ArchStanton

jdw said:

tylersdad said:

Yes, nobody is forcing people to use iCloud, but this means I have to choose between having my privacy violated or not use the features of iCloud that I'm paying for. 

Exactly.

I read all the posts in all 3 pages of this thread, and I wish to thank @tylersdad for being so informative on this topic.  

All said, regardless of what MS or Google do or have done (which is largely irrelevant, as we are exclusively focused on Apple products here), and regardless of the supposed "1 in a trillion" misidentification figure, the concern expressed over this new tech is legitimate.  That remains true in spite of all the status quo defenses which claim we somehow don't have privacy today anyway.  In my eye, this is just a part of a growing problem that will only get worse in the future, all being done "for the greater good."

That's fairly well said except for one correction: This isn't a growing problem, this is a problem that already has completely propagated. And in reality we are below the peak of corporate surveillance (government surveillance is a different discussion). It still is running amok but prior to 2018 this crap was running COMPLETELY amok. Most people don't understand that there was virtually no limit. If you carried a smartphone? They were recording as much as they could get away with while Wall Street was raking it in. The natural fallacy was in full force among small websites to start ups to mid caps to large companies (natural fallacy: everyone does it so it must be ok to do). This isn't meaning to pick on Google because they are not, by a million miles, the only one but Google is probably the worst purveyor and they are the mother of surveillance capitalism(see book info below). The metric was clear: the more a company knows about each individual person the more revenue it generated. Many tech companies would follow, then banks, markets, credit cards, shops, dealers etc etc.
This isn't to smear advertising. There's nothing wrong with advertising but this had gone beyond advertising. This was now a card game where companies would place bets that couldn't lose because thee knew what cards you held. They hadn't implanted a chip in you, we were all voluntarily carrying the chip around in our pockets.

In part thanks to certain government actions(well intended, some accidentally helping), in significant part thanks to certain privacy orgs, (absolutely no thanks to most media even to this day who are knee deep in this business), in part thanks to Linux and Apple and just a handful of platforms and companies, and definitely in no small part thanks to Shoshanna Subhoff (apologies to her if misspelled). She wrote the book The Age Of Surveillance Capitalism. Her book and Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal started to bring the curtain up on this dubious practice. 
Now every one of us can see what data Google, Facebook, Apple etc records on us. Their ToS has been forced into greater specificity. They were forced to add options to block tracking (Google has been very slow/dragging their feet -- follow the money). The rise of VPNs. They now are forced to pay media specialists to come up with soft fluffy words and phrases ("user experience""help improve <fill in the blank>") indicating they know if the naked truth was out what it would mean. Now companies like Apple can actually get some sales traction by making less data privacy recording a reason to buy their product. None of this was happening just several years ago.

dewme said:

paxman said:

dewme said:

Did you notice the following statement in the article above?

“Apple includes iTunes Match as part of an Apple Music subscription”

Good point. I sped through it and didn't see that. Come to think of it I probably haven't paid anything for years but I used to notice it and wonder why I had it. I haven owned a CD in a very long time and anything I had I can listen to on AM. I get so many invoices / receipts from Apple I rarely look. It's a family thing and I get all the invoices for all the services as well as books bought. 

It's easy to lose track of some of the features that don't get talked about very much, like iTunes Match.

One music related feature that I find very useful that we don't see mentioned very often is Home Sharing. Home Sharing allows you to share the music library on your Mac (or multiple Macs) with other devices on the same network, including iPhone, iPod, and AppleTV. This allows you to play music on all of these other devices without requiring Internet access or requiring the music to be copied to the storage on the devices that are consuming the shared content.

I've found Home Sharing to be very useful for playing music on older devices with limited storage, or no storage in the case of Apple TV. I have an older Apple TV connected to a TV that is connected to my vintage analog receiver via an inexpensive DAC (~$25) that has optical audio input to analog output. The Apple TV shares the ~230 GB music library sitting on my iMac via Home Sharing. I could literally play music for more than 2 months 24x7 without hearing the same song twice. I could use an iPod to do the same thing, plug the iPod audio out into the DAC, but I like having the Apple TV sequencing through the lovely screen savers or my Photos library (also on the iMac) while the music is playing in my space.

Like I said, Home Sharing is a nice little, but seldom talked about, feature that's built into most of Apple's products.

That's a great point. The little features sometimes take time to discover (like reading it on a poster board). IMHO Apple is doing a better job of getting information tidbits into user hands but still needs to do better in getting out -- some more easy 'how to' on these items.

Apple provides the gold standard basis for interoperation of multiple devices, devices that take the least amount of effort, updating and general bug fixing to make work. Not perfect (interop tech will never be perfect IMHO). I have friends who will ask me to help (for anyone that is any type of PC support they'll know this: the average person assumes I know everything 'techie' because I work in support) with their disparate line of tech products. IME the average user (average) just isn't capable of making it all work on an ongoing basis without deciding they are going to learn it (which is a small slice of users). They end up working out a limited working routine for the basic functionality, and that is what they use. This is where Apple can beat the competition hands down. IMHO they just need to do better getting that out to the user base (and competition user base).  Every Apple product should come with a video showing a user experiencing the array of products. 

Poster I Got A Bowl Cut sarcasm for the win.
Facebook(Whats App) are one of the worst if not the worst purveyors of private data exploitation. That's not up for debate though there will be those who will argue it (they hate the truth on it). But how ironic that Apple is the 'your private data is private' company yet they ceded that high ground to probably the biggest purveyors of private data exploitation. That's a mistake that one would think had to be comedy of errors.
Apple claims they, supposedly, have a data privacy certain way to check for disturbing kiddie porn images without changing the underlying privacy standards? Great, gee why not lead with that information and an easy to understand explanation as to why it is? Versus letting it all out at once that 'scanning your pics'(then fill in the creepy kiddie porn thing). Apple, use your friggin heads and explain the data privacy first! tomorrow or next week roll out "We are trying to help exploited children" . Come on this isn't rocket science, you are a privacy first company, so explain the data privacy angle first. Instead they sound like just another surveillance capitalism company -- where Facebook(Whats App) is the high ground for data privacy? Surreal.... 

lkrupp said:

tylersdad said:

This is monumentally bad for privacy. It's making me reconsider my investments in Apple products. My entire family belongs to the Apple ecosystem. We all have some version of the iPhone 12, iPads and Apple Watches. It starts with examining personal pictures ostensibly to prevent child exploitation, but where does it lead? Where does it end? 

If it makes the perverts switch to Android, so be it and good riddance. And I doubt you will leave the platform when you realize you’re still better off with iOS than Android. Google will be doing exactly the same thing shortly as it usually follows Apple in these matters. Who will you go to? Your statement is just a fart in a wind storm. Good luck with it making any difference.

No problem with the kidding porn creeps joining Android. They'd be joining the abundance of low IQ folks over there (relax Android users, I'm joking).

The issue is one worth discussing however. Apple is indisputably far more of a private medium than the competition. So when Apple, a company that bills itself as and actually is one that emphasizes data privacy,  is believed to now start scanning your photos (rightly or wrongly) it raises an alarm about 'where does this lead to'. Be certain of this, government will expand what protecting children requires. Anytime powerful have a general term they can use to gain more power, they will use it.  There are local governments tight now who would probably like smartphone to help track kids if they are buying or drinking too much soda. Seems absurd but I'd bet it's true. 

If this happened on the other platform, no one should really blink. That'd be business as usual with a new wrinkle in the LE direction. But this is Apple. I am one who uses Apple so that everywhere I go and everyone I know and everything I search and everything I buy and common words I type aren't instantly gathered into a big file to commoditize me. It's a matter of privacy and everyone IMHO should consider privacy important. So the Apple discussion is appropriate about privacy and Apple's new software that gives a potential for a slippery slope. 

Patent trolling hurts consumers. Consumers win when the legal system recognizes the difference between a patent troll and valid stolen ideas. 

Every single company from Apple to Google to your chosen auto company to your appliance maker has built into their pricing, that we! pay, the price of defense to patent trolling and lawsuits on almost every product that occurs (they troll for technicalities in ToS or gray area designs). On this second one we consumers also pay because companies must fight everything.