GeneralBrock

I wish them luck. Just what we all need, another biased news aggregator. Whether it’s one side or the other it doesn’t matter. What would light people’s hair on fire with excitement is an app that doesn’t slant the news one way or the other. Apple News does a decent job at this but they’re not perfect, no one is, but Apple makes an attempt to make available news from a broad spectrum it seems. And the jury is out on whether Apple News is a profitable business or not, but Apple is overall.

 CNN is not a profitable company (I may be wrong in this, unsure), nor are they good at bringing in viewers and ratings. Hardly a mix for for inspired success, and clearly the opposite side of the spectrum in news either won’t be invited to play. or won’t want to participate with CNN. Take your pick. I may be wrong and CNN and the Spotify guy may be master negotiators but I’m not very confident. I don’t want to be cynic and disregard this out of hand, but I find it hard not to be.

At $5 a month, if even just one of the launch productions is quality it’s a no brainer for anybody who appreciates quality entertainment. And honestly, for all the money Netflix spends I wouldn’t hold them up as the bannermen of the budgeting to quality production ratio. It appears Apple would rather build a streaming service built on quality vs quantity and I find that refreshing. Their only true competitor in that regard is HBO and they’ve strayed from that path recently, and the AT&T ownership won’t be ushering in a golden age of quality anytime soon over at HBO. 

Will it take some time to build out a stable of quality content? Yes. Will 12 months give Apple an opportunity to bring 30-50 productions to market? Yes. Will some not be hits? Yes. Does Apple care? No. As long as top flight producers, directors, and actors etc feel Apple is committed to making the best product possible (and take creative risk) rather than churning out content to just fill a production calendar Apple wins over time.

 Disney and the rest didn’t just get their content out of thin air, they needed time to create it. I’d say Apple is off to a pretty good start and they appear to be playing the long game here that many can neither visualize nor give them credit for. 

lkrupp said:

I put this squarely on AppleInsider’s editorial staff. They ran with this very clickable, scary China article before checking the facts. They didn't want to be scooped by MacRumors or 9to5Mac. Only now comes the update after the usual trolls here jumped on it.

Apple does not send your browsing habits to Google or Tencent. Instead Apple compares the URL against databases it obtained from Google and Tencent. Nothing leaves Apple. You are not tracked by Google or Tencent. Apple is merely using lists of suspicious websites it has in its possession to warn the user that the website they are visiting may be compromised. End of story.

Yet another gotcha story planted to stir the pot and all the Apple tech blogs took the bait without investigating. It was on the Internet so it must be true, right? Is that how online tech journalism works? God help us all.

Gotcha click bait story - I don’t know. I do know that if you reside in mainland China and/or HK, authorities, through Tencent, are gaining information about you that, while difficult to pin down exactly, will put you on someone’s radar somehow through at least your URL and basic info of the type of site you are trying to visit. It’s easy to be disgusted at a click bait article if you live in a free country where you have options to browse however you like. Others around the world don’t have that luxury and need to be very concerned about what the government knows about them. 

Whether you are pro Apple sharing info with Tencent or against it, it doesn’t change the fact that Apple has been spending considerable amounts of goodwill and trust that they have spent years accumulating with the public at large.

The last 7-10 days will have made many causal observers and customers of Apple begin the think differently about the company and not in a beneficial way for Apple. And in this latest case it seems Apple “left out” the information on Tencent and the sharing of data when they published the original TOS. If I’m wrong, my apologies. At its best that is a sloppy way to go about your business and customer service. 

GeorgeBMac said:

GeneralBrock said:

StrangeDays said:

GeneralBrock said:

Apple needs to make a choice - and by that I mean Tim Cook - they either stand for their social morals, as they say they do when it comes to anything in the US, Saudi Arabia etc or they don’t. But be consistent. To take the easy way out and grandstand in countries where Apple feels it will not be hurt monetarily but bend the knee to China only makes Tim and Apple come off as hypocrites.

My feeling is companies should be apolitical as the overall need to satisfy shareholders will always win out over political views when the stance taken will result in real harm to the company. And these are stickier situations  compared to changing the keyboard on a MacBook. Stick to what you know Apple or take a stand for everyone everywhere. That’s the choice. Otherwise you expose yourselves as opportunistic wankers.   

That opinion, that it’s shareholders above all else, is waning, as we see social and civic responsibility are more important. If a government is inhumane (kidnapping and murdering its own citizens, harvesting their organs, etc), it would be insane to suggest the corporate responsibility is to follow the policies of this government. 

Life is political. 

...

I’m sure we are all against kidnapping, murdering citizens, and harvesting their organs. Yet as far as  Apple’s concerned that’s ok when it comes to China. What stand are Apple taking there? It’s pretty clear Tim’s moral code has a limit and that limit smells like profit over civic responsibility. 

.... 

The trouble is:  There is no evidence to support those claims -- no matter how often they are repeated.   Actually, that pretty much applies to the U.S. as much or more than any other country.   Kidnapping:   Aside from all the kids taken from their mothers and put in cages, here a black teenager was jailed for 15 months for a crime it was proven he did not commit (he had a GPS ankle bracelet that showed he was at home when he crime was committed) and unarmed black men are regularly shot dead by police while our organ donations system is a mess.

That's not to trash the U.S. -- we're far from perfect but not evil.   Just to point out that you can build a case against anybody or anything by cherry picking or distorting facts -- if you want to.

You willfully miss my point - I was quoting StrangeDays response to me.

My point is Apple doesn’t apply their sense of morality equally in each area they do business. That essentially makes their proclamations a PR exercise rather than a set of overall company values. I’m just asking for them to show a little backbone and in the current situations with Hong Kong and China and Taiwan and China Apple is suffering a lack of courage.