JonG

The previous comments on this seem to be non-sensical.  It is 100% arbitrary to disable FaceID when a 3rd party replacement is done.

Look at the car example.  What if Ford/Volvo/Nissan (or anyone with a Pilot Assist System with a front camera) said that if you got a 3rd Party Windshield replacement that they would disable Traffic Aware Cruise Control in your vehicle without any testing. They do have warnings that if you get the wrong windshield you could end up with the system not functioning, but that is up to be as the vehicle owner to decide my own risk.  And that is a direct risk of my life and those riding in my car, not just that someone might be able to look at my web-browsing history.

Putting up a warning that you have used recognized 3rd party parts for a repair and that you have to absolve Apple of any liability for security breaches due to that would be one thing.  Removing functionality that I already paid for is something else.

If they want to do this, then increase the cost of the phone and require AppleCare as part of the purchase, or just reduce the price of screen repairs at any certified center to a small fixed amount with no profit to prove that they aren't soaking people.

just cruisin said:

I think it would be wise if you reconsidered attacking others….especially when you are incorrect.  

The “feature” doesn’t allow a user to turn ads off.   It only gives you the choice of receiving ads that are generic in nature or ads that some third party targets against you based on a profile they collect on your identity.  From Apple and the article “Turning on Personalized Ads increases the relevance of ads shown”.

My point still stands.  Many people choose Apple because they protect users from tracking, profiling, etc.  it is a slippery slope to profit on profiling users.  

People hate ads.  People hate pop ups more.  People really, really hate pop ups that know too much about them. 

Apple, don’t make people hate you.

While you are correct that it does not turn off all ads, it turns off the personalization.  If you note, if you pay for the services from Apple, they remove ads (I have the Apple One pack and I get no ads in the News App).  Removing ads from the App Store is ludicrous, the entire store is an ad.  Personalization means that Apple can provide featured apps that are more applicable to you.  If Apple were against advertising overall, then you would never see an Apple Ad on TV, and Apple TV+ Ad on TV or Web, or any one of hundreds of other advertising, product placement, and sponsorships that Apple does.

The articles cited above do not state that Apple has a stance against personalized advertising, they have a stance against un-consented targeted advertising, as well as an even larger stance against 3rd Party Targeting and aggregation services that attempt to use Apple's hardware and Operating System to track users.

Providing an authorization page explaining what Personalized ads are, how Apple aggregates and protects your PI, and then requesting consent is 100% consistent with the requirements that Apple has put on 3rd Party Developers to both have the "Content Labels" in the App Store, as well as the new requirements to request tracking permission.

Requesting that Apple remove Ads all together from their 1st party apps without payment would turn the ventures into a cost center instead of a profit center.  A more reasonable request is to ask Apple to remove ads for a fee, which in most cases they do already.

"Law abiding..."

And which countries laws would these be?  North Koreas?

kurai_kage said:

Only going to point out, "Have you seen Apple's legal track record?"  Just saying that they don't always or even usually get their way.  Maybe I'll also mention that companies buy other companies all of the time, sometimes it is for the talent, other times it is for the IP, and occasionally it is for both.  Quite often Apple integrates a large chunk of the original companies employees, and sometimes they don't, but that is also no different from how it is done across every other industry.  Apple's success garners a lot of scrutiny for better or worse.  What I don't want to see is someone that is going to make an example out of Big Tech.  Going after the biggest fish (Apple/Google), just because they have a lot of money, which is the EU approach.)  Instead, sensible laws applicable to a swatch of the industry will be less destructive.  Also, try working with the companies to find a middle ground and elicit change.  

Note that I didn't say "break up" or even "sue".  My point is that the practices we see, we have to decide if going forward those are best for the marketplace or not.

While I don't necessarily agree with "Breaking Up Apple."  I will say that there are some of their practices that bear scrutiny:

• Buying up companies that make products that Apple wants, hiring their execs and terminating most of the employees and then incorporating the product so that they can make maximum profit from it:  not great.
• Sherlocking companies development without buying them up because you have Billion-Dollar lawyers that can squash any complaint from a small business that made an app that they charge $10 for and they make a reasonable profit.
• While NPEs need to be totally shut down, and Patent Law needs to be revamped, Apple does its own skirting of the law in this area as well.
• EULAs are a joke and need to be terminated. Why should Apple be able to tell me how many copies of their OS I can virtualize on a machine (they don't charge for their OS, and it is based on an Open Source/Open License OS), or if I can manage to make it work on a similar machine that wasn't built by them.  If it has a EULA, then I am NOT purchasing it, I'm renting it.
• Apple is making BUCKETS of money on the App Store, else they would have put up a big graphic in the Fortnite trial about how the 30% cut barely covers cost.  Instead they dodged with "we don't quantify the cost against the profits".  That is total crap.  I'm not saying they don't have the right to make a buck, and Epic's reasoning is totally bonkers, but maybe aligning it against cost would make it understood why they have to charge what they charge, or allow some public pressure to make them tier their charges even more than the two tier system they currently use (I would also note that their own apps cost them, but the basis for that should only be the 30% of the price that they charge everyone else).

There are more.  I don't think the aggressive step of breaking up Apple is a reasonable thing to do, or in the public interest. However, a little oversight of a company that is sitting on a cash pile that could pay the debt for a number of U.S. States is not out of line.  Especially since their products rely on the services that those states pay for (Roads, Electricity, etc.).