mrsmr2 wrote:

However, I am in charge of purchasing for the other people in the house and I chose Androids for them.  Because who the hell will pay Apple prices for limited functionality at twice the price? 

Quite a lot of people, clearly.

Personally, I’m still willing to pay for tech with money rather than my personal info. I like that Apple give me that choice.

Yossarian wrote:

Personally, I’m still willing to pay for tech with money rather than my personal info. I like that Apple give me that choice.

Unless I've missed something, that's a bit of an exaggeration/falsehood; you don't have to fork over any personal data beyond the same stuff you do to use the same services on an Apple device.

Yes and no.

You hand over the same amount of information, Apple don’t collect most of it it, Google do.

It can be avoided by not using most of the Google services, TBF.

Edit: AJ.

Apple store similar data, but usually encrypted and on your device. Not uploaded to their servers. You can also deny the permissions, whereas Google only allow you to 'pause' the collection of your activities.

Yup. The fact you can’t even delete your data either, merely disassociate the ID, is also awful.

AND they don’t sell phones as red as this one.

I suppose there's a difference between me and a lot of people; I expected Google to be collection most of this stuff when I started using Android and, in many cases, might have even been disappointed if they weren't.

I would actually like to know the depth of the screen scraping and what this passive listening thing is (didn't see anything about it in my scan of the article and it was way too tedious to read properly) though I doubt it'll shock or bother me (partially as I don't expect the latter applies to me).

At the end of the day, I guess it's a value proposition and I find the experience of Android over iOS to be worth more to me than the data Google is collecting. I wish I liked iOS more - the iPhone SE, despite it's shortcomings, is by far the best form factor available today - but I'd almost go as far as saying I find it painful to use in comparison.

This isn't to say there aren't major problems with what Google is doing but, in the current corporate/political/whatever landscape, they're nowhere near the top of my concerns with things companies are doing.

Key quote from that article:

Now please park for a moment the idea of whether you think Google is "evil" or not. The power to identify the location of almost every individual instantly is the power totalitarians dream about. The pertinent question is whether anyone should have so much power.

AJ wrote:

Bit of a pointless article, if it is; loads of companies, including Apple, have that power over their customers.

Google can potentially be finding the locations of people who aren't even their customers, they just need to be within listening distance of a Pixel phone and they could be found.

And it's worth noting this from the article on voice recognition:

You can only "Pause" data collection – and despite the friendly-sounding "Manage Activity", you have hurdles to leap over if you want to delete it. And of course "delete" doesn't mean what you think it means, it's more semantic confusion. Google retains the audio file for everything anyone has ever spoken into the Google Assistant, explaining that a deletion merely "disassociates" the audio file from the Google ID. Google retains a database of voice fingerprints.

So Google phones are always listening and Google retains a database of voices linked to Google IDs in order to more effectively market to you.

Apple doesn't retain that information, voices aren't linked to accounts, there's no reason for them to be. As a result, Apple have nowhere near the potential to identify anyone anywhere in the world that Google does, not even close.

Let’s not try and do moral high ground, ey?

We buy the related product because reasons.

I'm taking no moral high ground. Just saying I don't feel comfortable being tracked so much. I'd also add I have Siri completely deactivated and all location services turned off on the iPhone too.

I also got to reading this. See it's not just what companies hold on you, it's also who is trying to get hold of it.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0552170801/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1525487171&sr=1-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=future+crimes&dpPl=1&dpID=41W1BkvDg9L&ref=plSrch

I am totally on board with the privacy thing. The first thing I do with a new ios release is go through and turn everything off - no location tracking, no siri, no background activity, etc. I only put data on when it’s needed for something and then turn it off.

If I had an android I suspect I would be getting irate at the lack of control in this regard.

I just hope the perceived privacy of apple is more than just a perception. I have my doubts.

Edit: I don’t use icloud either

mrsmr2 wrote:

I am totally on board with the privacy thing. The first thing I do with a new ios release is go through and turn everything off - no location tracking, no siri, no background activity, etc. I only put data on when it’s needed for something and then turn it off.

If I had an android I suspect I would be getting irate at the lack of control in this regard.

I just hope the perceived privacy of apple is more than just a perception. I have my doubts.

Edit: I don’t use icloud either

That's a bit tinfoil hat, that would drive me insane. You might as well not have a smartphone. But anyway, can't you do that on Android?

Just installed itunes to see if it's any better.  It isn't.  It's an antiquated piece of crap that shouldn't be required in this day and age.

Tried to copy a video because that's about the only thing you can copy (not sync) and it's not showing up on the phone.  Not sure what's happening there. 

Loaded the TV app and it says "....playback and searches is retained and used to personalise your experience and improve that of others".

Now that's privacy

EDIT: Tv seems to have changed and now my video appears - 2 minutes ago it didn't have the startup screen, it just went straight to the empty library.  The video I copied is there.  So does that mean Apple will make a record of me watching the video file I just copied?

And I'm still waiting for someone to tell me how Files allows me to copy a music file from my pc to the phone.  Because as far I can see Apple are still 300 years behind everyone else and require syncing (photos and music).

mrsmr2 wrote:

Yossarian wrote:

So Google phones are always listening and Google retains a database of voices linked to Google IDs in order to more effectively market to you.

Apple doesn't retain that information, voices aren't linked to accounts, there's no reason for them to be. As a result, Apple have nowhere near the potential to identify anyone anywhere in the world that Google does, not even close.

I think you are being very naive here. I’m not saying Apple do anything with that information but to think they can’t (and link it to an individual) is crazy talk.

Apple’s policy on this along with a load of other stuff is here:

https://www.apple.com/privacy/approach-to-privacy/

When we do send information to a server, we protect your privacy by using anonymized rotating identifiers so that searches and locations can’t be traced to you personally.

Apple aren’t collecting your personal info as they don’t make money from doing so. As a result, they can go all in on the privacy stuff which makes a lot of sense from a marketing perspective as it helps to differentiate them from Android in the marketplace.