CloudTalkin

A few interesting things one can do on their jailbroken phone. 

DAalseth said:  

Didn’t realize he had previously stayed anonymous. So he really wanted his fifteen. 

Not buying the altruistic angle. From all reports Apple, (not necessarily google or amazon though) were primarily concerned with why Hey Siri requests failed. They clipped just the first couple or three seconds and then checked the servers for what Siri thought the user had said. No data tracking. No location tracking. No data mining. No spying on people at all hours of the day. Just finding out why Siri is such an imbecile. When I heard about it my instant reaction was “yes of course they have to do quality control checks, duh” and I haven’t changed that opinion. Yes, there’s more transparency. When we load an update is asks us if we are willing to let Apple do quality checks. I always check yes. I suspect bloody well nearly everyone else does as well, in most cases because most people don’t know or care about it. 

So this guy is all bent out of shape because Apple just got a stern finger shaking. Hey I got them worlds smallest violin I can play a sad tune on for him. His somebody must pay moment was (IMO only of course) his hope for a somebody must pay ME moment. 

Hmmm, interesting.  All three issued basically the same statement regarding their use case: they were all collecting samples for improvement. In other words, they were all data mining. It's the essence of why the data was collected in the first place: for it to be mined as part of the improvement processes of each company's assistant.  So it's funny (not funny ha ha) how you characterize Apple's motivations differently.  I guess we all make allowances for our favorites.  Not criticizing you. Just making an observation.

Not really sure how you got he was looking for some type of financial gain.  Seems a bit of reach without cause.  Just seems like he's bent out shape because the punishment wasn't harsher.

DAalseth said:

flydog said:

As usual, much ado about nothing. This clown greatly exaggerates the nature and scope of the recordings, which as most people who use Siri know, can’t be more than a few seconds long. It’s a stretch to call this “wiretapping,” and the claim that Apple collected location and identity data is flat out false. 

Exactly. Sounds to me like someone got his fifteen minutes of fame and wants more. 

How so?  The guy was an anonymous whistleblower so he got  no 15 minutes of fame.  Now, one could claim outing himself served to garner the 15 minutes, but why would anyone claim that?  The guy's a whistleblower.  Wouldn't a more logical conclusion be the guy is all bent out of shape because his "sacrifice" only garnered the equivalent of a stern finger shaking?  My man really didn't get his [shakes fist] "somebody must pay" moment.  

We got more data transparency from the companies, so he accomplished something at least.  Maybe we should thank him for his service.

mac_dog said:

So how is it a violation of privacy if it is opt in?
Even I know about this and I’ve dropped out of the tech scene for a while now. He sounds desperate. 

Money, notoriety, relevance or all of the above? Perhaps he should get an essential job and start doing something productive with all this time he’s got on his hands. 

You seem to have misread the article.  The claims of privacy violations come before the implementation of opt in.  Opt-in is one of the responses from Apple as a result of his whistleblowing.  His motivations are immaterial.  Along with others, he brought to light how tech companies were handling our voice data without our knowledge.  Perhaps you should give thanks to his actions for helping make control of your data more your choice than it was before.  Or keep throwing shade.  Either way, we now have opt-in.  

I disagree with his position that Apple wasn't sufficiently punished.  They were, they all were.  They were all also put on notice that surreptitious data collection isn't acceptable with customers.  If they are found to be doing the same type of collection in the future the punishment should escalate. 

ihatescreennames said:

I’ve never understood why Fortune ranks by revenue and not profit. I remember for years and years GM and Ford were at the top of the list and if I recall correctly GM was usually 1. All those years of earning the most revenue didn’t help when it came time to bail them out. 

The short answer is tradition and optics.  

The longer answer is revenue has traditionally been seen as the measuring stick of a growing company.  It's also traditionally been the less objectionable public facing number.  Revenue is also a bigger number so in the vein of "bigger is better" attention grabbing headlines, it's a more attractive stat to get the reader's attention.

Profit numbers have primarily not been mentioned in polite company.  In certain circles, big fat profit was associated with greed, especially when it was the measuring stick almost exclusively associated with financial services/banking, big oll, and big pharma - 3 industries with less than stellar PR.  The tech industry in general, and Apple specifically, sort of changed the narrative by making it kinda okay to celebrate big profits at big margins.  Though tech stalwarts are starting to get accused of greed more often.

For those who want to see profit, Fortune's lists are sortable by various categories.  But I doubt they'll ever change from leading with revenue.  It's just better marketing to show a larger number and it lacks the downside of profit's perception of greed.