem like an interesting guy who possibly has interesting rivals.
I'm not sure I agree with the assumptions that this article is based on. Could Apple have developed something like Voice Match to differentiate between less personal accounts, e.g. News or Apple Music without opening up access to contacts or calling? If the issue was privacy not technology then why wouldn't they at least start with those? This looks very much like retrofitting a privacy excuse that was never the main reason for HomePod's limitations.
The article doesn't say that every HomePod limitation is an intentional privacy-based decision.
However, Apple is also not racing to rapidly throw out ideas in the voice category because:
d) from your point of view but I've not seen anything to validate it
Are you completely unaware of “antenna-gate” and signal attenuation on iPhone 4? Signal attenuation was nothing new at the time but it exploded when exhibited on the iPhone 4. Heck, I even had a manual to a previous phone that had a drawing of a hand holding that model of phone and basically saying if held in that way the signal may be affected. Nobody cared. But when Apple released a phone that exhibited the same behavior as other cell phones it was suddenly front page, screaming headlines news.
That’s just one example.
Apple has around 30-40% market share in the US. I'd be surprised if it wasn't headline news. We have an inbuilt negative bias that the media exploits. Every big company makes headlines when something happens - Samsung's exploding batteries, Facebook's CA problems, Google's issues around diversity, tax avoidance, censorship, car crashes, demonitising some youtube channels, screw ups on messaging, email scanning, book scanning. And we are currently commenting on one of many articles about Amazon's Echo spying.
So, it’s headline news because of their market share? Smaller players should be given a pass for the same issue because they’re smaller? The phone I had was not from a small player when its manual urged to avoid holding the phone in a particular way. But nobody heard about it.
Of of course all big companies make headlines when something happens. But the scale is frequently tipped against Apple, like with “antenna-gate”.
You cited Facebook/CA, but can you point to another company that had the same issue that was basically ignored? What company had a similar issue to this Echo one but was brushed aside? And you honestly think the general population knows about Google’s diversity issues and that those are on par with any negative headline around Apple?
The difference is that with Apple issues tend tobe overblown compared to similar things that get virtually ignored with other companies. Another commenter here even mentioned the Echo issue had about 20 seconds of airtime on the news last night. That’s nothing like “antenna-gate”, which had headlines for days over a common cell phone issue.
Yes, it is natural that the largest company in the world will get more media coverage than a smaller one. I don't even think that this is a bad aspect of the media. The largest companies should expect to come under the most scrutiny as they affect the most people. Some tiny cornershop manufacturer suffering from antenna problems is meaningless to the general population. Also, Apple lives by the media so conversely they should expect to die by the media. Do you remember Android Wear's launch? I don't. I sure as sh*t remember Apple's Watch launch - they turned the media into their own marketing department. If they want the good, they have to expect the bad when they don't live up to the reputation that they build up for themselves. It just works, remember.
And do I remember another company that allowed a third party to access its clients data and wasn't brought before government on two continents? Well yeah, I do, I could name a dozen of them if I could be bothered searching for the names or racking my brain. But isn't that the point - we know those companies are out there, security breaches happen every day, but they barely make the news because the companies are not as known as Facebook. As an example, I recall having to change my password on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Yahoo but can't even remember the details.
Comments
Of of course all big companies make headlines when something happens. But the scale is frequently tipped against Apple, like with “antenna-gate”.
You cited Facebook/CA, but can you point to another company that had the same issue that was basically ignored? What company had a similar issue to this Echo one but was brushed aside? And you honestly think the general population knows about Google’s diversity issues and that those are on par with any negative headline around Apple?
The difference is that with Apple issues tend tobe overblown compared to similar things that get virtually ignored with other companies. Another commenter here even mentioned the Echo issue had about 20 seconds of airtime on the news last night. That’s nothing like “antenna-gate”, which had headlines for days over a common cell phone issue.
Or used to control them in ways they hadn't even considered.
Other vendors did face recognition before Apple’s faceID, but their implementation was decidedly inferior. Could be the same issue with voice match on the HomePod.
2. What laws did Apple break in encrypting iPhones? None. Of people didn't care about privacy, why do they use pass codes? Why enable touch ID? Why lock their doors?
4. Apple is the most profitable company in the world. They do this with privacy in mind. They ain't hurting due to Siri's limitations.
BUT! Siri's major failings as well as Home Pods is not security! Its inaction & lack of vision!
Asking a simple question about something and not getting an answer that correct or just points me to a web URL which is not what I want. It's the lack of conversational flow, so if Siri pointed me to a URL I should be able just to tell Siri to read it or at least give me a synopsis. This has nothing to do with security!
How about when I'm cooking breakfast and I ask Siri for a timer for my eggs and then ask for a second timer for my oatmeal can't do it!
The only security issue presently is Home Pod being locked to my iPhone so anyone can ask the HomePod to send a message as me. Now thats a security weakness which still hasn't been dealt with.
So stop finding reasons that Apple can't won't do this or that. Lets focus on what it should do that has nothing to do with security and when they fail to deal with something that does have to do with security lets get it fixed ASAP or at least limit the action until something can be done.
Basically, iPad's & Home Pods need to support multiple people and be able to discriminate in some fashion whom is the person is thats interacting with them! In the case of having multiple Home Pods, each one needs to discriminate the person nearest to them and if the person joins the other somehow the Home Pod needs to know what not to do!
That should be "flak" (without a "c"), not "flack." Flak is anti-aircraft fire; the implied analogy is that a person "taking flak" is akin to an airplane being shot at by gunners on the ground. A "flack," with a "c," is a human being—a P.R. professional.
There's also a subsequent reference to "Appel's rivals," which probably should be Apple's. Though Richard Appel does seem like an interesting guy who possibly has interesting rivals.
And do I remember another company that allowed a third party to access its clients data and wasn't brought before government on two continents? Well yeah, I do, I could name a dozen of them if I could be bothered searching for the names or racking my brain. But isn't that the point - we know those companies are out there, security breaches happen every day, but they barely make the news because the companies are not as known as Facebook. As an example, I recall having to change my password on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Yahoo but can't even remember the details.