Are There Any Smartphones That Respect Privacy?

An anonymous reader writes "After many years I am finally considering entering the smartphone era. Within the mainstream, there seem to be four OS choices: Windows, Android, Blackberry, or iOS: Android comes out as clear winner to me. However, all of the choices in one way or another require sharing a lot of personal information in the Cloud run by their respective corporations. Let alone Blackberry's centralized mail servers; there is no way to have an Android smartphone working decently without sharing all of your contacts, calendar appointments, and other stuff with Google. While Android is less intrusive than iOS, the lack of privacy remains quite annoying no matter how comfortable it is to have your own calendar and contacts centralized. In 2011 is there any option, other than living in a cave, to keep one's own life private while enjoying the wonders of modern smartphone apps?"

Comments

Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[CmdrPony]

And I'm serious. While not as versatile towards own-hosted solutions as the old Windows Mobiles, it's still light years beyond Android and iOS. You can easily use your own Exchange server to sync and share your contacts, calendar and other stuff, which gives you true privacy. It also doesn't leak data to Google like Android does, it doesn't have the malware problem that Android has and the phone itself is a full smart phone with an great UI (Windows Mobile somewhat started lacking in this in recent years).

The reason for this is simple too. Microsoft may be many things, but they have always respected privacy. In fact, they have never really cared about personal data the way Google does. All they want to do is sell you the software and be done with it. Google, on the other hand, gives you the software for free but then keeps tracking your every move. I rather choose the first one, but i guess it's everyone's own choice. I do value my privacy though.

The only time when you need contact with other servers is to download and install apps, which imo is a stupid decision fueled by iOS and Android doing it that way. Old Windows Mobiles always allowed you to install apps the way you wanted, the desktop Windows way. However, I guess that provides some extra security.

Nokia has also just unveiled Nokia Lumia 800, which looks really slick and has been praised by the people who have tested it. Personally I'm going to wait until it's released and read a few more user reviews, but I think that's going to be my next smart phone.

There is also Nokia's MeeGo-based linux phone, N9 which is really slick and has all the features you need, too. But support for that might be worse in the future, as Nokia is mostly going to do WP7 phones now.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Anonymous Coward]

As is running CyanogenMod on a rooted Android phone.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[PerlJedi]

It also doesn't leak data to Google like Android does, it doesn't have the malware problem that Android has

The only reason Windows phone 7 doesn't have the malware issues is that there are only like 2 people in north america that use them. If Windows phone 7 ever gets even 50% of the north american users of either iOS or android,it will have such a malware problem that I'd bet you'd be better off putting your social security number on TV than carrying one.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[leoplan2]

Microsoft may be many things, but they have always respected privacy.

That's why Microsoft got a lot of criticism because of the phoning home feature of WGA right? Or that's why MS gives your info to the government even without your consent. Or that's why Microsoft collected PC and phones locations in ther Web map services...

You should inform yourself a little more, all that glitters is not gold

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[the linux geek]

I seriously doubt that, since it has a locked-down app store and sandboxed applications (fairly restricted API's, no native code.) It should be at least as secure as iPhone OS, if not more so.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[hawguy]

And I'm serious. While not as versatile towards own-hosted solutions as the old Windows Mobiles, it's still light years beyond Android and iOS. You can easily use your own Exchange server to sync and share your contacts, calendar and other stuff, which gives you true privacy.

Is it really that easy to set up your own Exchange server? Does everyone around here keep a Windows server in a coloc somewhere so they can run Exchange?

The reason for this is simple too. Microsoft may be many things, but they have always respected privacy.

Really? Always?

http://grep.law.harvard.edu/articles/02/08/08/0923231.shtml
http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/users-outraged-over-windows-live-privacy-violations
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/02/microsft-investigates-hotmail-privacy-breach.ars

And that's just what I found in a quick google search.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[CmdrPony]

That could be easily reworded for Linux ;-)

But in fact, by design it wont. Since it uses the app store model, there won't be trojaned applications like with third party Android stores (where most of the Android malware comes from). iOS has a large North American userbase but doesn't have a malware problem. I don't see why WP7 would get either.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Anonymous Coward]

If Windows phone 7 ever gets even 50% of the north american users of either iOS or android,it will have such a malware problem that I'd bet you'd be better off putting your social security number on TV than carrying one.

Can you explain how you come to that conclusion? Do you have any evidence at all to support such a claim or are you just an anti-MS troll?

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[leoplan2]

iPhone also has security and malware problems. The perfect software doesn't exist, so WP might have some security problems too

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[CmdrPony]

I didn't say setting up Exchange server would be easy. If you want easy, you use MS/Google/Apple's hosted services. If you want to host it yourself and gain extra privacy, that's when you install your own solutions.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[plover]

Either fill in the [citation needed] or you're just spouting very tired 10-year-old anti-MS FUD; which quite frankly is a boring topic these days.

At least do enough research to tell us what security holes Windows Phone 7 suffers from, or tell us from which tank of thin air you pulled the statistic "2 people in north america" from.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[CmdrPony]

Or that's why MS gives your info to the government even without your consent.

Like Google and Apple does too, and every other US company. It's the law, they cant do anything about it. But since you can install and use Exchange with WP7, you can minimize effect of that. Not so with Google or Apple, which want all your data.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Tsingi]

You should inform yourself a little more, all that glitters is not gold

Win doesn't glitter, maybe Mac does, but I don't think either of them give a damn about you or your privacy.

As for setting up an exchange server, how much does that cost? I bet it isn't cheap. But you can set up a mail server on Linux for free. And it would probably be a lot less trouble. I can't stand outlook.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[PerlJedi]

I seriously doubt that, since it has a locked-down app store and sandboxed applications (fairly restricted API's, no native code.) It should be at least as secure as iPhone OS, if not more so.

All software (iOS included) is vulnerable. I would think WP7 will probably have more problems than iOS on the basis that Microsoft has basically always put speed to market above quality or stability of software.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[exomondo]

At least do enough research to tell us what security holes Windows Phone 7 suffers from, or tell us from which tank of thin air you pulled the statistic "2 people in north america" from.

I find it interesting that some people use marketshare as a quality measure, when marketshare is largely irrelevant in terms of the quality of the product offering. For example look at the large marketshare of Windows and the iPhone in their respective markets compared with OSX and WP7 in those markets. I doubt there are that many people who would put Windows and the iPhone in one quality-bucket and OSX and WP7 in another.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[erroneus]

True that. Windows 7 is slowly becoming the next Windowx XP... slowly. And WP7... well, it's still pretty much not the mainstream which means it is (1) not targeted so much and (2) too young a product series to make summary judgements let alone presumptions.

But you know? Going on the reputation of the maker, I have to cast a reasonable amount of doubt and apprehension about anything coming from Microsoft. That said, they are the least likely to exploit a customer in the way Google or Apple are known to do. The carriers, of course, will always exploit the customer.

But will there be a custom version of WP7 out there to enable users to review and tweak the OS on their phones? I trust Android more for that reason... I can feel a bit more comfortable with peer-reviewed tweaks and fixes in the cyanogen mod series. I seriously doubt there will be anything like that... but then again, there are Windows "Lite" versions all over the net... so maybe.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[MrHanky]

Bullshit. Android's malware issue is there only due to Google doing a lousy job removing harmful apps from the market. Would Microsoft do an equally shitty job if they had a bigger market share? No one knows, but it seems unlikely as their terms are far stricter. Their app store just reached 40,000 apps, though. That's pretty good for a platform with supposedly no users, of which many seem fairly happy with their phones.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[InspectorGadget1964]

If you check the following site http://www.netmarketshare.com/ you will find that M$ Windows does not even make it for the count of OS in mobile devices ;-)

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[jaymzter]

I'd put it at a medium level of difficulty. I run a personal Exchange server and am able to share appointments and schedules with my wife and access my calendar from my tablet, phone and computer, all without having to rely on someone else or about my privacy. And once set up, it just runs.

Note: I don't use it to send or receive external e-mail, I only use the calendaring service.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[PopeRatzo]

The only reason Windows phone 7 doesn't have the malware issues is that there are only like 2 people in north america that use them

Remember when that was the line everybody used about Apple computers?

"The only reason there's no malware for Macs (or Linux) is because nobody uses it! Yeah, that's the ticket..."

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[tycoex]

Every single story I've read so far about malware on Android was people either installing apps off the internet or through a third-party app store. How is Google not doing a good job removing harmful apps from the market?

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[PerlJedi]

Would Microsoft do an equally shitty job if they had a bigger market share? No one knows, but it seems unlikely as their terms are far stricter.

Because Microsoft has proven their attention to detail, and drive to produce stable and secure software? Microsoft never leaves 0-day flaws unpatched, and surely they'll show that same tireless dedication to policing their app store.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[CmdrPony]

Every single story I've read so far about malware on Android was people either installing apps off the internet or through a third-party app store. How is Google not doing a good job removing harmful apps from the market?

That's basically just as true for Windows on desktop. Still people on Slashdot bash Microsoft's security, while it's the users installing them from untrusted sources.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[PopeRatzo]

...on the basis that Microsoft has basically always put speed to market above quality or stability of software.

Is that why Microsoft's flagship operating system was Windows XP for like a decade before they finally came out with Vista?

Yeah, that "speed to market" thing was really not that obvious.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[afidel]

I was going to say any Android device without the "with Google" trademark.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not surprised a Microsoft shilling would think that.

Anyone got opinions theyre not being paid for?

Ah the old 'if it's something positive about MS he must be being paid', accompanied by the distinct lack of any kind of rebuttal. Troll fail.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[PerlJedi]

A decade? Windows XP was 2003, so there hasn''t even been a decade, and windows has already released not one, but two entire remakes of their OS since then. And Vista was a huge success too. How long between vista and 7? how long between 7 and 8? How about windows 98, me, and 2000?

And lets look at microsoft office... Have you ever played with Office's internals via OLE or Active-X? Granted it has been 8 years since I have, but then it was a clusterf#$!k

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[PerlJedi]

And at this point do you believe that there is no malware for either linux or Mac?

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Or that's why MS gives your info to the government even without your consent.

Like Google and Apple does too, and every other US company. It's the law, they cant do anything about it. But since you can install and use Exchange with WP7, you can minimize effect of that. Not so with Google or Apple, which want all your data.

Unfortunately it isn't even the law. US companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft tend to give out your information whenever the government asks, court order or not to buddy up the feds.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[shaitand]

"or you're just spouting very tired 10-year-old anti-MS FUD"

10-year-old may be correct but the way you said it gives the false impression it ended 10yrs ago rather than that the problems have persisted for 10yrs or more.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Anthony Mouse]

I doubt there are that many people who would put Windows and the iPhone in one quality-bucket and OSX and WP7 in another.

I think the problem is that you have to look at market share changes. You can sell millions of copies of a turd sandwich like Vista, even if there are better options available, because many people buy based on inertia.

But if you compare market share changes over time, you get a much different picture. In particular, it puts OSX and iPhone back in the same bucket as one another, and puts Windows and WM/WP7 together in the other one.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Fri13]

And I'm serious. While not as versatile towards own-hosted solutions as the old Windows Mobiles, it's still light years beyond Android and iOS. You can easily use your own Exchange server to sync and share your contacts, calendar and other stuff, which gives you true privacy. It also doesn't leak data to Google like Android does, it doesn't have the malware problem that Android has [techcrunch.com] and the phone itself is a full smart phone with an great UI (Windows Mobile somewhat started lacking in this in recent years).

Stop spreading false information.

Android is possible to be configured from the beginning only to use any exchange server as well. You do not need to use any Google services or applications if you do not want to do so.

What comes to malware, so long most serious problems has been in third party resources for applications. And those few in official market, have not been so bad or anything serious. Still, I don't reject that there ain't possibility or anything else. but it is now so widely spread FUD about it that it is already a non-proofed truth.

And Windows Phone 7 GUI shares opinions very well. And that matter is out of the line here in this topic as well, what is about question of privacy concerning contacts and addresses of everyones elses who phone owners has stored to own phone. So far Windows Phone GUI has nothing to do with it, so bringing it to hype it as biased user does not help at all in this discussion.

When you can buy a Windows Phone where there are no single Microsoft service or application installed or need to be used, then come back to talk with the GUI.
Android is more secure and protects much better way the users privacy than your "Windows Phone GUI is awesome" phone does. (The other topic is then how much it is protected or informed the user about risks and same discussion can be gone trough again with any software system out there).

The only time when you need contact with other servers is to download and install apps, which imo is a stupid decision fueled by iOS and Android doing it that way. Old Windows Mobiles always allowed you to install apps the way you wanted, the desktop Windows way. However, I guess that provides some extra security.

Android does not force to use only online services to install applications. User can download application, save it where wanted (dropbox, FTP, webdav, microSD... you name it) and then install it with filemanager to Android device.
The one problem is with Android Market is that you can not download directly from there. But you can install application from there using any web browser (desktop, laptop or even iOS devices or Windows Phone phone) and it gets installed to your Android phone next time you have internet connection (WiFi, 3G etc) and it was activated to Google services and you have Market application installed with Google profile.

So don't spread lies that Android does not allow installing applications with old fashion way as it does. Even I do so sometimes when I want to install non-official Google Maps version where is just enabled navigation every country. And I don't even need a any Google account for that.

PS. N9 does not have MeeGo in it. It has Harmattan. Harmattan and MeeGo are two different products and development branches. Harmattan were code name for Maemo 6.0 (5.0 is in N900) and MeeGo was project of Maemo 5.0 + Moblin.
So do not talk about MeeGo when talking about N9 but only with Harmattan aka Maemo as that is used in it.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[ATMAvatar]

But can you really trust Google as a source regarding iOS vulnerabilities?

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[shutdown -p now]

That doesn't make much sense. You don't have to share your data with Google when you use an Android device, or share it with Apple when you use iOS device. Heck, you could even use both with the same private Exchange server setup that you describe.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Anthony Mouse]

But what does that have anything to do with which kind of phone to get? You can perfectly well use your own mail server with CyanogenMod.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[CmdrPony]

Compared to Linux distros like Ubuntu, which releases new major version every 6 months, or Firefox, which releases new major every week?

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Anthony Mouse]

It's modded troll because there is no mod for "-1 Astroturf." Or did no one else find is suspicious that the GP is five paragraphs long and yet was posted with the same timestamp to the minute as the story itself?

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[CmdrPony]

Which requires rooting your phone, voiding your warranty and other troubles. With WP7 it works out of the box.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[flimflammer]

...huh? Windows XP came out in 2001.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[exomondo]

I think the problem is that you have to look at market share changes. You can sell millions of copies of a turd sandwich like Vista, even if there are better options available, because many people buy based on inertia.

And that's just as applicable to the iPhone and Android these days too, particularly with mobile application lock-in. Often people just buy the most common product, on desktop OS that's Windows and in the smartphone land that's the iPhone.

But if you compare market share changes over time, you get a much different picture. In particular, it puts OSX and iPhone back in the same bucket as one another, and puts Windows and WM/WP7 together in the other one.

WM and WP7 are completely different and not even remotely compatible, putting them together makes as much sense as putting the ipad and newton together. WP7 is expected to have small marketshare given that it's barely a year old, so it's gone from nothing to a very small percentage of a mature market, the original iphone had just as puny marketshare at that stage of its life, that obviously didn't make it bad. As for marketshare change worldwide Windows and OSX have remained pretty flat for many years, things haven't changed there much.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Fri13]

It does not matter how widely used device is it about since when it is released to public (your own home coded system stays secure as long you use it home), no matter is the usage 5% or 90%.

In software the question is about the quality. The quality of the code and many other things of it.

Example, since Windows Vista, UAC and many other security feature has helped Windows users more than ever. Even that Windows 7 and Vista are together very popular, we have not got same kind worm epidemics like what Windows XP got at first months so that even FBI needed to warn about UPNP default setting.
Or that we needed to wait Service Pack 2 to enable firewall by default.

Even with basic security functions (user accounts, firewall, non-executable bits) the computer will come much more when those are enabled by default. A open box is a open box no matter how much you want to say it is closed.

If Microsoft has got Windows Phone secure enough, it will stay secure no matter is it used by 1.2% of people (like now) or 99% of people.

As the quality of the code and settings rules is it possible or easy enough to crack when compared to risks involved.

Example, by robbing a bank you will have huge amount of money but risk to get cough is huge.
But robbing a single persons here and there in parks, alleys and pick pocketing, you gain much less but same time risk to get cough is much smaller. Typically you end up just beaten or screamed so you need to run few blocks or hide in the public.

Which one you would do? Go to a multiple easy targets with small risks in every of them, or head up to single huge job where risk is very high?

Do you want to steal 100 dollar from from each 100 person to get a 10 000
Or do you want to steal 10 000 from bank?

Bank is more secure, it has more wealth and risks are rised so high that normal thief knows it is out of the league (some will try and fail).

But some thiefs ain't avarage thiefs, they spend lots of time to study, to plan, train and ultimately to execute their plans so they can rob a bank gaining millions. Some does it just by going guns blazing in the bank and some does it with white collars smiling in front of TV-cameras how economy is bad...

Android does have some security problems, they ain't in the code, but in design. It is bad design choice to not allow user to choose what application get to know what data and even block those.

Why every application need to ask permission to use full internet if only needed for Google ads or anonymous usage habit collection to Google service? Why doesn't Google do a own API to Android so every application what need to show ads, could use it and then there would no be need to ask permission for full internet.
That would just relate to situation that when application asks permission to internet connection, user should see bells warning on his mind "why does it need internet connection?". And so on Android could allow user to deny internet connection by default if wanted, but still allow ads to be shown as Android would deliver them itself.

But one reason for that is, Google allows any application developer to show own ads and choose any advertiser what they want. No need to use Google ads if not wanted. But most still does as it is easiest.

ps. If what you say about market share and malware would be true, then Linux would be a tin can full of holes. As most internet servers are ran by it, most super computers, most smart phones, most ADSL and Cable modems... You name it. But it is not about popularity, it is about quality of code and design.
If you can block 99.9% of bad people cracking your software but only give change to 0.01% of very talented people to find the hole what to use, you have succeeded. But if even 20% bad people can crack your software, it ain't good.

pps. Think about AES, Blowfish and other algorithms. They are open. Widely known and used. But even that someone pulls on few years a theoretical study that there is 0.0001% change to crack those a

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[rockout]

A decade? Windows XP was 2003,

Bullshit. XP was 2001, Vista was 2007. And he did say "like a decade", so fine, he rounded up. 6 years is like an eternity in between OSes anyway; it certainly felt like a decade by the time the long-promised "Longhorn" became reality.

And Vista was a huge success too.

Laughable. Probably the most hated OS released by anyone since Windows Millenium.

How long between vista and 7? how long between 7 and 8? How about windows 98, me, and 2000?

He was specifically only talking about the lag between XP and Vista. And you're missing his point entirely - even though it took 6 years, negating the "speed to market" point, the OS still sucked, so "quality of software" not really a valid point either. Basically what I'm saying is he ripped you apart in two short sentences, it went over your head, and I just wasted 3 minutes of my life explaining it to you.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[epyT-R]

he meant that windows 2003 was based on xp.. xp = 5.1 and 2003 = 5.2.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Fri13]

I find it funny that Microsoft fans now defends a Linux users old arguments, since beginning it has been taunted that "when Linux gains market share, you will find it has as much malware as Windows does".

The Microsoft fans (actually more Windows fans but they are related so well) defence was "Windows is so popular so it is targeted and that's why it has so many malware"

And now, when actually a Linux is more used than Windows in Internet Servers, super computers and even Smart phones, it still does not have such problems as Windows does.

And actually, even Microsoft has managed to drop amount of malware and epidemics since Windows Vista and now with Windows 7. Even that they are popular, they ain't at all so easy targets (unless user does again a error).

The Linux OS in Android does not get targeted by malware, neither does Android itself actually. But Google has problem with their Android Market security. So that they do not check the applications and users can download application what asks permissions to read contacts and then full internet and then sends every email address to spammer.

User is asked from permission and then user gives it.
It is same situation that I do not count it Windows problem if user downloads, gives execution permission and launch a malware. Neither I count it for OS X fault. That is fault of the user.
BUT (and this is HUGE BUT) when a software system gets infected automatic, without user interaction, then we have a problem.
Like when user simply opens a PDF file and it suddenly can install something to system side outside of user permissions or directory. THEN we have a problem.

What Google should do, is start signing those applications (so no one can steal it, fill with malware and repack)
  Permit user to disallow permissions per se and per application.
  Disallow per application update checking by default and only allow to use a Market Place update notification.

As right now one of the biggest risks is that user install secure and safe application from Android Market and then week later application notifies a own update notification and user gives a permission and application downloads it somewhere else and phone is infected.
Openess needs that third party stores and apps can have own update, but still that needs to be fixed. IF application is from Android Market, then only from there are updates. If user downloads somewhere else, then they can have what they want.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Windows phone is a design triumph! Who says Microsoft can't innovate?

My favourite Microsoft advancement is the black bar, which occupies 20% of the available screen real estate.

There's a little arrow, located on a tiny patch of this bar. I'm so glad this was done!

Without this, the Apple and Google offerings are crippled by comparison. How is a user supposed to divine that they can swipe a finger, to change screens?

The committee that approved this, in Microsoft, is due some sort of award!

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[wvmarle]

Most of the security bashing is related to drive-by installs and related security holes, where software gets installed without user interaction. And the ease of which installed software can escalate its own permissions, and the hardness of running Windows as non-privileged user.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[exomondo]

PS. N9 does not have MeeGo in it. It has Harmattan. Harmattan and MeeGo are two different products and development branches. Harmattan were code name for Maemo 6.0 (5.0 is in N900) and MeeGo was project of Maemo 5.0 + Moblin. So do not talk about MeeGo when talking about N9 but only with Harmattan aka Maemo as that is used in it.

Better get on the horn and tell Nokia they're marketing their phone wrong.

The Nokia N9 smartphone, based on MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan
MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan: The Qt SDK now contains experimental toolchains and other experimental components to create MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan apps.
MeeGo Harmattan is a Linux-based software platform developed by Nokia for mobile devices.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[wvmarle]

OK no experience but how hard can it be to run your own Windows server? About as hard as running your own Linux server maybe?

Considering the submitter wants to share contacts with his own computer directly I may assume he has some kind of server for that already, or at least has the competence to set it up. Whether that's OpenLDAP or Exchange or whatever is not the point here. Or maybe he's just looking to sync with his company's directory server - and in that case there will be a very good reason not to copy all those contacts into the cloud too.

If you don't want to share your contacts in the cloud, Android indeed doesn't provide an easy way to sync them. I am running my own LDAP server for contacts; but searching on how to share them with my Android phone I found out that first I have to upload all of it to Google, and then I can sync my phone to Google again. But I don't want to put my contacts on Google, I have my own server already and that one works fine, thank you very much. And there is no need for Google to have all my contacts, really.

If it comes to companies that respect privacy I trust Google as being one of the best, yet my first choice is to not share those contacts at all. Sharing with Google is second choice already.

Now why Google doesn't provide support for a very standard directory service like LDAP is beyond me. I expected something like that to just work. It was a great disappointment and surprise when I found that out. There are some apps available that allow you to sync to an LDAP server, I haven't tried them out yet. They look very much like a rough hack to me.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[syousef]

Stop spreading false information.

Android is possible to be configured from the beginning only to use any exchange server as well. You do not need to use any Google services or applications if you do not want to do so.

I'm afraid you're the one, that inadvertantly or otherwise, is spreading false information. Some models of Android phone will not let you even use the calendar or contacts unless you sign up with Google. One my Acer AOD255 I could not get anywhere without signing up with Google, but at least that doesn't have contacts from my SIM card to share. On my Acer Liquid Metal I found that the 2.3.5 image did indeed turn on sharing by default. It gives you the option not to sync contacts with Google but they're shared by default and there are a bunch of different options that will easily trip up even an experienced user. Background data, auto sync, then sync on each of Phone SIM and Google account.

What is worse is that import and export to SD card are broken - they put all numbers in US number format with dashes hard coded, which makes Australian numbers look wrong and is confusing for an Australian user use to dashes in different location. The stupid thing is import from SIM is not broken and does not do any such hard coding. The easiest way around it is to sync with Google and correct it there since trying to correct it in phone is awkward. When you try to delete a dash it also deletes the preceding number, so you have to delete it and re-enter that number (which is error prone and slow on a small touch screen - in fact if you have more than a handful of contacts it is unworkable). The only other way is to write an app to fix the number format. I found one that did just that but only to US number format. I also found the source but I don't have weeks to spend on a hobby project modifying someone else's code to fix a bug in the OS. So I caved and shared my data begrudgingly.

I accidentally shared my wife's data because I set her phone up while I was tired and picked the wrong option at setup (default is ticked to share data). Once done it was too late.

So yeah, please follow your own advice and stop spreading falsehood.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[CmdrPony]

Well, they are different line of products.

xp -> vista -> win7
windows server 2003 -> windows server 2008 (R2 contains same kernel as Win7)

Comparing the two doesn't really work, especially when the server line of products is also released in different years (2001 vs 2003, and 2006 vs 2008)

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[youn]

Google Is Your Friend

citation needed :p

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[CmdrPony]

I suggest you read the actual discussion. It was more like a Linux fanboy saying how WP7 will have just the same malware problems as Android has when it just gains more market share. The same line that Windows users have said about Linux for decades, and Linux users denying that. But now it's just used other way around and obviously is true in this case!

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[digitalchinky]

Although I prefer Maemo since it seems to be the least soul sucking OS around, Android is also quite nice once you install a few odds and ends to clean up the advertising mess - though you need hardware that can be rooted. Applications like DroidGuard, AdAway, LBE Privacy Guard, or similar will put a halt to anything trying call home or get in your way.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[hawguy]

OK no experience but how hard can it be to run your own Windows server? About as hard as running your own Linux server maybe?

But running a server well is not something that most non-techies can do. (and is even something that a lot of techies can't do well - I've cleaned up more than one mess left by a developer doing double duty as a sysadmin).

Considering the submitter wants to share contacts with his own computer directly I may assume he has some kind of server for that already, or at least has the competence to set it up.

I'm not sure why you'd assume that, I think lots of people want to see their contacts on their phone *and* their computer, but don't want to run a server to do it.

Whether that's OpenLDAP or Exchange or whatever is not the point here. Or maybe he's just looking to sync with his company's directory server - and in that case there will be a very good reason not to copy all those contacts into the cloud too.

Maybe so, but the post I was originally replying to suggested using "your own Exchnage server" to sync contacts and calendar to.

If you don't want to share your contacts in the cloud, Android indeed doesn't provide an easy way to sync them.

Or you could, you know, use Exchange which you already suggested if you don't trust Google. I sync my contacts with Exchange, but they don't end up in my Google account.

Now why Google doesn't provide support for a very standard directory service like LDAP is beyond me. I expected something like that to just work. It was a great disappointment and surprise when I found that out.

Maybe because you're one of 5 people that run their own personal LDAP directory server and want to sync it with their phone. There are a lot of industry standards that Google doesn't support because not enough people want them. That's what Apps are for - if you find something missing on your phone, write an app for it (or pay someone else to)

There are some apps available that allow you to sync to an LDAP server, I haven't tried them out yet. They look very much like a rough hack to me.

So there may be an app that does exactly what you want but you're not interested in even trying it?

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Runaway1956]

Different lines of products. Mmmmm. How about, same products, aimed at different markets? Or, we could decide that Windows Home Edition is a different product than Windows Pro.

Automotive analogy would be the old Chevy Nova, Buick Skylark, and Oldsmobile Omega. The vehicles came down the same assembly line, bolted and welded together by the same people and same robots, had the same paint applied, used the same motors and transmissions, rearends, everything. The only differences were really cosmetic. A Nova got some thin carpeting, cheaper vinyl seats, and a bad bowtie. Buick got thicker carpeting, choices of better seats and stereo, and a Buick decal. Olds got even thicker carpeting, I think tinted windows were standard, a nicer speaker system for the stereo, and of course the Olds markings inside and out.

Now, for MARKETING PURPOSES, we can agree that all three vehicles were different products. But, when the car started making weird noises, and the mechanic told you that your discombobulator was percolating nanobots through the wazoo, you were equally fucked, and you bought your repair parts from the same manufacturer, at the same retail store.

The biggest difference between server editions and consumer editions are the rules put into place, in observance of security needs.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[wvmarle]

If you don't want to share your contacts in the cloud, Android indeed doesn't provide an easy way to sync them.

Or you could, you know, use Exchange which you already suggested if you don't trust Google. I sync my contacts with Exchange, but they don't end up in my Google account.

I just don't have an Exchange server, and no experience with Windows server so that's going to be rough on me.

Maybe because you're one of 5 people that run their own personal LDAP directory server and want to sync it with their phone. There are a lot of industry standards that Google doesn't support because not enough people want them. That's what Apps are for - if you find something missing on your phone, write an app for it (or pay someone else to)

Not personal. Company LDAP server. This time my own company and own server but over 15 years ago I already was syncing contacts against LDAP servers of various companies I worked for. I'm not sure whether Exchange existed then already.

So there may be an app that does exactly what you want but you're not interested in even trying it?

I didn't say that. Just that I looked at it, it may do what I need, but the urge is not great enough to start hacking with it. Yet. I've too many other things to do at the moment. Just not high enough on the priority list.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[JoeMerchant]

Microsoft may be many things, but they have always respected privacy. In fact, they have never really cared about personal data the way Google does. All they want to do is sell you the software and be done with it. Google, on the other hand, gives you the software for free but then keeps tracking your every move. I rather choose the first one, but i guess it's everyone's own choice.

And, therein lies the stagnation of MSFT and the growth of GOOG. Regardless of how any of us feel, personally, the majority of the world would rather be given something for free, and they don't much care about or understand the implications of sharing their personal data. Hopefully we continue to have choices and Microsoft doesn't start getting smart about beating Google at their own game.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[exomondo]

GP is basically right. Nokia's advertising is misleading, probably because they want to distance the N9 from the N900 as the latter was unpolished. As I understand it, Harmattan is actually Maemo with the libraries added to be able to run Meego apps.

I understand that, I followed all of that development when i had my N900, but the fact is that Nokia - the company that make the phone and were the primary developers on the project - are calling it MeeGo-based so it's perfectly appropriate for anyone else to refer to the N9 as a MeeGo-based phone.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[hawguy]

Is it really that easy to set up your own Exchange server? Does everyone around here keep a Windows server in a coloc somewhere so they can run Exchange?

I'm sorry did you get lost on the way to foxnews.com?

This is the news for nerds site that puts the latest Linux kernel milestone up on the front page.
See these tags on the left side of the screen - cloud, hardware, linux, management, mobile, science, security, storage? Well, I'll tell you, it's not about weather, wood shop, business, exercise, personal defense, or closets.

So you're telling me that the place that puts the latest linux kernel milestone on the front page and where Linux is one of the sidebar links is the place to find people that keep Windows servers around in colocs? Hey, maybe you can tell me why I can never get my Linux questions answered over at msdn.com?

This is (used to be) the place you go to FIND people who have servers in a colo somewhere, who might call you a pussy for finding difficulty in worse things than first party Windows software!

Of course, you know as well as I do that those days are long gone.

You didn't even read any of those linked pages did you? You just copied results from a microsoft+privacy query that sounded bad.

I mean Microsoft Passport? Well hi there 2001! We got ALL of this reeeeeeeeeel sceeeeery stuff from everyone ELSE.

Wow, you figured out that I just got those links from a quick google search even after I tried to hide it by saying "And that's just what I found in a quick google search." Admittedly the first one was old, but still shows a privacy breach, the other two were from 2010. So what is your point? Are you saying "Well sure, MS wasn't so concerned about privacy back in 2001. And maybe not 9 years later in 2010, but , they care about it now!"

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Anthony Mouse]

You do understand that CyanogenMod was a recommendation rather than a requirement. You can perfectly well use your own mail server with stock Android.

(Incidentally, by "troubles" I can only assume you're referring to added features and more regular updates and improvements than you can get from a carrier for any device. And what warranty? You mean the text in the EULA for every piece of software on Earth that disclaims all warranties?)

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[JoeMerchant]

I wanted Maemo to succeed, but it seems to be knocked back into Gentoo land, unlikely to ever reach more than a tiny fraction of a tiny fraction of people, and cost them great effort to get at it.

Maemo never had time to develop soul sucking modules - if it had gotten anywhere near Verizon, you can be sure it would have become a world-class Dementor.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Anthony Mouse]

And that's just as applicable to the iPhone and Android these days too, particularly with mobile application lock-in.

Which fails to explain how both have more market share than they did a year ago. If there are more users now than before, not all of them can be those forced to keep the previous platform because critical legacy applications are not available on alternatives.

Often people just buy the most common product, on desktop OS that's Windows and in the smartphone land that's the iPhone.

Actually in smartphone land that's Android. But that's just proving the point: There is no default purchase in the smartphone market. Five years ago neither of them were anything. If there was a strong propensity for smart phone customers to just buy the most popular product then how did both of them become popular in the first place?

WM and WP7 are completely different and not even remotely compatible, putting them together makes as much sense as putting the ipad and newton together.

WP7 wasn't on sale until recently. You can't measure a change in market share unless you have a baseline. Even if you want to claim that it's a completely new product with no relation to previous Windows mobile devices (which is clearly wrong, since the people who had WM devices had to replace them with something and their familiarity with the Windows brand for phones predisposes them to WP7), comparing to a baseline "zero" still doesn't bode well for it, since their sales volume remains "near zero." And since it's pretty difficult to make fewer than zero sales, having little to no change in volume since a point prior to the product existing is probably not a good sign.

As for marketshare change worldwide Windows and OSX have remained pretty flat for many years, things haven't changed there much.

Not really. The change has been slow, but it's clearly there. It wasn't long ago that Windows had ~90% share and MacOS 10%. Now it's more like 80%/20%.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[exomondo]

Which fails to explain how both have more market share than they did a year ago. If there are more users now than before, not all of them can be those forced to keep the previous platform because critical legacy applications are not available on alternatives.

Well Android does (http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-11-15/tech/30400455_1_ios-iphone-smartphone-market), but then you have to correlate that to market growth as well. Can you do that?

Often people just buy the most common product, on desktop OS that's Windows and in the smartphone land that's the iPhone.

Actually in smartphone land that's Android.

No i think you'll find the iphone is the most common smartphone.

If there was a strong propensity for smart phone customers to just buy the most popular product then how did both of them become popular in the first place?

The birth of the consumer smartphone market, look at how it's different from what it was 6 years ago. Same as with the birth of the PC market decades ago.

WP7 wasn't on sale until recently. You can't measure a change in market share unless you have a baseline.

Your baseline is zero, you don't use a completely different product to base it on. If you wanted to measure a change in the ipad market share you don't use the newton as a baseline, you don't use the ipod as a baseline for the iphone, you don't use windows gaming pcs as a baseline for the xbox.

Even if you want to claim that it's a completely new product with no relation to previous Windows mobile devices (which is clearly wrong, since the people who had WM devices had to replace them with something and their familiarity with the Windows brand for phones predisposes them to WP7)

No because it is obviously completely different, you might as well say that a gamer who has a windows PC is pre-disposed to buying an xbox instead of a PS3 or Wii, obviously stupid.

comparing to a baseline "zero" still doesn't bode well for it, since their sales volume remains "near zero."

Given your lack of numbers or comparison to other platforms in their first year your whole argument is absolutely baseless.

Not really. The change has been slow, but it's clearly there. It wasn't long ago that Windows had ~90% share and MacOS 10%. Now it's more like 80%/20%.

Where? Those figures look pretty made up.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[renegadesx]

To be fair, malware started appearing on Mac after their move to Intel from PowerPC. The Mac benifited from 2 types of obscurity before the switch. Not only were Mac's not widely used back then, the PPC arch was not widely used either.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[WaffleMonster]

And I'm serious. While not as versatile towards own-hosted solutions as the old Windows Mobiles, it's still light years beyond Android and iOS. You can easily use your own Exchange server to sync and share your contacts, calendar and other stuff, which gives you true privacy. It also doesn't leak data to Google like Android does, it doesn't have the malware problem that Android has and the phone itself is a full smart phone with an great UI (Windows Mobile somewhat started lacking in this in recent years).
 

I disagree with this assessment for the following reasons.

1. There is no way to prevent the phone from being polled via SMS to get realtime current phones location. MS has the *capability* to track every WP7 phone at any time and there is no way for the user to prevent it.

2. There is no way to opt out of send my location to Microsoft if I want to use the GPS. If I want to use mapping application locally and NOT have my position sent to a Microsoft server I'm SOL there is no way to do that.

3. There is no reasonable way to even sync a database of local contacts from a PC to WP7. You have to use their *cloud* service which means all of your contacts are sent to a Microsoft server. Unacceptable. Installing exchange is obviously not an option for the average user.

The WP7 platform is perhaps the most sane in terms of security and platform development however it is just as crappy as the rest of them in terms of privacy.

All of the major smartphone OS vendors want everything you do to be connected even when there is no reason for it. They all see value in pushing their connected shit on you.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[borrrden]

2001, actually.....

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[DeeEff]

I counter this with the notion that at least Google is (relatively and to my knowledge) transparent with the way they handle your data. See: https://www.google.com/intl/en/privacy/

Better to go with the devil you know than the devil you don't.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[rtb61]

Well here is a Linux solution http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xN4c61ETCWg. If you are patient there is also http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/820. So it would seem there is a whole world of choice shortly to be available for Android phones. So you start with Android but if you want to explore other options in the future that option seems readily available.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Anthony Mouse]

Well Android does (http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-11-15/tech/30400455_1_ios-iphone-smartphone-market), but then you have to correlate that to market growth as well. Can you do that?

The share of Android phones as a percentage of the market has been growing. The market itself has been growing. By what strange application of mathematics could it be the case that the number of Android phones is not consequently also growing?

No i think you'll find the iphone is the most common smartphone.

Ah yes, the literal argument. And if the Apple has the most popular laptop model it clearly must mean that more people buy laptops with MacOS than with Windows. (Or not, in either case.)

The birth of the consumer smartphone market, look at how it's different from what it was 6 years ago. Same as with the birth of the PC market decades ago.

There were smartphones before the iPhone, like the Blackberry. Or that stuff Microsoft was selling back then. There has to be some reason why people chose early iOS and Android over their contemporaries. You're trying to define "smartphone" as "iPhone", which is just begging the question.

Your baseline is zero, you don't use a completely different product to base it on. If you wanted to measure a change in the ipad market share you don't use the newton as a baseline, you don't use the ipod as a baseline for the iphone, you don't use windows gaming pcs as a baseline for the xbox.

Those things are not replacements for one another. There was no one still using a Newton when the iPad came out. You can't run Excel on an XBOX; it isn't intended as a replacement for a Windows PC. They didn't stop making Windows when they started making XBOX, which means there was nobody whose Windows PC was too old who wanted a newer one but found them unavailable and looked to the XBOX as the nearest living relative. That is not the case with Windows Mobile, which disappeared just as WP7 came onto the scene and which Microsoft was more than happy to direct its former customers to if they came looking for "WM7" to replace their WM6. I mean look, they continued the version numbering. It isn't "Windows Phone 1.0."

No because it is obviously completely different, you might as well say that a gamer who has a windows PC is pre-disposed to buying an xbox instead of a PS3 or Wii, obviously stupid.

See above. Windows PCs are not fungible with consoles. You don't buy a console and throw away your PC. By contrast, nobody buys a WP7 phone to supplement a WM6 phone. They (the mythical they who actually buys one) would do it to replace a WM6 phone.

Given your lack of numbers or comparison to other platforms in their first year your whole argument is absolutely baseless.

The comparison to iOS and Android would be meaningless exactly because of what I'm talking about. Before iOS and Android, neither Apple nor Google made mobile operating systems. When WP7 was released, Microsoft already had a distribution chain. They had relationships with manufacturers and carriers. They had existing customers to convert to the new product. Their failure to make hay from that speaks much louder than would any delay (necessary to, you know, build relationships with manufacturers and carriers and find new customers) between initial release and substantial market share for iOS and Android.

Where? Those figures look pretty made up.

IIRC the specific estimates above are for the higher education market, but I'll give you the numbers for the whole US market. The trend of increasing Mac market share holds in either case. Here is one from 2007-2009, and another consistent with the first bringing us from 2009 to the present. We see Mac market share go from ~7% in 2007 to ~10% in 2009 and is now ~15%. (Naturally that comes at the expense of Windows because, well, what else?)

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[tsa]

That turd sandwitch only sold because it came pre-installed with new computers. Or were there really people who went out and bought it in a box?

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Ihmhi]

Windows... good?

Grog no like! Slashdot you change! Grog confused! GROG SMASH RASPBERRY PI IN FRUSTRATION!

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[tsa]

There is also Nokia's MeeGo-based linux phone, N9 which is really slick and has all the features you need, too. But support for that might be worse in the future, as Nokia is mostly going to do WP7 phones now.

I had a Nokia N900 but I bought an iPhone after a year or so. Although the N900 is still on par with the best smartphones out there hardware-wise, for me it was very annoying that there was hardly any new software coming out for it anymore. And I have a hole in my hand when it comes to smartphones. I bought a new one every year for the past 4 years.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Anonymous Coward]

install CyanogenMod 7 , by default , it comes with no Google services and doesn't require you to sign in with google at all. No gtalk, no gmail, no calendar syncing and no contact syncing. you can install google services from Rom Manager IF and only IF you want to...

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[sirdude]

Seeing as to how you are going to wait until you read what others think about the as of yet unreleased phone that you are planning on buying which runs an as of yet unreleased OS that you haven't played with, perhaps you should hold off on recommending it until you do :S

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Anthony Mouse]

I don't imagine anybody bought the box, but you could get a new computer without it, a Mac being the obvious alternative for typical users.

But a Mac doesn't run that ancient call center software that corporate uses, and you've already integrated Dell's purchasing system with your accounting system so that it's easy to buy from them, plus you've got a support contract and if you buy new systems you can put them under the same contract instead of having to deal with multiple vendors, etc.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Divebus]

I'll postulate that "speed to market" is accurate. It took several years of Microsoft sitting on their ass, basking in the glory of XP, threatening some futuristic Longhorn bullshit to keep competitors scared and corporations comfortable, thinking "that'll show them" before they realized the competition was still coming at them. Then, after a long vacation, they cobbled together all the superficial veneer they could copy from other OSs (just the sizzle off the steak), added some bullshit to make it look like your computer liked you and hurriedly released it with missing features and half of everything broken. They quickly threw it together in a panic. That's speed to market.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[caitsith01]

Android is possible to be configured from the beginning only to use any exchange server as well. You do not need to use any Google services or applications if you do not want to do so.

Rubbish. Any consumer Android phone requires registration with Google using a gmail address and associates your phone and various applications and system components with that address thereafter.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[q.kontinuum]

Ok, so how do I switch of contact sync with Windows Live on my WP device? Windows Live account is mandatory if you want to use any Apps; if you don't, you don't need a Smartphone at all.

For now, I will stick to Symbian for this reason...

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[gl4ss]

doesn't matter if you have the google apps or not, or if you're running cyanogen or not.
just don't put in any personal stuff, don't keep the gps on. most importantly don't install apps that have access to "logs", "local files" or "location".
I don't know how n9 is supposed to protect your privacy any better than a galaxy nexus. you don't really have to share your contacts with google with an android phone either, it's only if you want to move them easily between phones(and for some reason want to use googles app for that and not something that just saves them to a sd-card).

if anything, get one of those new aisha's. j2me has very limited data sharing model between apps!

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Sollord]

Funny my epic 4g doesn't seem need to me use Google for anything and provides me a list of different account options but if I don't use goggle I'm locked out of it's market which isn't much of a problem with Amazon having one also

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[exomondo]

The share of Android phones as a percentage of the market has been growing. The market itself has been growing. By what strange application of mathematics could it be the case that the number of Android phones is not consequently also growing?

I don't know why this is so hard for you to understand but we have the growth of the share of android phones as a percentage of the market, however you also need to factor in how much the market has grown, you admittedly don't seem to think that number is relevant, which it obviously is.

Ah yes, the literal argument. And if the Apple has the most popular laptop model it clearly must mean that more people buy laptops with MacOS than with Windows. (Or not, in either case.)

How retarded are you? I said smartphone, i said it multiple times and you still failed to understand that, it's not that hard, it's written right there.

There were smartphones before the iPhone, like the Blackberry. Or that stuff Microsoft was selling back then. There has to be some reason why people chose early iOS and Android over their contemporaries. You're trying to define "smartphone" as "iPhone", which is just begging the question.

No I'm not trying to define smartphone as iPhone, but compare pre-iphone smartphones to post-iphone smartphones, it's pretty obviously a very different generation of devices, don't be obtuse.

Those things are not replacements for one another.

And neither is WP7 a replacement for WM, which you would know if you'd bothered to actually do any research on the topic, now you just look ignorant. They share about as much in common as the iPhone and the nokia n95, a WM user would not see any familiarity with WP whatsoever, but obviously you haven't used both platforms so you wouldn't know that which is why you're posing such a ridiculous argument.

See above. Windows PCs are not fungible with consoles.

And WP is not fungible with WM, which you would know if you'd used them, so i can't understand why you would argue a point that you clearly know nothing about. All you're talking about is brand loyalty because familiarity counts for absolutely nothing whatsoever on these platforms.

IIRC the specific estimates above are for the higher education market, but I'll give you the numbers for the whole US market.

How about worldwide, you know since the products are available worldwide and quality isn't based purely on the US's perception.

But come on, how exactly given time to market, maturity of the market and age of the products, you clearly seem to think there is a formula for deriving quality so what is it? How exactly do you determine quality based on marketshare? What is this formula you seem to think is there? Or are you just arguing for the sake of it?

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[caitsith01]

So when you first turned it on you were not required to have a gmail address?

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Sollord]

It does asks me to input a gmail address but I can skip it and not use that feature if I want but it makes all the google apps somewhat useless.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[w0mprat]

I would add that CyanogenMod has a "incognito mode" privacy feature. I would also add nothing really beats rooted Android with a short list of tweaks for privacy. It's also not as hard as you think, there's a lot of excellent work done by the modding community to make rooting relatively straightforward and a lot of the tweaks as simple as side-loading a simple app. It's pretty cool because it makes a lot of it quite of nerdy powerful things accessible to a wider range of people.

Dare I say the modding community for Android is awesome.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Neil Boekend]

Bing is your friend [ducks]

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[w0mprat]

it's still light years beyond Android and iOS.

I would agree WP7 was actually very innovative and a considerable leap ahead of Andorid and iOS, it hasn't done so well largely because of a glutted market.

But until someone comes out with an actual privacy-enhanced handset, the kindg of privacy in the mobile world is a rooted Android handset.

Consider that a fair few features pioneered by the modding community for Android are now standard to many handsets (My SGS2 has tethering, direct wifi transfer, font customization, all things I was playing with on a rooted G2 years before mainstream picked them up). And trailing the back of the pack following along you have Apple quietly introducing features to iOS that Android had pioneered and had for some time. (Last straw being copying Android's notification system almost exactly. Who's slavishly copying who?).

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[xaxa]

I'm not surprised a Microsoft shilling would think that.

Anyone got opinions theyre not being paid for?

If anyone doubts this, look at the timestamp. Story posted at 1:03, CmdrPony replies with a long comment at... 1:03. And his comment history is similar.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[MrHanky]

Oh? I have only seen one such story. Something about a store in China? Then there are these:

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/06/android-malware-angry-birds/
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2011/03/malware-in-android-market-highlights-googles-vulnerability.ars

Then again, Windows Phone 7 doesn't allow sideloading of applications, IIRC. Which would make it more secure, at the cost of your liberty.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[impaledsunset]

I think that AdBlocking on a phone can only improve the usage.I don't see what problem you could possibly have with the idea? AdBlock Plus on my N900 works great, and makes certain sites much less intensive on my phone. Unfortunately, there's no NoScript equivalent for the Maemo browser, which IMO is a must have as well.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[AlterEager]

Maemo never had time to develop soul sucking modules - if it had gotten anywhere near Verizon, you can be sure it would have become a world-class Dementor.

So you haven't heard about Aegis?

Software that makes a Debian Linux based platform more closed than iOS?

Software that makes it impossible to do what you want with the phone even if you have root access.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[AlterEager]

You can sync with syncML directly, or run your own syncML server and use syncEvolution to sync from the phone (I'm using it with my OpenGroupware installation) if you want to have a "cloud"-like feeling. It shares as much information with anyone as my GNU/Linux desktop.

You got syncML to work! How? What versions, on what distribution.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[stms]

The reason for this is simple too. Microsoft may be many things, but they have always respected privacy. In fact, they have never really cared about personal data the way Google does. All they want to do is sell you the software and be done with it.

How exactly do you think they're eventually going to make money off of Bing?

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[RMH101]

Live contact sync isn't enabled on mine. I'm using mine with Exchange and Gmail...You do need a Live ID but it doesn't actually do much if you don't use the services such as hotmail etc. In order to buy stuff off the market it needs a method of billing you, which is why it's mandatory to create a Live ID.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Richard_at_work]

I have to really disagree with your claim that the N900 is on par hardware wise. I had an N900 for several months last year and I have to say that the screen was utter shite, the sound was utter shite, the wifi was spotty, the keyboard was shite, and loads of other things. I went back to my iPhone 3G and dumped the N900 because, while an interesting concept, it wasn't worth using as an actual phone.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Raenex]

http://grep.law.harvard.edu/articles/02/08/08/0923231.shtml

"Passport stores users' passwords and credit card numbers on Microsoft computers to make Web surfing easier."

Oh yeah, I remember Microsoft Passport. It was a pure power-play to tie their desktop monopoly to eCommerce. Thankfully it bombed.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Fri13]

Bing is Your Friend

Erh, wait.... it was Microsoft service... Who maintains Windows Phone

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[TheRaven64]

Windows XP was 2003

Tell me, did the little Slashdot logo by your name come with a contractual obligation not to check your sources, or did was it just an existing ability of yours that qualified you for the job?

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Fri13]

They just don't contain same microkernel but totally same whole NT operating system.

NT operating system is used in every Windows since Microsoft killed MS-DOS line (last of it being Windows ME) and continued NT line with Windows XP.

That Windows desktop and server versions use same NT operating system is not secret.
Neither is that CE operating system is used in Windows Phone.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Fri13]

I red it and understood but now Windows fans are defending Linux users and blaming Linux with same arguments as they defended Windows.

Still, Linux arguments holds while Windows fans arguments dont. Proof is simple. Linux is most used operating system in mobile devices, internet servers, supercomputers etc. But still lacks the malware infections what Windows had.

And other proof is, since Windows Vista, Microsoft has improved the code quality and with sane settings and suddenly malware infections has been dropping.

The fact is, the market share does not matter how easily software gets infected. It is about quality of the software itself what rules it.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Fri13]

Linux is just operating system, so show a active malware what attacks to Linux and causes people to suddenly need reinstall?
Mac is just a computer (like a PC), so show a active malware what attacks to UEFI or other firmwares on it, what causes people to reflash or buy a new motherboard?

If you meant Linux with whole software system instead just operating system, then choose your words more accurately. And don't blame Linux if third party software has hole in it (like Firefox or Apache or Bash)
and if you meant with Mac a whole software system instead just computer, then again, choose words more accurately and don't bring it up with Linux what is just monolithic operating system as they are not comparable.

There are always crackers writing malware and hackers testing how they can hack devices or software for better things. But question is how easy it is to do and how widely it will spread because easiness.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[tsa]

Then you may have had one of the earlier ones because I had no problems with it.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Fri13]

Stop spreading lies!

You can use Exchange with Android as well. You do not need to give your contacts, emails or anything to Google even if you activate your phone to Google.

Windows Phone 7 has not so good privacy as does Android.

Android user can choose from the beginning to not store or send any data to Google.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Fri13]

With Android you do not even need to setup Exchange to get maintain your own private data.
Still you can sync them to your own wanted computer with standard files like vcards and others.

IF and only IF, you have specific carrier or manufacturer phone where they have disabled all those. It is not fault of the Android but fault of the carrier and manufacturer.

All Android phones in my country are unlocked. Carriers do not modify them to block users from swapping cards or even selling phones forward or anything.
Every Android phone is vanilla or as manufacturer made it as pure form. Carriers can not block users.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[AmiMoJo]

Some models of Android phone will not let you even use the calendar or contacts unless you sign up with Google

That is only true of the bundled Google calendar app, and you are free to use your own that doesn't sync with them. Even with the bundled one it will work perfectly well if you turn of syncing (how do you think people use it abroad or on Pay As You Go without a data connection?).

In fact Cyanogen does not include the Google apps for copyright reasons, so if you are really paranoid you could always use that. Google's Nexus phones are unlocked so no need for hacks to install it.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Fri13]

Rooting voids warranty only in some countries. Not in all.

At least some countries understands that hardware malfunction or design flaw is hardware feature and has nothing to do with the software.

Many EU countries you can root your phone, install what ever software you want and then even avoid braking your warranty.
But IF your phone gets malfuctioned by the software, warranty does not touch it at all. So if you brick your phone with your actions, it is your fault and warranty does not help you at all.

In my country if someone sends a custom ROM phone to repair where CPU has burn out, they do check settings was the phone overclocked. If it were not, warranty applies. If it was overclocked, warranty is invalid and user needs to pay the repair.

At some countries there are at least tech people who understands there is difference between software and hardware. But some new people are only teached the US laws and US warranty by education and marketing materials without even knowing what are the laws in the country (non-US).

So stop running all around internet saying that warranty is avoid if you root your phone or you root + install custom ROM. As warranty policy is different in other countries and manufacturers want to rip off all possibilities to even following local law. So easiest way is to teach users that if they do anything to their phones, warranty is off.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[BrokenHalo]

Even if you don't care to (or can't*) root your phone, there's always InBrowser, so you don't have to share your browsing activity if you don't want to.

However, there is a caveat that much of the functionality of your android phone comes from being linked to a Google account, so in that sense you have to give up that measure of privacy, but I don't really see that that differs materially from any of the other platforms. However, of course, you don't have to use gmail. I use K9 as my mail client for four email accounts which I access via POP3 in preference to IMAP for the sake of convenience.

* I have an android Sony/Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro which was rooted until the last OS update from Telstra, but since then the damn thing has been impervious to any of my attempts to return the damn thing to its rooted state. If I ever manage to overcome this, I'll install Cyanogenmod and never touch another Telstra update ever again.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Dammital]

Is it really that easy to set up your own Exchange server?

It's pretty easy to set up dovecot and z-push, which gets you the activesync partner for your phone.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[stewbacca]

[Windows Phone 7 is] still light years beyond Android and iOS... Microsoft may be many things, but they have always respected privacy.

Thanks for the early morning laugh!

The only time when you need contact with other servers is to download and install apps, which imo is a stupid decision fueled by iOS and Android doing it that way.

iPhone Configuration Utility. I'm sure there's something similar in Android as well.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[jbolden]

That is not at all what happened. The veneer came last.

There were 3 main features of Longhorn:

1) A new security system, Paladium.
2) A database file system WinFS
3) A new interface (what would become Aero).

(1) was terribly controversial. And very labor intensive. Microsoft never considered doing something like what Apple did with iOS to make it pay for them.

(2) had serious problems with compatibility. It would have required a strong arm upgrade cycle in terms of backwards and forwards compatibility. So it get sent to the SQL server group and is today part of their advanced server offerings. Microsoft has been at this for 2 decades they aren't giving up on it.

(3) Happened.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Fri13]

If you don't want to share your contacts in the cloud, Android indeed doesn't provide an easy way to sync them.

vcard..... ain't it easy to be synced every time you connect your phone to computer via USB or even via WLAN, you contacts and calender is synced?

Example of Akonadi (service what belongs to KDE SC) and Android phone.
We can turn to old fashion contact and calender syncing.

1. Configure your phone to export calenders as .ics file (you might need own app for that if your chosen calender does not do it already)
2. Configure akonadi to automatically sync them to computer when phone is connected as mass storage or connects to local network (WLAN)
3. Configure your phone to import files back to phone by action or automatically

When calenders and contacts are text files, you can sync and manage them without any server

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[stewbacca]

And if the Apple has the most popular laptop model it clearly must mean that more people buy laptops with MacOS than with Windows.

Small detail, but MacOS is a 27 year-old OS that was halted in 2001.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[stewbacca]

...and you pay some dork $75,000 a year to consult you that Windows PCs are "better", only because that's all he knows and is a fan of "job security"...his certifications prove it right?

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[jbolden]

Marketshare is a neutral metric of fit. Quality of a product for the actual customers, all variables being considered. It comes from the idea of market rationality which is one of the core ideas of capitalism. Basically I assume consumers are at least semi-rational and only semi-correlated in their individual choices and collectively I can end up with a highly rational machine for collective choices.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Fri13]

Of course they are because they needed to bring the MeeGo what people waited and what (?) Intel deal ruled that Microsoft needs to bring at least single MeeGo device.

Nokia LIES (whoa, who would believe marketing is just about truth?) to customers and even for media.

Harmattan and MeeGo has some same parts, like Qt. But so does Symbian have a Qt and it is even being ported to Android and even Qt is ported to Linux and many other. Still those ain't MeeGo.

MeeGo and Harmattan were (and are) just Linux distributions among others like Android for mobile devices.

Harmattan is the name of the software program that comes after Fremantle / Maemo 5. In the Maemo Summit we already announced it as "Maemo 6" in order to bring a clear signal about the major update, change of toolkit, etc.

Now MeeGo comes to the picture. "Maemo 6" will not be used by Nokia as a brand since all the marketing effort around the software platform will be around MeeGo.

- For those caring about the platform in depth, Harmattan =! MeeGo. If we would make Harmattan identical to MeeGo then we would need to postpone dates and, really not for a good reason. Not a reason for app developers (the API is there anyway) and not a good reason for end users, who could not care less about packaging and some obscure middleware components. This is the only reason making Ari Jaaksi refer to Harmattan as a "MeeGo instance" instead of just "MeeGo product".

Nokia lied and Nokia fans wanted MeeGo and Media wanted to get money from ads by getting readers by following Nokia marketing that N9 has MeeGo while it has Harmattan.

Nokia never toke MeeGo project seriously. Ever, never. If they would have. They would have dropped whole Maemo 6.0 development and jumped 100% to MeeGo development. But they divided the development and slowed down everything with their own....

They just rebranded Harmattan as MeeGo/Harmattan so they have even legal side covered that somewhere it is not said it is MeeGo but still said it is MeeGo.
compability
Differences like .deb or .rpm does not matter or that not 100% API compability exist?

N9 does not have MeeGo, it has Harmattan what is just officially branded as MeeGo/Harmattan.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[q.kontinuum]

You should tell MS that it is now possible to disable synch for primary account, they don't know about this feature:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/winphone/forum/wp7-sync/disable-synchronizing-contacts-windows-live

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Fri13]

No it is not perfectly appropriate at all. It is not even close.
When you just change your Maemo 6.0 brand to MeeGo/Harmattan while MeeGo project is totally different branch, it "perfectly appropriate" at all.

Lets change Ubuntu branding as Windows 8 and it is perfectly appropriate that everyone else refers computers using it as Windows 8-based computer.

Marketing and branding are some things what does not matter at all what technology is. You can sell same technology under different brands but the different branding does not mean it is different technology.
Or you can sell different technologies under same brand, but it does not mean the technologies are same.

Nokia lied and misleads customers and media to sell N9 as MeeGo. And they get off from it because MeeGo is DEAD.
If MeeGo would came a success so there would be real MeeGo phones, N9 would be incompatible with them as it does not have MeeGo but Harmattan.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[jbolden]

1) There don't exist all purpose trusted sources for the desktop.
2) Users are unclear on the desktop whether they are installing from a trusted or untrusted source.
3) There aren't from the naive end user's perspective additional security mechanisms to adjust the amount of harm an application can cause.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[garyebickford]

I recall a news article recently where some bad guy was tracked to the airport using his turned-off phone, and was arrested there.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[nedlohs]

But why does that matter?

Do the phone is associated with "adkfj29234@gmail.com" an email address that is not used by anything or anyone else.

All the email sent and received on the phone is for a different non-gmail address. So what does it matter if some random email is associated with the phone, considering that email isn't associated with anything else The phone likely also has a MAC address on the wifi and a bunch of other random identifiers anyway.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[inviolet]

Although I prefer Maemo since it seems to be the least soul sucking OS around, Android is also quite nice once you install a few odds and ends to clean up the advertising mess - though you need hardware that can be rooted. Applications like DroidGuard, AdAway, LBE Privacy Guard, or similar will put a halt to anything trying call home or get in your way.

Sorry to yank off your warm fuzzy blanket, but if you carry a cellphone and use it to make calls, your privacy is exactly bupkis because the cellular companies are already inside your kimono...

Your physical location is already tracked real-time, and accessible to people whose career advancement requires wrecking your life (law enforcement). Whereas all Google et. al. want to do is sell you stuff you want, or sell your information to other people who want to sell you stuff you want. They know where you are and they will use that information to prove you guilty -- but not to prove you not-guilty.

Your social connections are also already logged vis-a-vis your call logs, MMS logs, and email records, again accessible to people who are incentivized to get convictions without any primary concern for guilt or innocence. Whereas Google and friends just want to figure out which commercials to show you.

You act like someone on board the Titanic, who is so utterly intimidated by the prospect of sinking in the arctic that you lock yourself in your room and obsess about how to prevent the waitstaff from spilling a drink on you. You are worried about all the wrong things.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Fri13]

I'm afraid you're the one, that inadvertantly or otherwise, is spreading false information. Some models of Android phone will not let you even use the calendar or contacts unless you sign up with Google.

I was talking about the Android, not about a Android what manufacturer or carrier has modified so the Android experience is different.

Android allows to use calenders and contacts without any connections to or apps from Google.
Android allows user to sync calenders and contacts without Google at all, or any other internet service.

BUT, if carrier or manufacturer modifies their distributed Android such way that the Android experience can not be found from them, it is not reason to blame the Android but reason to blame those carriers and manufacturers.

It should be very easy by tech-oriented people to already understand that it is different thing when third party modifies product what the just distribute than having a original product.

That is one reason why GPL exist so that every modification can be seen and even disabled if wanted.
That is one reason why Google added to Android 4.0 a feature to disable a carrier or manufacturer bundled applications.

Of course it is different to buy a Windows from shelf and installing it to empty HD in computer than bying a computer what has HD where OEM windows is preinstalled with bundled software.

If you buy a Acer and its bundled OEM software makes it slow and ugly, do you blame Microsoft or Acer because that? If you blame Microsoft, then you don't have logic or you don't understand how preinstalled OEM versions differs from vanilla Windows experience.

Why does tech-oriented people usually remove those bundled softwares? Why does corporations have custom installation medias what they use to overwrite the preinstalled Windows by OEM when they buy new computers?

Hardware can be good by OEM, but their modifications to Windows might not. So they simply overwrite it with their own version or pure Windows installation.

Now, Google does not manufacture phones, like Microsoft does not manufacture PC's.
Google only offers a software system freely to be used, Microsoft does same thing but with license fee.

Smartphones and PC's are little different position but not actually far away.
Most PC's are OEM's what are "infected" with OEM Windows.
But at least there is a change to buy or at least build a PC without Windows, somehow (can be easy or very hard)
At least people can re-install shelf version of Windows instead OEM version if wanted. Or they can even install other OS and chosen software system including the OS if just technically possible.

Smartphones.... You can not buy anywhere a empty smartphone or build a own.
But at least there is a change to some models to be re-installed with wanted version and not Carrier or OEM version, when using Android. You can not do that with iOS or Windows Phone. Android is more close to PC than neither those two other.

Now, Google offers the Android experience with their own branded phone model with partner. That is like a flag ship how the Android should be felt. But even then, some carriers can do SIM lock or other nasty things.
But in some countries every phone is SIM-free, and some phones are without DRM so you can just root the phone and install non-OEM version of the Android in them.

That is one of the beautiful things in Android, user can have better freedom than with iOS or Windows Phone.

Google > OEM > Carrier > User

That is the typical order in U.S
In EU, some countries it is
Google > Carrier > User
Google > OEM > User
Google > non-modified Android by Carrier/OEM > User

If carrier makes modification and you don't like it, do you blame manufacturer or Google because that?
If OEM makes modification and you dont like it.... do you blame Carrier or Google?
If Google does modification and you dont like it, do you blame Carrier or OEM?

The Android is

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[fatphil]

"I don't know how n9 is supposed to protect your privacy any better than a galaxy nexus. "

Because it's been designed to. The security framework has extended the concepts of UID/GID such that there's very tight partitioning of the user's data (and no "root" in use). Every program needs to request, at package building time, permission to access to the various data types and hardware devices (cellular, bluetooth, etc), and that's cryptographically signed. What's granted at run-time is the intersection of what you request, with filters based on things like where the app comes from (so official Nokia apps get what they ask for, but 3rd-party ones don't necessarily).

Whether it actually works as designed is yet to be really tested in the wild. I'd better not say anything more, this is my ${DAYJOB}. (And I have *plenty* more to say, it's a field I've spent a lot of time in.)

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[sl4shd0rk]

> Microsoft may be many things, but they have always respected privacy.

Are you serious? Windows has been the most abused platform in terms of privacy for the last 20 years. Do you realize how much Windows malware has led to identity theft/privacy breaches? IRC backdoors, Login scrapers, keyloggers, Active-X/IE exploits.. the list goes on-and-on. Microsoft has been egregiously negligent in doing anything to stop it and pimping up the Windows phone as a "privacy" solution is laughable at best.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Richard_at_work]

I've never seen an N900 which was any different to mine - the main issue was the resistive screen, rather than a capacitive (brain fails - is that the right term?) screen. That right there, after using a capacitive screen, resistive screens just don't cut it in any way - they are slow and imprecise to input.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[fatphil]

Root's got nothing to do with it - keep up. Linux has been like that since 1998. Just because your desktop distribution gives you all POSIX capabilities when you become root doesn't mean it and every other distribution ought to.

What's annoying about Aegis is that it doesn't give you a simple way of acquiring those capabilities (unless you're a developer, and even then I'm not so sure).

However, there's no turing test or captcha - the phone can't tell the difference between a user wanting to do something, and malware wanting to do something.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[fatphil]

Does Fennec understand things like adblock plugins? If so, that will run on the n9. It might even be hiding in the repositories somewhere, just waiting for you to install it. Note, however, that fennec does evil things that it shouldn't do with the X system, so don't be surprised if it breaks your gui.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[wasabii]

Or just using IMAP. Which works just fine.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[wasabii]

And there's tons of Contact synching apps in the market. Pick one.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Stonent1]

Who said that anyone was required to sync their data with google? I don't sync my contacts with gmail, I do it with exchange. You can activate the phone without turning on synching with gmail. You still need a gmail account to access the market but unless they are reading your phone contacts without your permissionI don't think you have too much to worry about. Or if you really want you can install a third party market or side-load apps and change your gmail password and there will be no way for the phone to phone home so to speak.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[anethema]

Not all those who wander are lost either, but this guy is both.

Windows phone ? Yuck. Major features not yet implemented. Crappy UI (IMO).

Both iOS and Android sync fine to exchange servers only.

Root your android or jealbreak your iphone and you can eliminate any of the small privacy leaks these platforms have.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[fatphil]

Yup, if you've got PMO credentials, you can get fennec from https://files.maemo.org (in the 'ossw' section)

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[houstonbofh]

Compared to Linux distros like Ubuntu, which releases new major version every 6 months, or Firefox, which releases new major every week?

You say this like it's a good thing... Major upgrades every week in the enterprise are a nightmare.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[houstonbofh]

Either fill in the [citation needed] or you're just spouting very tired 10-year-old anti-MS FUD; which quite frankly is a boring topic these days.

NO, it is Anti-Linux FUD. He just ported it.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[fatphil]

Apple seem to refer to "Mac OS X" all over the place.

Are you not familiar with modern concepts such as Roman numerals?

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[tlhIngan]

I think that AdBlocking on a phone can only improve the usage.I don't see what problem you could possibly have with the idea? AdBlock Plus on my N900 works great, and makes certain sites much less intensive on my phone. Unfortunately, there's no NoScript equivalent for the Maemo browser, which IMO is a must have as well.

Alas, it's also not in the cards short of rooting your phone.

First, Google owns AdMob, the largest mobile ad company out there. They sell in-app ads (Google knows your app usage habits bevcause of this). It's not in their interest to let you easily block it.

Second, developers for Android find that's the only way to make money - with Google Checkout/Wallet still not available everywhere an Android phone is sold, paid apps are a non-starter. Plus with ease of piracy, "freemium" is the business plan of the day for Android. If adblocking on Android becomes popular, the apps left over would be stratified between the free open-source stuff and the big companies. (It's also an issue on iOS, but people do pay for apps there - apparently even the Chinese as Apple allowed the yuan as a valid currency).

You know it's bad when RIM can easily claim that Blackberry devs make the second most amount of money after Apple.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[stewbacca]

MacOS refers to the legacy MacOS (up to MacOS 9) that was discontinued in 2001. Mac OS X is not MacOS, for reasons far beyond a Roman numeral.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[fatphil]

"Nokia never toke MeeGo project seriously. Ever, never."

Totally false. Some Harmattan teams in Nokia lost many developers, good developers at that, who went to work on the MeeGo collaboration.

Just because nothing they got into a product that reached the market, and therefore you aren't aware of it, doesn't mean it didn't happen. Could you please not post bullshit pulled straight out of your ass?

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[marcosdumay]

Google has for several times refused to give people's info to governments before a court ordered them to do so (really, look at /. for citations). Google have even left a big country so it would not need to share users' info with its government. Microsoft and Apple do not.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[fatphil]

I'm presuming that you prefer capacitive screens. Those who prefer capacitive screens don't like resistive ones like the n900. Those who prefer resistive screens say the opposite. (And some of us call people who like capacitive screens "swipe and droolers".)

And if you think that the iPhone 3G's *mono* speaker (open it up - there's only one speaker inside) is better than the n900's *two speakers in stereo*, then clearly you've already overdosed on the Koolade already. ("*Back to* my iPhone" is the give-away, you were clearly already predisposed against anything that was different from the almighty iPhone.)

And, having used the n900 keyboard for about 3 years, I think that, no matter what weaknesses it has, it's infinitely better than no keyboard at all.

Anyway, I'm glad to see that you enjoy your swiping. Hopefully that means there's one more 2nd hand n900 on the market for those that want a mobile computer rather than a toy for droolers.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[fatphil]

However, as great grandparent post demonstrates, "MacOS" is also used to refer to the "Mac OS" by people who don't care about things like changes to kernels. MacOSX is just the X-th generation one, that followed the 9-th generation one. You may care about the internals, not everyone does.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[RMH101]

Broken link. Anyway, mine doesn't synch contacts to Live. Whether this is because I use EAS, I don't know. If you supply a link to an MS KB article or similar then I'll pass it on to Product Group...

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[PopeRatzo]

And at this point do you believe that there is no malware for either linux or Mac?

Of course not.

I was referring to the fallacious argument that "people don't write malware for operating systems that are not the most widely-used".

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[exomondo]

No it is not perfectly appropriate at all. It is not even close.

Oh no, dear god you better get on to Nokia and all the developers and tell them about this atrocity they are perpetrating, you should get on to the telcos as well as they are also continuing this terrible injustice!

Lets change Ubuntu branding as Windows 8 and it is perfectly appropriate that everyone else refers computers using it as Windows 8-based computer.

You can't run Windows application on Ubuntu, you can run MeeGo apps on an N9, so your example fails due to your own failure to understand those points.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[exomondo]

Nokia LIES (whoa, who would believe marketing is just about truth?) to customers and even for media.

Harmattan and MeeGo has some same parts, like Qt.

And why is it you're having so much of a problem with this? Is people calling it MeeGo (including the primary developers) causing you to be that confused? In what way is this naming convention causing you so much difficulty?

For those caring about the platform in depth, Harmattan =! MeeGo

And since you've stated that MeeGo is DEAD it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever, what problems is this causing you?

N9 does not have MeeGo, it has Harmattan what is just officially branded as MeeGo/Harmattan.

So we can call it by the name it's officially branded or drop one or the other and EVERYONE still knows what we're talking about, unless you're one of those GNU slash Linux fanatics as well.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[exomondo]

Marketshare is a neutral metric of fit. Quality of a product for the actual customers, all variables being considered. It comes from the idea of market rationality which is one of the core ideas of capitalism. Basically I assume consumers are at least semi-rational and only semi-correlated in their individual choices and collectively I can end up with a highly rational machine for collective choices.

Precisely, you can't judge quality based on marketshare, about as far as you can go is fit-for-purpose.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[HiThere]

Linux (and the Mac?) have relatively little malware, and most of that trojans.

"Malware" is possible on any platform, and *is* driven by market share. Trojans are the catch here, and vetting software (via a repository) is the only known solution. This appears to be a weakness in the Android system. Viruses, a much more specific category, is driven by system vulnerabilities, as worms are driven by network vulnerabilities. Generally I only install software from the Debian repository, though occasionally I'll install a source package that appears to be safe. (I don't study the source, so I can't claim that I know that it's safe, but I don't think I've been bitten yet.)

I am annoyed, however, at usability decisions made by Linux that compromise safety. And several have been made, but my pet peeve is that tar can extract files with the execute permission set. Yes, it makes things much more convenient. It's also an inherent weakness. Privilege escalations are less important to me because I'm the sole user of this machine, and I keep everything that I care about in my home directory. So it doesn't require a privilege escalation the trash everything I care about. (And I decline to, e.g., engage in electronic banking, so that kind of information is just not present. My concern isn't secrecy, but not losing information. [Well, I'd be annoyed at having my privacy violated, but not injured. Because I don't have much of anything on my computer that would be compromising...intentionally. The most I'd lose would be things like my /. password.])

Is MSWind7 safe? At this point nobody knows. Which means that it probably is, for now, except, perhaps, for trojans included by MS. Would I use it? Quite unlikely. I haven't read the EULA, but given their past EULAs it seems quite unlikely that I'd agree to it. (Apple generally has much milder EULAs, and I won't agree to theirs.) More to the point, if I know I'm likely to be sold something that I won't be able to use (for not agreeing to the EULA) and can't return, I'm quite unlikely to fork over ANY cash. I've been bitten unpleasantly that way before, and ended up with a computer I could only use off the net. I'm not about to be put in that situation again. If it has an EULA, I want to know the terms BEFORE I fork over the cash. And this means the actual terms, not a bait-and-switch kind of deal like Apple pulled. (If you actually read the terms that adhere to the security patches, you may be quite surprised...though that was nearly a decade ago by now, and they may have improved. [Ha. Ha. It is to laugh.])

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[exomondo]

The parent poster is right. "MeeGo" is being purely used for marketting purposes.

So we can't that term to describe the product that nokia markets as such and also uses to describe said product? I understand the technical differences but you might as well go around pedantically correcting every Linux distro reference to GNU/Linux with a big rant about why it should be that way.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[PeterWone]

I've just examined all three of your links. Two describe accidents that were rectified and the other involves an attempt to make users lives easier that was abandoned when a small group of whiners mounted a legal privacy challenge to a service they almost certainly didn't intend to use.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Richard_at_work]

See, your style of post seems to be more and more common on Slashdot - you obviously don't like that I disliked your pet product, so you must attack me for it with insults and ridicule.

I also have come across capacitive screens that I dislike, but I have never come across a resistive screen that I liked using - even when they were the only offering on the market (I have had many Palm and Pocket PC handhelds before switching to the original iPhone - never liked the screens on any of them, and it was the screen on the iPod Touch that actually made me seriously consider the iPhone).

As for the keyboard on the N900 - its pathetically awful. My wife got an N900 at the same time as me, but continued using it after I ditched mine and her keyboard is pretty much stripped bare, with the backlight showing through completely. Its not durable, its not rugged, and its a pain in the arse to use.

I'd love to know how you have used your N900s keyboard for "about 3 years", since the N900 was only released on the 11th November 2009 - just over 2 years ago...

Regarding speakers - Im not an audiophile, the iPhones speaker is perfectly fine for me when I use it - more often than not Im using headphones anyway, but during calls the sound quality is fine to the point where I've not once wished for better.

So yes, I did go "back" to my iPhone - I'm so sorry that you consider my entire lifes experience to now be completely biased because I've used one. I guess that must mean I'm not allowed any sort of opinion on anything smartphone related ever again.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[stewbacca]

But this is Slashdot. I expect to see people misuse MacOS about as frequently as I see MAC used to describe a computer. You all know better than that around here.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Branciforte]

Google doesn't want all your data. They just want anything that will help them do a better job of targeting ads, so they can take a cut of the money that would have gone to useless information brokers and middlemen, so that they can have an even bigger pile of money to spend on their real projects, like driverless cars.

They don't really care about stuff like: your name or phone number or address.
They do care about: what sort of stuff you like to buy and what is nearby you at the current moment.

At the end of the day, anything that connects you with what you want to have, is what Google wants to know. Anything else gets scrubbed pretty quickly. Nothing personal, but they just don't care about the details of your life. Just maximize ad efficiency so they can get more money to work on the real stuff. Stuff like gmail and contacts the other apps, those are mostly apps that Google developed for internal use and released to the public as a convenience. The robots that pattern match mail contents to ads, those help defray the datacenter costs.

Google has a very dedicated legal team. Requests by the government are fought, tooth and nail, and everything is logged in the transparency report. But the law does have the right to seize certain data, which is why Google anonymizes everything as quickly as possible.

Microsoft has had no problem ratting out it's customers, or removing their sites from Bing is it offends a lucrative foreign government deal.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[q.kontinuum]

Ok, these links should work:

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=windows-live-sync-with-windows-7-mobile-phone+site:Microsoft.com
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=disable-synchronizing-contacts-windows-live+site:Microsoft.com
(first link in search results)

Unfortunately even MS staff does not link to fm but just answers in prods, so still no knowledge base article.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsphone/en-us/privacy.aspx#windowsliveid

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[RMH101]

The forum post is incorrect, or at least incomplete. With Exchange (and possibly gmail or pop mail) enabled, you do not have to sync anything to Windows Live. If you configure it for Windows Live Mail, this may not be the case. I'd test it but the lmgtfy jab makes me less inclined to try. I have my Microsoft-issued Win7 phone in front of me now...

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[q.kontinuum]

Sorry for the lmgtfy jab, no offence meant. It's already a sort of habit when I send someone a google link.
If there is a solution to this problem, I would be seriously interested. I would love to recommend WP to friends and maybe my wife. The simplicity of the UI is great, and it is really efficient to use. I had my first WP device half a year ago, and since then I'm looking for a solution for my pivacy cincerns, also I have difficulties finding all resources I read in that time. From all I read,

* It is possible to synch to other accounts in addition to WL
* It is possible to switch off synchronization for contents other than contacts for the WL account, but
* It is *not* possible at all to switch off contact sync for the primary WL account (the one that is used for the market place).

I read as a workaround somewhere that I can set the sync interval to "manual". But somehow my contacts still showed up in my WL account, I assume this was due to a firmware update which might have triggered a sync.

The magnitude of the problem is *huge* for me: If I have friends who ask me to treat their contact information confidential, it is not only bad style to upload them to an online service, but indeed illegal in my country, as a lawyer specialized on privacy laws confirmed in a private discussion.

So basically I have the choice to manage these contacts with pen and paper instead of using the phonebook, or I can't use the market place. Obviously it is no solution to synch to any other online account instead.

So if there really is a solution to this problem, it would be highly valuable to me.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[RMH101]

OK, well since you asked nicely...and I'm not using a phone browser to respond now...
Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft. I'm not part of the Windows Phone team, I'm not a sales guy, I just happen to be MSFT and so was given an HTC Mozart running Windows Phone 7 back in January. It's my work phone. I also have a Samsung Galaxy S2 as a personal phone. My Mozart's running Mango but AFAIK the Live contacts sync was also the same for 7.0.
As I say, mine's synced to work Exchange Server, and also to GMail. I have a Windows Live ID, but I use this for sign-in permissions on Xbox Live, various MS sites and nothing else - not for email, not for contacts or calendar. My Live ID uses an email address using my own domain, it's not associated with a Hotmail account or anything else.
What I think is the case is that if you ONLY set it up with a Windows Live account for email (i.e. no Exchange, no Gmail, no POP mail) then it will want to sync all or nothing - mail and calendar and contacts, and you can't disable them individually. If you have an alternate email account setup this isn't the case. If I go into settings...email and accounts I have Windows Live. In there is a "Content to synchronise" with a checkbox for "email" - nothing else. I presume if I checked this (I haven't) that it may be something happens with contacts.
I also have Outlook (Exchange sync) which has the option of synching email, contacts, calendar, tasks with individual checkboxes for all of them. Same for Gmail - separate check boxes for email, contacts and calendar.
The use case I'm not sure about (and I haven't got time to test it as, well, it's my work phone) is if you don't use any other email accounts at all and just use Live. If you do this, *perhaps* the phone does not have the concept of "on the phone" contacts and needs to sync them *somewhere*. As I have Exchange and Gmail, when I create a new contact it asks me where I want to put them - in Gmail, or in Exchange or Windows Live. As I've not ticked "sync email" in Windows Live on the phone, it doesn't prompt me to sync them there at all. Not sure what happens if you have a POP mail account set up.

So, in this case I guess you have the option of running an Exchange mailbox (either hosted if acceptable to you or on your own mail server) or an open-source equivalent that you host yourself. There is no longer the option (as in WM6) of syncing your contacts via a USB cable to a local copy of Outlook rather than via an online service of some sort - this is also the case for WebOS, Android (apart from with some cludges) and iOS - strangely...

As I say, this is just my finding, don't speak for my employer etc etc...

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[q.kontinuum]

Thanks for the answer. I spent some more time reading on answers.microsoft.com, and only found the confirmation in different places that synchronization of contacts can't be disabled. Using any on line service is out of question for the same reason I can't use Windows Live. It's not that I'd be specifically concerned because of MS (my mistrust towards Google is much stronger), it just is illegal unless I remove the "concerned" contacts first.
A pop3 account does not help for this purpose, I had it configured for my phone before I registered a WL account, and still contacts are synchronized with WL without any option to disable this. But for WL account I entered something like username@live.com, not username@po3provider.com, maybe that makes a diference...

If you have time one of these days, could you log into your Windows live account and check if your phone contacts appear there?

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[RMH101]

When I log into Live Contacts, I see my Facebook and Twitter contacts. I'm not sure if this is because I authorised FB and Twitter via Live, or whether it's because I'm signed into FB and Twitter as accounts on my phone. I do not see my Exchange or Google contacts in there. I don't think the phone has a concept of local contacts, to be honest, I think they have to be a mirror of a remote service: be it Live, or Exchange, or Gmail etc...

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[q.kontinuum]

I don't think the phone has a concept of local contacts, to be honest, I think they have to be a mirror of a remote service: be it Live, or Exchange, or Gmail etc...

No, not quite. When I took the phone first into use I didn't have any account on it. Still I was able to add contacts. But maybe it is implemented like assuming all local contacts belong to an imaginary WL account as long as no real WL account is there...
Do you see your Exchange contacts in your people hub on the phone?

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[RMH101]

Yes. All contacts always appear in the people hub...

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[q.kontinuum]

Then maybe I can set up a local server... I might try this tomorrow. I should be able to do this without exposing it to the Internet, and still be able to access it via WLAN in the intranet. Just need to find the right kind of server... afaik IMAP and POP3 don't handle contact data, Exchange server is out of question (too expensive just for hobby)

Anyway, thanks for your help. I need to sleep now, it's 1:30am in my time zone :-)

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[q.kontinuum]

Just found a really good advice: The app "My Contacts Local". Some minor drawbacks, but the basic idea is great. I need to play around with this app a bit before commenting on it any further.

 

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[fatphil]

"I have never come across a resistive screen that I liked using"

Thank you for proving my exact point. Sheesh.

"keyboard ... not durable"

I still use a proto that's about 30 months old as my primary device. And the keyboard's fine still. I use my device for text entry more than anything else.

"I'd love to know how you have used your N900s keyboard for "about 3 years""

No you wouldn't, as it would puncture your self-perceived cleverness. The N900, and the N9 after it, is my job. So, yes, I've also been using the N9 for about 2 years. And, yes, my preference is for the N900 with its resistive touch screen and keyboard over the N9 with its capacitive screen and no keyboard.

"Im not an audiophile"

Clearly. Then why did you go out of your way to spout crap about audio quality?

"I guess that must mean I'm not allowed any sort of opinion on anything smartphone related ever again."

Your error is that you are confusing your clearly biased opinion with facts.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[fatphil]

Good example, as I know I've seen MAC in the last month or so. Painful at first, but amusing after the explanation of why he was using the wrong name went completely over his head.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[Richard_at_work]

The N900, and the N9 after it, is my job.

And there is why you are being so much of an ass - I'm so sorry that I hate your product, but that's my right.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[RMH101]

You're right, IMAP/POP no good for contacts (I think GMail's implementation is actually licenced EAS). You could look at Zarafa or similar open source MS Exchange Server compatible mail servers, think it does EAS as well...this would be really nice as you'd have the ability to use any consumer device that supports EAS, you'd get webmail and it would all be stored on premise. Also may be possible to implement EAS remote-wipe - you can certainly do this with Exchange server...

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[q.kontinuum]

Cool idea, I will look into it if I find time. However, as a first step I installed the "My Contacts Local" app I found, and it is a sufficient solution for my problem. Nevertheless, it would be really great if Peoples Hub on the phone could simply support a checkbox for all contacts where I could disable synchronization. This would imo be the easiest and most convenient solution for the average user.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[RMH101]

interesting app. I'm presuming that it doesn't integrate to the People hub? Or the dialler? That would put a bit of a crimp in it, the People hub is really good, particularly if you use social media (although possibly you wouldn't if you had privacy concerns with your contacts I guess...)
I suspect the use case of local only contacts storage wasn't on the radar for WP7 dev team. Not sure how the phone responds if you have old-school SIM contacts either. There is an obvious interest in getting users into the Live ecosystem from MS's point of view, along with the safety of your contacts being backed up in the cloud. I think the average user is quite happy to either bring their existing Gmail or Outlook cloud contacts, or have them hosted in Live to be honest - I can see your reason why this isn't acceptable, but do bear in mind this is not an issue for the majority of people.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[q.kontinuum]

No, it's not integrated in People hub, which is more or less the point of the app: People hub is designed to connect each and everything as a design goal. The phonebook is made to avoid this. There is no way I could accidentally sync this contact to another website. And of course I can make calls from this application. One disadvantage is that the name is not displayed, only the phone number.

I agree that many people don't care about this, also I feel that the European mindset is on average a bit more critical regarding privacy. I think there might be another risk, but I would prefer not to write it here to avoid giving people ideas. (I also have some stakes in Windows Phone somehow...) I will add you as friend in slashdot; I never used this feature until now, but I guess that way I could send "private" messages without posting an email address here.

Re:Windows Phone 7 is a good solution

[fatphil]

"I'm so sorry that I hate your product, but that's my right."

So your repertory includes stating the obvious as well as spouting ill-founded nonsense?

I'm curious, "OP"

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does Android come out as a clear winner for you, and why do you think that iOS is intrusive?

Re:I'm curious, "OP"

[jo_ham]

I will second the AC's point - why is Android a "clear winner" while iOS is "more intrusive"?

Not that I necessarily disagree, I am just interested in how you came to that conclusion.

FWIW, you don't have to share your contacts and calendars "in the cloud" in iOS - it's entirely optional, and you can sync solely through your home machine if you like. If you don't want to share personal info with Apple at all then you can set up a throwaway email account for your Apple ID and top it up using iTunes Gift Cards if you want to spend any more on the store (you *do not* need to give them a credit card at any stage).

Then turn off all the location services, and I'm not seeing how iOS is any more or less intrusive than Android is.

YMMV, of course. Pick the best phone for the job - if you're buying new, the Galaxy II S and the iPhone 4S are both excellent if you decide to go Android/iOS.

Re:I'm curious, "OP"

[Tacvek]

You most definitely can use a Google Experience or Google-apps-included Android operating system with no Google account, although your experience suffers, since you would have no usable app store until you sideloaded one, one broke down and added a Google account.

You can also disable syncing with virtually all of the services.

On Google-free android-devices it is even easier, since the Google apps are not present, so you lack the option to sync with Google services.

Re:I'm curious, "OP"

[syousef]

I will second the AC's point - why is Android a "clear winner" while iOS is "more intrusive"?

For starters you don't have to jailbreak/root the phone to install an app that isn't Google approved. And you can do so with just the phone - you do not need something like iTunes. Secondly while rooting will supposedly void your warranty there are apps to do so that are right there on the android market.

Re:I'm curious, "OP"

[Anonymous Coward]

And none of those reasons impact privacy, the initial reason for this story.

Re:I'm curious, "OP"

[jo_ham]

How does that in any way affect data privacy, unless say, you wanted to sync to some other cloud service and not Apple... but you can already do that.

Seriously, the whole "you can root Android, therefore it is automatically better/faster/slower/quieter/louder/useful" applied to every situation just smacks of people looking for a reason to bash.

It's certainly a useful ability, but the OP wasn't talking about that.

Re:I'm curious, "OP"

[fa2k]

Why does Android come out as a clear winner for you

Maybe the same reason as for me: you don't have to pay a recurring fee to develop software for your own use! Seriously, I could make Java apps for the Sony Ericsson k500i I bought in 2003, but I have to pay to make iPhone apps? (if it was a one-time fee I could count it towards the price of the phone, but $100/year is just too much). It also doesn't help that iTunes only runs on Mac OS X and (arguably) Windows.

Re:I'm curious, "OP"

[gl4ss]

you can use androids(most of them anyways) without tying them to a google account. you can even pretty much always sideload apps - without jailbreaking.

iphones and itunes on the other hand..

Re:I'm curious, "OP"

[johnlcallaway]

The only need for a google account is to use the app store. There is no need for it to be a 'real' account, I have a couple of 'spam' accounts I use for that very purpose. I do use gmail for my main personal account, but store all of my contacts on my phone and sync once a week to my computer (HTC Aria phone). I also use Thunderbird at my desktop to archive emails. I used to use Cox.net for my local email, and did the same thing. I can't sync contacts easily to Thunderbird, but I don't really send a lot of emails from my phone so it doesn't bother me. (I have found that most emails can wait until I get home, or only need a one or two line response otherwise.)

Anyone sending email from any device has to send it to an SMTP server unless they are running their own, so any comment about using a mail server for any single application is moot. I use Touchdown for my outlook, it used to connect my work email server, but they have since migrated to using Microsoft servers. So it is very possible to setup Android to use your own Exchange server.

Re:I'm curious, "OP"

[abhi_beckert]

For starters you don't have to jailbreak/root the phone to install an app that isn't Google approved.

Apps don't need to be approved by Apple, the encryption system requires that the *developers* are approved. If you're an iOS developer (and it's dirt cheap compared to the cost of, say, a phone data plan) then you can install any app you want if you have the source code. And you don't have to abide by any rules except mass-distributing your binaries, and the built in security measures in the phone.

I'm surprised there isn't bigger open source community around iOS apps. I've written one or two, but haven't seen any others.

And you can do so with just the phone - you do not need something like iTunes.

You don't need iTunes to install apps on an iPhone, you just need a URL to the app. As long as the app is signed by an approved developer, it will install.

Secondly while rooting will supposedly void your warranty there are apps to do so that are right there on the android market.

It doesn't void your warranty. It just means they will not provide you with tech support of any kind, even if you pay for it (this includes checking if a problem is a software bug - possibly in the jail break code, or a hardware fault). All the jail breaks can be uninstalled in a few seconds, and then they will give you tech support.

But what does any of this have to do with privacy? I would argue the tightly locked down iOS system, where apps cannot read each others files or communicate with each other or communicate with the internet unless they've got a good explanation for why, is a near *perfect* situation from a privacy front.

Smart phones are not private

[plover]

OK, so you say you're concerned about the security of your list of contact phone numbers and addresses. Yet when you want to call the contact, you ask your cellular provider via the GSM network to establish the connection. When you email the contact you use the 4G network to access the internet, and send your email to them, secured only on the hop between your phone and your SMTP server, but otherwise probably being transmitted in cleartext. When you bring up their address in the map, you give Google the locations of every place you view. And every where you go, whether it be to a calendar appointment or just out for a stroll, the cell phone is broadcasting your identity and approximate location to anyone interested in such things.

I think distrusting Google wouldn't be first on the list of privacy actions to take.

Not having a cell phone would go a lot further protecting your privacy, but you said you don't want the cave option. Get a Kindle Fire (wi-fi only, only when you want it), root it, and add only GPL software you trust, including a SIP client. Carry a Sprint wi-fi hotspot, turning it on only on your terms. Or carry a dumb phone (Sony Ericsson makes one) then use Bluetooth to tether the smart device. Instead of the Kindle Fire, you could use an iPod touch.

You could even carry an iPhone. To the best of my knowledge, Apple isn't scraping my contact list. Yet. I think.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[CmdrPony]

That's just nitpicking. You could say the same way that by design Internet isn't private because your ISP can potentially snoop into your connection. The problem isn't ISPs (remember, it's all decentralized still), but third parties like huge ad networks that collect so much specific data about everyone. Google included. That's why it's good to eliminate those first. You could go further and start using only HTTPS browsing and PGP'd email, but that brings it's own challenges.

Also, when you send email, the connection isn't necessarily insecure. Most SMTP servers support secure connection now. Likewise, you can install specific map programs on smartphones and never need to give Google your data. Yes, it does cost, but it gives you that extra privacy.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[DJRumpy]

When it comes to privacy, I would have to eliminate Android. The very purpose of Android is to farm info via Google. Contrary to the open source stance, Google's business model is collecting and selling information.

Windows might be a good choice. I haven't heard much yet regarding their newest offering and privacy but given their past stance as a provider of the OS for profit rather than selling your data, I would think at least in the privacy arena, MS themselves should be ok. Malware wise, I also haven't heard of a lot of issues yet regarding their mobile offering. Ironically it's obscurity (read: lack of popularity) may actually provide it some safety in that regard.

Apple is also a possible selection if you don't mind the walled garden. Apple's curated garden also tends to keep the instances of malware down so the possibility of getting your information mined via third party app seems to be far less than Android. Apple is also like Microsoft in that regard that they aren't in the business of selling your personal data.

RIM is another that is much like MS and Apple in that they sell hardware for profit. The only drawback with RIM is that you must pipe your data through RIM's servers. They have the added benefit of being vetted by many corporations so that may be a deciding factor.

Of the 4 I'd either choose Apple or MS based on your criteria (arguments about open source/evil brouhaha, etc. disregarded as they weren't part of your question).

Re:Smart phones are not private

[Weezul]

Apple and Microsoft would be worse than Google because Google at least (a) has caught NSLs and (b) published statistics on government data requests. Yes, Google is better at trying to sell you stuff, but that's mostly harmless. And paradoxically Google's skill at selling you stuff is why they don't sell the raw data to anybody else.

Your phone company would however be much worse than all three, given the depth of their existing relationship with authorities. In addition, your phone company has the least competence in advertising, making them the greatest chance of selling your raw data to advertisers.

Ergo, it doesn't much matter what phone you use. Worry more about the carrier.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[plover]

I don't disagree, just pointing out that using any network connectivity gives up privacy, as does carrying a continually broadcasting RF transmitter. The cave is truly the best option for privacy, it's just not a terribly social way to live. ( 'Course, with the cave option you have to have your lackeys bring you porn videos, and there's always the pissed off Marines who don't like that you aren't carrying a cell phone...)

Anyway, his real first step toward privacy should be installing AdBlock, NoScript, and Ghostery on his mobile browser.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[martin-boundary]

Sort of, like walking in public gives up some privacy because you can be observed at any moment, but it's usually a bunch of people who each only see a tiny fraction of your walk.

In the case of CCTVs, the privacy issue is much more serious, because now one single observer can piece together the full history of your walk if they want.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[chrb]

Google's business model is collecting and selling information.

Not true. Google's business model is collecting users and selling some advertising. They do not sell personal information, and there is no way for advertisers to get access to your anonymised profile. Wired said:

"For most of its existence, Google has largely decided that what you do on its properties -- such as search and Gmail -- will not be used for its ad program, which shows banner ads on third-party websites. That program uses tracking cookies on more than a million sites to create an anonymous profile of you in order to show you more targeted ads (click here to see your profile). By contrast, the ads you see in Gmail and in Google Search are targeted by the search terms you use, or the words in recent e-mails.

To date, the only Google site that feeds into the marketing profile is YouTube. Google has long emphasised that it won't use your search history to create targeted ads and that they use different cookies so the marketing cookie can't be matched with your Google user profile cookie -- despite the temptation of untold advertising riches for the taking by combining and mining such a rich vein of data."

Re:Smart phones are not private

[Anonymous Coward]

When I call someone I transmit only their PSTN address, not their name, birthday, mailing address, email address, etc. Addresses are necessarily public, at least within the context of their own network, but all the relations between those addresses, and the metadata stored with them, does not go out every time I use them.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[DJRumpy]

Of course they sell information. It may be anonymous but it is still your information. Claiming otherwise is not truthful.

You should probably post all of the context of that info as you seem to have cherry picked the ones that put things in the best light.

To date, the only Google site that feeds into the marketing profile is YouTube. Google has long emphasised that it won't use your search history to create targeted ads and that they use different cookies so the marketing cookie can't be matched with your Google user profile cookie -- despite the temptation of untold advertising riches for the taking by combining and mining such a rich vein of data.

So will Google+, with its likely very rich data about users' interests, feed into that marketing profile -- now or in the future?

The answer: "Google+ is not part of the Google Display Network" a spokesman said. But that's not to say it won't ever feed that network. YouTube used to live outside that wall as well.

"We currently do not offer advertising in Google+, but will continue to look for new ways for businesses to engage users in the project," the spokesman said.

Which is a short way of saying, "Yes, we will have ads, but first we need to get some users."

Both companies have already wandered into a gray zone by automatically opting users into a systems that uses their "Likes" and "+1 on other websites, so that when you visit a site like CNN.com, you can see which of your friends like that site. Those votes can also show up on ads from companies that your friends have given a social vote too. (You turn this off here for Google, and here for Facebook)

All arguments aside, Google's primary business is information. They make money from selling it. Trying to claim otherwise is disingenuous.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[dave420]

Sorry to go off-topic, but "single observers" have been able to piece together the full history of your walk since man started walking. It's called "following someone". I don't see how CCTV is any different.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[Hentes]

The difference is that you can encrypt your internet connections, encrypting phone calls however is against the law.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[Anonymous Coward]

You could even carry an iPhone. To the best of my knowledge, Apple isn't scraping my contact list. Yet. I think.

They are as of iOS 5: your contacts are automatically copied to iCloud, unless you disable iCloud entirely. (Which, if you care about your privacy, you should do anyway. Then all that's shared with Apple is what apps you use, how long you use them, what calls are made and how long, and where your phone is. The last one being done explicitly for advertising reasons. The first two are for "diagnostic purposes." Read your terms of service, kids!)

Re:Smart phones are not private

[afabbro]

The difference is that you can encrypt your internet connections, encrypting phone calls however is against the law.

It may be illegal where you are, but it's not illegal everywhere.

For example, it's perfectly legal to encrypt your phone calls in the U.S.

After all, how did people access https sites over dial-up for all those years...

Re:Smart phones are not private

[chrb]

No they don't. There is big difference between a) putting adverts in front of your eyeballs, and b) selling your information. One involves receiving money from a third party in exchange for putting an advert on your screen. The other involves transferring your personal information to a third party in exchange for money. The former is entirely legal and lightly regulated in most countries (advertising standards). The latter is more heavily regulated, and if they sold the personal data of Europeans they would be liable for criminal prosecution under Europe's Data Protection laws.

You should probably post all of the context of that info as you seem to have cherry picked the ones that put things in the best light.

I "cherry picked" the bit of the article that was relevant. Maybe you could highlight exactly where in your extended quote it says "Google sells your personal information", because I can't see it.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[afabbro]

Not true. Google's business model is collecting users and selling some advertising

Google collects users? Do they encase them in lucite?

Re:Smart phones are not private

[betterunixthanunix]

What horrible, authoritarian country do you live in where encrypting a phone call is illegal? In my country, we have this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A5/1

Re:Smart phones are not private

[Imrik]

A single observer can follow a large number of people at once on CCTV and, more importantly, can follow them retroactively.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[MobyTurbo]

Nobody has posted on this yet, but even iPhone, Nokia, and Blackberry phones; not to mention Android phones, get "Carrier IQ" in their stock ROMs: http://www.xda-developers.com/android/the-rootkit-of-all-evil-ciq/

Re:Smart phones are not private

[Fri13]

Do you know that in EU there is a law passed to every EU country that they need to store every tele communication information for 6-12 months? And that is by automatically by some countries passed to US intelligence agencies?

The data are
Every phone number called and received
Every fax sent and received
Every email sender and receiver and subject
Every SMS receiver and sender
Every URL typed to browser address bar
Every IP connected by the client

(The messages itself ain't stored, just the mattering data who to whom and when and from where)

And now there is idea to even store every phone location data as well, and you can not affect at all that is it possible or not without shutting down the phone.

You can secure so much as you want your SSL/SSH but operator is always man in the middle. And you know what risks does it give.

Even sweden millitary has permission to intercept every connection what just goes trough their country. That was one reason why even Russia is building a own cable since then to germany just to pass Sweden authorities.

How about then every bank and shop? They can see what you buy and when. Bonus cards are used to track personal habits and even locations. Stores can build with bonus cards very accurate maps of personality. They can even find out when you are cheating your wife and with time if people buy with own cards separetely.

You can say it is nitpicking or offer a tinfoil hat, but it does not change the facts that already big corporations are tracking your habits. They even know when you are having a baby and which gender it will be by tracking your bonus cards. They can send advertisements to your home then about baby products. And usually you have given them a permission to share collected data to third parties.

And all that is possible because first they rised the prices of products, so they can present a "bonus card" what gives a user a normal price. And those who do not have bonus card, pays extra fee from everything.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[shaitand]

I have far less problem with google than with the third party apps. Good luck installing three apps without three apps requesting access to data that isn't required for the app.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[wvmarle]

I think you should have added the word "not" twice in there.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[wvmarle]

All arguments aside, Google's primary business is information.

True, but they do not sell personal information, they sell advertising.

As a company you can buy and sell advertising space on/for Google (through AdWords/AdSense). Google will not give you any personal information: instead Google will put your ads out towards the people they think are most likely to be interested in your product, attempting to make your advertisement more efficient. As such Google can charge higher prices for that ad space, and can use their own ad space more efficiently - two ways to increase value for them. And if you sell ad space on your own web site to Google, they will only provide the ads to display to you. No customer information is sold. Again Google will try to maximise efficiency by providing your web site with relevant ads, which is interesting for you as web site owner as you get more clicks and more income.

That's their business model. Sell advertising, not personal information. If you have any unambiguous example of Google selling actual costumer information (non-anonymous - I know they do provide certain anonymised, aggregated statistics), please do let me know.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[Drakino]

There is no "automatically" with iCloud. It has to be turned on. A new device with iOS 5 will ask, just as it asks about location services, and the ability to send the diagnostic info to Apple. There are no defaults, every user has to make the choice.

Actually use a device and do some research, kids! Yes, the terms of service has all the info about what happens when you turn on these services. But to say any of this happens automatically from day one with a device is incorrect.

Privacy between you and your cellular provider is a completely different subject though.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[Drakino]

Citation needed for the iPhone and Carrier IQ part. Your link lacks any reference to iPhone or iOS. Apple has never allowed carriers to install custom versions of iOS on the phones. They only allow carriers to send Apple information for carrier specific settings such as APN, that Apple then distributes to the appropriate iPhone owners.

Apple did way more to loosen carrier control over phones then Google has with Android, RIM with Blackberry, and Microsoft with WP7.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[Anonymous Coward]

Whaaaat? Bullshit. Google makes their money by selling access to you and your personal information to advertisers. So you really think that they're the best when it comes to maintaining user privacy?

Apple's whole schtick is to sell you hardware. Period. They don't turn around and market your info to other companies. So although iOS might be "closed", I'd also consider it to be way more private.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[MobyTurbo]

Several people said the same thing about Nokia phones, but they according to XDA have carrier IQ also. There's no way to be sure unless your phone is open source.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[Required Snark]

Not Lucite, Carbonite.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[Compaqt]

Well, yeah, you're telling a provider something about yourself when you use their service.

But not everything.

I think what people are reacting to is Google knowing anything and everything about you.

So, going by the map example, if Android isn't tied tightly to Google services, when you access Google Maps, you're just an IP address asking for a map of Peoria. They don't have your name, and your contacts' names.

And even though your cell provider certainly knows everywhere you go, that doesn't mean Google does. On the other hand, your cell provider doesn't necessarily know what searches you're doing (unless it comes out they're logging your HTTP, in which case there's HTTPS).

So what people are looking for is compartmentalization of information.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[rastos1]

From your link

In 2006 Elad Barkan, Eli Biham and Nathan Keller demonstrated attacks against A5/1, A5/3, or even GPRS that allow attackers to tap GSM mobile phone conversations and decrypt them either in real-time, or at any later time.

As far as I remember, the encryption is weak because, at the time when the technology was introduced, the phones lacked the computing power to do strong crypto. And ,perhaps because of difficulty of upgrading the already sold phones, it has survived until these days. I did not do any deeper research but I would not trust A5/1 for serious security.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[Neil Boekend]

RIM is another that is much like MS and Apple in that they sell hardware for profit. The only drawback with RIM is that you must pipe your data through RIM's servers. They have the added benefit of being vetted by many corporations so that may be a deciding factor.

Not quite true: you can set your own blackberry server. There even seems to be free option. Dunno how much work it is though.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[DJRumpy]

Even these still rely on the RIM backbone for messaging services. We have implemented BES servers but are still affected by RIM outages. These relay messages from your corporate email system, to RIM's network center, then to your wireless provider, and then to your phone.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[wall0645]

Get a Kindle Fire (wi-fi only, only when you want it), root it, and add only GPL software you trust, including a SIP client. Carry a Sprint wi-fi hotspot, turning it on only on your terms.

Do you have any information (maybe guides/howtos) on how to do this?

Re:Smart phones are not private

[betterunixthanunix]

The point was that there is no law against encrypting a phone call. It is true that the A5 ciphers have be broken, but that has nothing to do with the law. It would, by the way, be illegal for an amateur radio station to use these ciphers even though they are broken.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[Andreas Mayer]

You are wrong on both accounts. You can disable contact synching separately even if you enable iCloud.
You can also disable the sending of diagnostic information in Settings.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[plover]

GSM encryption capabilities may exist everywhere, but that doesn't mean it is permitted everywhere.

Last I heard, the world's largest democracy, India, outlawed encrypted phone conversations. Phones have to respect the laws of the countries they're in. So international-capable phones are designed to handle this. And while there is a SIM card flag saying "pop up a dialog box warning me if the phone call is not encrypted", iPhones don't even respect the flag because they don't want to annoy users who travel to India.

The reason this is important to hackers is the spoofed GSM cell tower attack that Chris Paget demonstrated at DEFCON 18 was based around the tower being in control of the protocol. It was able to tell the phone "don't encrypt because it is illegal here." In the GSM protocol, the phones respect the authority of the towers, so by controlling the tower he was able to trick the phones into not encrypting the phone calls.

France also long had problems with encryption, prohibiting the import of strong encryption like PGP, but I don't know how they are today. They may have modernized, they may not.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[abhi_beckert]

Encryption between you and the phone tower doesn't do shit. You want encryption between you *and the other phone*.

Secondly, A5/1 was designed by people who didn't know what they were doing, and has huge flaws.

Thirdly, A5/1 is a very old cipher designed to run efficiently on extremely low power 50 cent CPU's, and doesn't have anywhere near enough entropy to be secure.

Fourthly... most of the good smartphones have VOIP apps available (including Skype although I wouldn't trust them) which actually do offer end-to-end encryption for your voice calls.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[abhi_beckert]

Excuse me?

Not true. Google's business model is collecting users and selling some advertising. They do not sell personal information, and there is no way for advertisers to get access to your anonymised profile.

As someone who works for a marketing company that specialises in setting up small/medium businesses with google's data, a have to beg to disagree. Google sells all kinds of information to advertisers and some of it is very personal and *ABSOLUTELY* identifiable.

Google has makes hundreds of thousands of dollars a year through our clients and believe me, the best thing about it is they give our clients more/better information about users than just about any other advertising network we know of.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[abhi_beckert]

Apple and Microsoft would be worse than Google because Google at least (a) has caught NSLs and (b) published statistics on government data requests.

Government data requests that they usually comply with by the way.

The carrier is an issue when it comes to sharing private info with the government. But I'm more worried about my info being shared with businesses, and for that Android is the worst choice available.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[abhi_beckert]

They are as of iOS 5: your contacts are automatically copied to iCloud, unless you disable iCloud entirely.

Automatically? What are you smoking?

iCloud is off by default, you have to go to all the extra trouble of entering your details and login password and agreeing to additional legal crap and blah blah blah, before you can turn it on. You don't have to pay $100 per year anymore, but it still takes just as much effort as ever to turn it on. Nothing is automatic.

And if you do decide to *manually* turn it on, there are a million tick boxes to customise what is shared, and one of them is "contacts". I wouldn't call that "disabling iCloud entirely".

Then all that's shared with Apple is what apps you use, how long you use them, what calls are made and how long, and where your phone is. The last one being done explicitly for advertising reasons. The first two are for "diagnostic purposes." Read your terms of service, kids!)

They are do not have a list of what apps you use. They only have a list of apps that you buy from their store. Similarly, if you go to the corner store and buy a bottle of milk the guy working there will know that you bought some milk. There are other ways to get apps (without jail breaking) through the developer channel, they aren't very popular but I've got several.

They do not keep track of how long any app is used. Ever. Where did you get that shit from? You say it's in the EULA, why don't you show me where? I haven't read mine but pretty sure I would know about it. You made the claim, now back it up.

They do not keep track of what calls you're made either, or for how long. I'd like to see where you found that info as well. Your carrier does keep track of this, but that's no different than buying milk from the corner store.

And they don't track your location either! Your phone is capable of asking apple what the latitude/longatude/power (range) of a specific phone tower is, and from that they could infer that you are somewhere close to that tower at the time when it asked, but it will never do this without asking you for permission first, and it doesn't ask every time you're within range of the same tower, only if the tower has dropped off the local cache of the tower's location, and the tower lookup is anonymous. See buying milk at the store.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[Branciforte]

No. They definitely do NOT sell information. Any information they collect never leaves the datacenter. It is impossible for any commercial entity to approach Google and get information about you. Despite the fact that Google could make five times as much cash by doing so.

Advertisers come to Google and say, "Here is our product. Show it to people who are most interested." At no point does Google give any information about an individual to any one.

Claiming that Google sells information is disingenuous FUD.

Re:Smart phones are not private

[Branciforte]

Bullshit. Provide details.

Maybe Goggle provides analytical tools to get you aggregate data for people who visit your site. Maybe you are harvesting information from people who were directed to your site by Google. I don't know. But Google does not sell personal information.

Perhaps you can explain in more detail how you are getting this information from Google.

Security is NOT an issue with The Cloud.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait a minute. I'm a manager, and I've been reading a lot of case studies and watching a lot of webcasts about The Cloud. Based on all of this glorious marketing literature, I, as a manager, have absolutely no reason to doubt the safety of any data put in The Cloud.

The case studies all use words like "secure", "MD5", "RSS feeds" and "encryption" to describe the security of The Cloud. I don't know about you, but that sounds damn secure to me! Some Clouds even use SSL and HTTP. That's rock solid in my book.

And don't forget that you have to use Web Services to access The Cloud. Nothing is more secure than SOA and Web Services, with the exception of perhaps SaaS. But I think that Cloud Services 2.0 will combine the tiers into an MVC-compliant stack that uses SaaS to increase the security and partitioning of the data.

My main concern isn't with the security of The Cloud, but rather with getting my Indian team to learn all about it so we can deploy some first-generation The Cloud applications and Web Services to provide the ultimate platform upon which we can layer our business intelligence and reporting, because there are still a few verticals that we need to leverage before we can move to The Cloud 2.0.

Re:Security is NOT an issue with The Cloud.

[Anonymous Coward]

It was funny the first time, but this is like 25th time I've seen this re-pasted here...

Re:Security is NOT an issue with The Cloud.

[game kid]

Don't worry, his cloud-based content distribution network manages all the dupes!

How about just saying no, when the phone ask?

[TheSunborn]

Any reason you could not just get an Android phone and then just say no, when it ask you for permission for your location data? It only ask once.

Then you just need not to add your google account, and you will be free of the cloud.

Re:How about just saying no, when the phone ask?

[ChinggisK]

You can easily use a 3rd party calendar app.

I also just discovered Permission Denied this morning. It (theoretically) revokes specific permissions from already installed apps. Handy for when you want an app that asks for location permission and such but you know it doesn't actually need it. Whether or not it actually does what it says it does, I don't know...

Re:How about just saying no, when the phone ask?

[guises]

Yeah, I don't see the problem with Android. I set up a separate Google account just for my phone, turned off syncing before inputting any personal information, and installed Droidwall to block third party software. I also, and this is taking things further than probably needed, bought a disposable pre-paid credit card for all of my Android market purchases.

A firewall is an absolutely necessary step if you intend to install anything on your phone. Almost everything in the Android marketplace seems to want internet access for no discernible reason, and I'm sure that the situation is no different with iOS - permissions just aren't visible there. This is so ubiquitous that I wouldn't even consider a smartphone platform at this point that didn't have some similar firewall available. Frustrating, because I really wanted a Nokia N9.

Re:How about just saying no, when the phone ask?

[shellbeach]

I also just discovered Permission Denied this morning. It (theoretically) revokes specific permissions from already installed apps. Handy for when you want an app that asks for location permission and such but you know it doesn't actually need it. Whether or not it actually does what it says it does, I don't know...

FWIW, CM7 gives you this ability natively. And you can easily check that its working by disabling net access on an app, and then seeing if you can still access the internet through that app ...

Re:How about just saying no, when the phone ask?

[wvmarle]

Almost everything in the Android marketplace seems to want internet access for no discernible reason,

They usually need it for advertising. A valid reason, imho. For that same reason many apps also ask for location information nowadays (that one I don't like). The problem of course is that if the permission is there for advertising, it can be used for many other things as well.

And the problem is that you can't just "deny" a single permission, it's all or nothing. I'm fine with Internet access for ads (the "price" to pay for a free app, and usually I have no connection anyway), not so much for location details.

Re:How about just saying no, when the phone ask?

[gl4ss]

it's really rather sad that to date no phone platform has had this out of the box.

j2me phones some have sort of like that, but with them it's usually the other way- too hard to give apps you'd like to have perms perms.

Re:How about just saying no, when the phone ask?

[shellbeach]

The issue is that many apps make money through ads, and if you allow editable permissions then that effectively allows anyone to opt out of ads for any software. Because of this potential to block ads, some of the CM crew seemed pretty nervous about ever talking about the permissions feature, and the discussion during the code review process, IIRC, almost suggested leaving this feature out for fear of repercussions.

At least with Android, apps have to declare their permissions to the user transparently before installation. Whether or not people care is another matter, of course ...

(I agree with you, though -- I'd never use a ROM without either permissions management or a firewall installed; I find the naive trust many people place in third-party software vendors extraordinary!)

Re:How about just saying no, when the phone ask?

[gsslay]

But half the usefulness of a smart phone is in the locational data. There's just no need for anyone to be building a profile of your movements from it.

And you still need a google account if you want to purchase anything on the Android Marketplace. Solution is to set up an account just for your phone, then tell the phone to never sync information with it.

It's not easy though. Slightest slip up while you're getting the hang of things and you'll find it start to sync. Everything you do on the phone assumes you want Google to suck up all your contacts/calendar/notes/anything else it can get its hands on, and you're constantly having to stop it.

Re:How about just saying no, when the phone ask?

[Fri13]

I have now CM7, how I can reject per application every permission that I do not want it to have? Not just internet connection but like, permission to read contacts?

Re:How about just saying no, when the phone ask?

[Fri13]

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.stericson.permissions that is what Chinggisk posted few post up...

Re:How about just saying no, when the phone ask?

[shellbeach]

First, enable Settings -> CM Settings --> Application Settings --> Permission Management

Then, Settings --> Applications --> Manage Applications, and on any app you want, where the permissions are listed, just touch the permission itself to toggle it ...

Follow the money (android profits off of you)

[cheeks5965]

It's not about what is stored in the cloud. It's about what the provider does with this info, and what their motivations are. Rim, Apple, and Microsoft are all hardware or software vendors. Their goal is to sell you a phone and make you use it / like it.

Google is an information vendor their goal is to give you a phone / phone OS so you use it, then spy on you to find out what you like and where you go, and sell that information to others to make a profit.

So if you're concerned about who is intrusive, then don't use Android.

Re:Follow the money (android profits off of you)

[Ethanol-fueled]

Your comment is the most trollishly naive bullshit I've ever read here. All of the above and/or their middlemen(the service providers) have motives to aggregate and quantify data collected from their users, and they can and will sell it. The only variables are type and amount of data they collect.

I remember when Android was first anounced and Slashdot was having big circle-jerks over it, saying that people were finally free to do whatever they wanted with their phones. I laughed and told you all, "you stupid fucks, the carriers will lock them down however they like."

But, but...CyanogenMod!

Voids your warranty, dumbasses. Not a smart thing to do with a contract either way.

But back to addressing the summary. Yeah. I'll stick with my dumbphone and have the patience and self-control to not fidget and shuffle until I can experience the 'net at home.

Re:Follow the money (android profits off of you)

[cheeks5965]

Citation needed. I think that's bullshit, and dare you to prove otherwise. Links or it didn't happen.

Re:Follow the money (android profits off of you)

[cheeks5965]

All of the above and/or their middlemen(the service providers) have motives to aggregate and quantify data collected from their users, and they can and will sell it

No dice, mon frere. Apple has a good reason to aggregate data - more powerful software and a better experience! Think location services, traffic they have no need or motivation to sell it, and I don't see why they ever would. Google o nthe other hand states loudly and proudly that it will record you so it can sell you. You can't argue that's an extreme violation of privacy that apple / iPhones do not commit. However, I usually don't do this, but since it's the holidays I'll throw you a bone. You're right, it's not just google. Nw that Microsoft is in the search engine business I suspect they would do the same thing. But not rim, becUe their whole business is built around user Curtis. All I'm saying is you have to be a little savvy and follow the money to understand what Peres true motivations Ae.

Re:Follow the money (android profits off of you)

[scdeimos]

Apple and Microsoft both run their own advertising businesses. You seriously think they're not selling you to their advertisers? RIM on the other hand... what do they do again?

Re:Follow the money (android profits off of you)

[cheeks5965]

I feel sorry for you because you cannot read words. I said above that ms may also sell shit. Apple has a mall service for app makers, but doesn't get any money from it. Don't be an apple h8er.

Re:Follow the money (android profits off of you)

[Anonymous Coward]

Voids your warranty, dumbasses. Not a smart thing to do with a contract either way.

It's my warranty and I'll void it as I see fit, thankyouverymuch. However, installing different software only voids the software warranty. I did not forfeit my full warranty just because I rooted my phone. If the hardware falls apart in my hands because of a factory defect, I can always flash the software back to stock and return the piece of shit under warranty and there's not a damn thing they can say about it. If I flash a faulty radio and brick the phone, then yeah that's my own fault.

I remember when Android was first anounced and Slashdot was having big circle-jerks over it, saying that people were finally free to do whatever they wanted with their phones. I laughed and told you all, "you stupid fucks, the carriers will lock them down however they like."

The carriers do that to prevent your average stupid person from accidently fucking up their phone and asking for a replacement. It's easy to root.. only takes about 5 minutes. But then when you fuck up your system you either need to learn to fix it yourself or pay someone to do it for you. Locking the phone limits the carrier's liability for user stupidity. We can still do whatever we want with our Android phones because we have the damn source code. You can't say that about any other successful phone OS. Locked bootloaders, you say? Don't buy one with a fucking locked bootloader then, you have tons of options.

Yeah. I'll stick with my dumbphone and have the patience and self-control to not fidget and shuffle until I can experience the 'net at home.

Have fun with that.

Re:Follow the money (android profits off of you)

[ViViDboarder]

That's incorrect. Google profits off you, yes. But they profit off you by you using the internet. They are going to make money off you if you use any OS because they have a large advertising marketshare. If you don't want information synced with Google you don't need to sync it. With the exception of Blackberry, you aren't forced to keep any data in "the cloud". It can all be kept locally on the device or synced with one of your computers or even synced to your private Exchange or IMAP server.

Re:Follow the money (android profits off of you)

[ViViDboarder]

If it's so loud and proud, how about you show me where Google states it will be selling it's location and traffic information? They do use this data, but it's Opt-In. You can chose to send none of it. Also, they have the same motivations as Apple does to keep it to themselves. It allows Google to provide a better product than it's competitors.

then dont flash gapps

[trschober]

just flash CM7 and don't flash gapps, use an alternative market to get your apps, was that so hard to find out? CM7 is fully usable without google propietary apps, you just have to make some compromises (no gmail app, no google navigation, no official market, etc..)

Re:then dont flash gapps

[lars_boegild_thomsen]

Even standard Android can do this. Some of the pre-installed applications will be quite useless really, but most of core functionality will work quite fine without a Google account.

Want Privacy? Get your own BES

[RedLeg]

RIM solved this problem. If you don't want your data on somebody else's server, set up your own BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server) with YOUR security policies.

Taint cheap, but you gets what you pays for.......

The consumer blackberries connect to BESs operated by the carriers. My corporate owned one connects to OURS, and the company has all kinds of flexibility to impose policy, remote wipe, etc.

Red

Don't need iCloud for iOS.

[forevermore]

I didn't have to create an iCloud account to use my iPhone. I don't sync my location, contacts, mail, etc. with iCloud. I back my phone up to my own computer. I struggle to see how this is more intrusive than Android, which required that I sync everything with Google. Granted, I *do* sync everything on my iPhone with Google, but that's another question entirely.

Re:Don't need iCloud for iOS.

[wzinc]

iCloud came-out a few weeks ago and the iPhone has been out since 2007, So, you probably didn't need an iCloud account for the over four years the iPhone has been out.

Androids don't have to sync

[canajin56]

Even though I have my phone set up to sync my calendar so I can set appointments and meetings on my laptop and have it reflected on my phone, it still asks you whenever you make an appointment if you want that to be a Phone-only appointment, or a Google Calendar appointment which will be synched (but even then only manually unless you've enabled autosync in the menu). As far as I can tell Phone-only is the default and cannot be changed, so even if on a particular phone "Calendar Sync" is on by default, you'll have to specifically make a Google Calendar appointment for it to ever leave your phone.

You can likewise turn off contact syncing. When I got my phone, all those syncs were set according to what I wanted as part of the setup process. They aren't hidden opt-out features, though that may depend on manufacturer/carrier tinkering, since they all like to streamline the setup process.

Blackberry is the most respectiv

[Anonymous Coward]

specially with the mail centralized server, and this is why they get some issues with some governements

You know you don't HAVE to use Sync right?

[atari2600a]

You can tell Android's built-in Sync to not touch your contacts, appointments, email & then use the generic (& built-in!) calender & email applications that do exactly the same things over standard protocols...

Sim Card

[qualityassurancedept]

I have an HTC Inspire with ATT. I can take out the sim card and use google voice with wifi. You can also use a gps spoofer app with the sim card inserted and it will report your location as being where ever you want. Otherwise, the main problem is that when you buy a contract you are buying time on someone else's network. They have omniscience when they want it, basically.

About BlackBerry's "centralized mail server"

[thirty-seven]

In spite of that, email communication and web communication is encrypted/decrypted on the BlackBerry smartphone itself, so RIM (the company that does BlackBerry) can't snoop into your data contents even if they wanted to. That's why some authoritarian countries around the world couldn't quite understand - they demanded RIM hand over the secret keys to let them read any message contents, which they just assumed RIM must have, even though they don't. Similarly, with the riots in Britain earlier this year, the authorities complained that the rioters were co-ordinating using BlackBerry phones, and they couldn't intercept those communications. To me, that's a strong recommendation for a BlackBerry if you want security and privacy.

Re:About BlackBerry's "centralized mail server"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, if one wants secure communications at a consumer price point, then Blackberry is really the only true choice. At the bottom of the list would be anything made by Apple, which- when caught not only collecting personal customer information and all sorts of personal data, without permission or disclosure and stored for years- blatantly stated that they intended to continue doing so, but now with the caveat that they will "only retain it for a year".
"The controversy surrounding Apple’s location-tracking stems from a discovery by two data scientists, who found that a file stored on iPhones and iPads (“consolidated.db”) contains a detailed history of geodata accompanied with time stamps.

From Wired - iPhone’s Location-Data Collection Can’t Be Turned Off - Brian X. Chen April 25, 2011
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/04/iphone-location-opt-out/

"Apple claimed in its letter last year that the geodata is stored on the device, then anonymized and transmitted back to Apple every 12 hours, using a secure Wi-Fi connection (if one is available). Although it’s thorough, Apple’s explanation does not address why the stored geodata continues to live on the device permanently after it’s transmitted to Apple, nor does it address why geodata collection appears to persist even when Location Services is turned off. Google does similar geodata collection for its own location-services database. However, it notifies Android users clearly in a prompt when geodata collection will occur, and it also gives users a way to opt out. Also, Android devices do not permanently store geodata after transmitting it to Google."

"While the collected geodata doesn’t reveal specific addresses for locations you’ve visited, it can still leave a pretty rich trail of a user’s movements. Combine this data with other pieces of information on the iPhone, like your messages and photos, and you’ve got a device that knows more about you than you do yourself, says The Atlantic’s Alexis Madrigal. Madrigal tested an iPhone forensics program called Lantern, which stitches together contacts, text messages and geodata into a neat interface that reconstructed a timeline of his life."

“Immediately after trying out Lantern, I enabled the iPhone’s passcode and set it to erase all data on the phone,” Madrigal said. “This thing remembers more about where I’ve been and what I’ve said than I do, and I’m damn sure I don’t want it falling into anyone’s hands.”

Re:About BlackBerry's "centralized mail server"

[chrb]

Actually, it isn't completely clear what the arrangement is with RIM and the various intelligence services. RIM allegedly have some kind of data-sharing/intercept agreement with U.S. agencies, and also allegedly caved to China and route everything through a government-monitored messaging server there. As for India:

"RIM had earlier agreed that it would provide the IP address of the enterprise server, located in the customer’s premise, as well as the PIN and the IMEI number of each BlackBerry mobile phone used by a subscriber to enable security agencies access the data in a readable format. But this failed to appease the government’s concerns." Register.

Obviously the BlackBerry uses encryption, but there are numerous ways that the encryption could've been weakened in order to facilitate access by friendly intelligence agencies. Has there ever been any external audit of the code? How are the encryption keys generated? What algorithms are used to package and send the messages? How come ElcomSoft are selling software to law enforcement that breaks the on-phone encryption, if it's so secure.

If you really care, use GPG - it has been extensively audited, the algorithms *and the implementation* are open, and it's free.

Re:About BlackBerry's "centralized mail server"

[isaac]

Actually, it isn't completely clear what the arrangement is with RIM and the various intelligence services. RIM allegedly have some kind of data-sharing/intercept agreement with U.S. agencies

RIM's customers are overwhelmingly not located in Canada. Yet RIM's servers are in Canada, rather than somewhere with cheaper power, more bandwidth, and lower network latency, like, say, Virginia. Why is that?

NSA is (OK, was) forbidden from intercepting domestic communications between US entities. But every packet a Blackberry sends is addressed to Canada! Problem solved.

Of course, if an intelligence agency is interested in you, nothing you do with a phone - no matter the make - is going to be private. OTOH, if your objective is to prevent Google or Apple or your mobile carrier from monetizing your identity, a Blackberry connected to your own BES server is a relatively easy and secure option.

I can't really be bothered at this point, though. I'm pro privacy but have realized that I am, in fact, mortal and have other things I'd rather spend time doing than operating my own VPN head-end for the purpose of backhauling my mobile IP traffic.

Re:About BlackBerry's "centralized mail server"

[cbope]

Wasn't this fixed in a later iOS update? I believe I remember reading this was a "bug". Now, whether or not it really was a bug or by design is for another debate. But my point is, I don't believe this is an issue in current iOS releases.

Re:About BlackBerry's "centralized mail server"

[Fri13]

While the collected geodata doesn’t reveal specific addresses for locations you’ve visited, it can still leave a pretty rich trail of a user’s movements. Combine this data with other pieces of information on the iPhone, like your messages and photos, and you’ve got a device that knows more about you than you do yourself, says The Atlantic’s Alexis Madrigal.

(even that you quoted that, I quote it from your message)

Me and my friend made a check when this Apples "tracking" hulabaloo started in Media.

It was found with the tools that my friend was last time at home when he bought the phone. Did not go to work and had skills of teleportation as the gathered data in non-synced & non-backupped datafile in iPhone had lots of time and place caps.

android?

[jonpublic]

Depends on what you consider private, but I would put the Android phone last because of the tight Google integration. At least on the iPhone you can have everything local, not synced to the cloud.

The days of privacy are over for the most part. If you are using cloud services, you can be sure your data is being mined in some way.

Define "Working Decently"

[jrumney]

there is no way to have an Android smartphone working decently without sharing all of your contacts, calendar appointments, and other stuff with Google.

It is perfectly workable to plug in your old SIM with phone numbers stored on it and use them from an Android phone without ever setting up a Google account. It is also possible to add fully featured contacts and calendar appointments locally on your phone without sharing them with Google.

If by "working decently" you mean the phone should seamlessly sync with your other devices through the cloud, you have the option of setting up your own SyncML server, and most manufacturers also include MS Exchange ActiveSync as well.

Re:Define "Working Decently"

[linuxhack]

I have never set up an account on my Nexus One in the 1.5 years I have had it. For the most part, it works just fine.

But I cannot and have never been able to locally setup calendar appointments. I would love for you to tell me I am wrong, but I have no working calendar on this phone.

K9 mail works awesome with my own email server. I can set alarms. But I really could use a working calendar (everything that is add-on seems to use Google calendars as a back-end, and/or requires obtaining it via Google's app market, which obviously I can never partake in).

Otherwise, life is good.

Re:Define "Working Decently"

[skids]

Eric Schmidt, is that you?

Personally, I've eschewed running most of the apps available on my Android rather than link it to a google account. It still does everything my old WM phone did. I can live without the rest of the junk. Sure navigation would be nice, but not at the cost of my privacy. If you don't draw the line somewhere, it will just get moved on you later.

Re:Define "Working Decently"

[PSVMOrnot]

This is pretty much the way I run my Android phone: give google nothing.

The problem is that to do this I have to not use the market or the calendar system, since as I haven't set up a google account I can't access the former, and can't create an instance of the latter.

If anyone has found a good calendar app that works purely on the phone, with no cloud or server backing required I'd love to hear about it.

(The idea being that my phone would be my primary calendar host, and all else is just a backup).

Why not Symbian?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure it is a dead OS, but it's got a few years of support (Four solid years if you believe Nokia and Accenture). You can get a brand new unlocked Symbian^3 smartphone for less than $400: http://www.amazon.com/Nokia-Touchscreen-Featuring-Navigation-Camera--U-S/dp/B003ZX7RL4/ The N8 has a great camera, better than almost any other smartphone out there, an FM receiver as well as transmitter, USB on the go, and a micro HDMI out port. You can install and run whatever apps you like. you can tether it out of the box as-is via USB or bluetooth. sure some third-party apps want to call home, but the phone warns you when they do, and it's easy to disallow/disable.

Re:Why not Symbian?

[gl4ss]

Sure it is a dead OS, but it's got a few years of support (Four solid years if you believe Nokia and Accenture). You can get a brand new unlocked Symbian^3 smartphone for less than $400:
http://www.amazon.com/Nokia-Touchscreen-Featuring-Navigation-Camera--U-S/dp/B003ZX7RL4/

The N8 has a great camera, better than almost any other smartphone out there, an FM receiver as well as transmitter, USB on the go, and a micro HDMI out port. You can install and run whatever apps you like. you can tether it out of the box as-is via USB or bluetooth. sure some third-party apps want to call home, but the phone warns you when they do, and it's easy to disallow/disable.

you know what's funny about series60? it's had 4 years of life left for the past _10_ years.

Not If They're Smart

[NicknamesAreStupid]

Why should they dumb down? Machines taking over the world have to start somewhere; why not in your pocket?

Android without Google

[lars_boegild_thomsen]

While I admit I haven't tried, it should be possible to run an Android phone without ever signing into Google - indeed without a Google account whatsoever. The email application support POP, IMAP or Exchange, the contacts can be synced with SyncML or Exchange (and a few other options I am sure), applications can be sideloaded, IM+ does a pretty good job with Jabber etc. Surely it would make it somewhat more complicated but I am quite sure it is possible.

In other words - Google offer a way for people to run the smart phone without any knowledge about servers and with an extremely simple setup (enter your google account once), but it is in no way forced upon you - so I think it's actually quite acceptable.

Re:Android without Google

[King InuYasha]

I did it as an experiment once. I reset a phone, skipped Google setup and went straight to the home screen. Then I hooked up the phone to the computer and sideloaded GetJar and Amazon Appstore. From there, I grabbed IM+, K-9 Mail, and Business Calendar. I never touched the Google services and apps, and it worked just fine. It's quite usable without Google services.

Privacy can only follow from freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that most of the uneducated masses don't care about privacy and don't see a need for it. So they go for the number of Apps or GHz when purchasing a new mobile device, without caring that this device is a fully functional computer with all sorts of sensors that is connected to some sort of network 24/7!

There were a few attempts at true Linux mobile devices, but even the last two devices with potential (the Nokia N900 in 2009 and N9 this year) only got a lukewarm reception mostly due to crappy marketing and not enough people promoting truly open platforms that let users know what their devices are actually doing in the background.

The N9 is still up for graps. There is even an independent project called Mer being worked at that aims to be fully open, based on Meego, feel free to join if you have some coding skills.

Re:Privacy can only follow from freedom

[Lazy Jones]

The problem is that most of the uneducated masses don't care about privacy and don't see a need for it.

No, just no. The unwashed masses simply and understandably don't want lacking usability and battery life as a trade-off for more privacy, just because that's the choice products on the market offer. Since the small advantages of Andoid regarding privacy options are destroyed by vendors (with their tinkering and apps) and carriers, the best compromise is still a dumbphone if you can live without a mobile browser, or otherwise iOS if you can't and don't want to spend days trying to figure out how to make your Android installation secure (doubtful if you can).

Re:Privacy can only follow from freedom

[fatphil]

In my experience, there is an inverse correlation between privacy and battery life.

Have you ever had autocomplete suggest a word that you wish was never suggested, perhaps you used it in anger once, or when drunk, or to someone who your wife wouldn't like you communicating with?

That word was suggested because there are daemons sniffing around at everything possible in the device, extracting anything that looks like a word in any program you touch. Those daemons cost battery life. And privacy - I certainly don't want to lend my phone to anyone now, as I really don't want anyone seeing those things.

No Google account or activation needed.

[Fri13]

Let alone Blackberry's centralized mail servers; there is no way to have an Android smartphone working decently without sharing all of your contacts, calendar appointments, and other stuff with Google.

You have got only partial information somewhere.

You can have pure Android smartphone, without any demands to share your privacy with Google. Period.

If you want to use Android market (market.android.com) then you need to activate your new phone first time to it. It does not mean you need to input your personal email address to it or bond your personal gmail to it. You only need to create a one for your Android market store profile.

You do not need to use other Google services at all.
- Not GMail for email, you can choose what ever just offers POP3/IMAP connection
- Not Google Calender, you can stick what ever just gives standard vcard sharing, even sync manually
- Not Google Contacts (GMail contacts), you can disallow the syncing contacts with Android profile account and keep them in phone only or in SIM card. You can even from contact book sync them with standard vcard to microSD and sync manually.

You don't either need youtube account or anything. Actually you don't even need a Android Market profile if you are willing to get your applications somewhere else than Android Market. Like Amazon store or any other third party who you can trust.
Android Market just makes it easy to install applications (via phone or any browser) to your phones and especially buy them (even that Google changed 24h return time to 15 minutes).

Corporations can at one step totally skip whole Android activation with Google. They can activate the phone to their own exchange environment (I could thing same thing would be possible to do with Linux servers).
So corporation IT department can manage the phone without Google knowing anything at all.

I have used GMail from the beginning when it was just in invitation mode.
I bought my first Android phone 9 months ago, it is a very cheap one (107€ with 2€/month for unlimited data speed and amount and the phone supports 7.2Mbits connection and nearly full speed (750-800KB/s) as hot-spot for computers with ping being 70-90 by avarage.

Before that I owned only a Nokia phones. Symbian before Symbian was terrible, I never used it for any things, even it was classified as smartphone (without touchscreen).
And now, I use Google services very much. Why? Because they integrate very well with the Android and I can really get many benefits from it.
If wanted, I could have kept contacts off from GMail or my calender off from there. But I don't have a home server what to keep online all the time or I don't want to start syncing contacts and other data with my own rented server.
If I would have home server, I would really use it for every thing what Android support.

Did you know that Microsoft has paid to at least one carrier in US to sell Android phones, on what every Google service is replaced with Microsoft own services and user can not install Google services back?
So customer is tied to Microsoft Bing search, Bing maps, Hotmail, Calender etc?

People believe that Android forces customer to Google. That simply ain't true. It is just the easiest and actually most secure way to use smartphone.

Google search
Picasa
Google Calender
Google Reader
Youtube
GMail
Google Docs
Google Maps .....

Google offers so many features and none of those need to even be used with your private contacts, emails, etc. You can just disable the sync or add a new offline account for those in phone.

When it comes to privacy, easiness and many other features. Android just is best, and not even Microsoft have nothing to offer in Windows Phone (7.5 yet... lets see what future shows us).

A 2-year old phone might be your answer...

[sombragris]

And even though it was launched in 2009, it offers a boatload of features that other phones don't even try to match: the Nokia N900.

Re:A 2-year old phone might be your answer...

[sombragris]

Just installed an official update from Nokia a week ago...

Re:A 2-year old phone might be your answer...

[quixote9]

I have an N900, mainly because I wanted a handheld computer, not a smartphone. If your requirements are light on the phone-iness of it all, then I recommend the N900 highly. I have all my work, music, etc, synced via bluetooth from my laptop. If I'm stuck for a few hours at an airport or somewhere, it's never a problem. It hops onto wifi networks seamlessly. I use it mainly as a voip phone over wifi, but it switches seamlessly to your cell carrier when wifi is out of range. So my phone bill is about $8 per month. And, afaik, no tracking, marketing, harvesting garbage at all. As somebody else said about Win phones, two or three people have N900s in the US, so no malware problems either.

Re:A 2-year old phone might be your answer...

[Randle_Revar]

Great phone. Hope mine keeps going until someone releases some kind of updated version. The N950 would do it, but there are only a handful in existence, and they have a capacitive screen...

Re:A 2-year old phone might be your answer...

[Microlith]

Oddly, I've seen more people in the US with N900s than I have with WP7 devices. The caveat is they all live in Northern California, with a handful of outliers on the east coast.

Are There Any Smartphones That Respect Privacy?

[koan]

Depends, what do you mean by privacy? You encrypt communications, that's one level of privacy, the real issue in my mind isn't the phone, it's the service you use.
No matter how you handle the communications there is still the issue of the account being tied to you, you have to pay for it some how and you need an address for the phone to registered to.
Gift cards and prepaid VISA type cards won't work, they either get refused or require some personal information which brings me to the only true privacy I can think of, use another persons account, either by agreement which still ties you to it, steal it, or create a factious account which is more work than you want to get into and doesn't allow you to be "social".

I'm sure all of this is way above what you're looking for so I won't get into facial and voice recognition which brings me back to "Depends, what do you mean by privacy?".

In your case don't use outside services like Google or Facebook, ever, just don't, and get over "The Cloud" which is a euphemism for collected database to be used by everyone else including you.
Sync with your local computer keep the info encrypted on the phone and on the computer, but when it comes down to it you can only control your own data, not the data you share with others, which leaves you with 2 choices.
Get over it or get off The Grid.

Re:Want Privacy? Get your own BES

[erroneus]

Uhm... you do know a BES still connects through RIM's network and servers right?

Re:Want Privacy? Get your own BES

[Anonymous Coward]

We run BES Express for free....
http://us.blackberry.com/business/software/besx/

FDroid and friends

[Boltronics]

Install FDroid, K-9 Mail and Firefox (from the FDroid repositories of course). You can likely even use CyanogenMod without installing all the Android Marketplace if you want - I do this for my HP TouchPad. No need to sync anything with Google.

Re:Want Privacy? Get your own BES

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but it is encrypted from the BlackBerry to the BES. All RIM sees is the encrypted data.

You don't need a google account to use android.

[PhantomHarlock]

I will second the lengthy post above, I have been using android phones for a few years now without sharing any data on the cloud, and it's not hard. use POP3/IMAP for email in the regular email client, and don't specify a google account for anything. Everything still works just fine. You can sync your contacts and calendar and such to your local PC with the sync software, that's your backup. No internet services involved.

A warning though. If you decide to install Google+, it will log you on for all other apps on the phone and sync your contacts from Google+ to your phonebook without asking you. When I did that once, I got a ton of duplicate and unwanted contacts in my phone. The people I have phone numbers for are a very small subset of people I have on social networks.

Google+ is a failed product at this point anyhow.

No

[FridayBob]

As opposed to the world of PCs, there is basically no free-software alternative for "smartphones," so you cannot be sure that any of them will respect your privacy beyond normal voice calls (if that). That's because mobile phone users are much more like subscribers than owners, with the latter being the telcos. And as long as there is nothing to prevent the telcos from acting like Google, Twitter and Facebook -- using people's personal information and activities for their own gain -- how can smartphones users expect to be treated any better?

Re:Want Privacy? Get your own BES

[Anonymous Coward]

Not necessarily expensive either.. BES Express is free, or you can go with MDaemon BlackBerry Edition..

Re:Want Privacy? Get your own BES

[Anonymous Coward]

The packets go through, but they are encrypted by the BES and by the handheld device. RIM does not have visibility into the content of these encrypted packets.

Yes

[chrb]

Any smartphone that allows you to opt-out of location tracking and bundled cloud apps (mail, maps etc) is basically the same as a mobile PC when it comes to privacy. There are plenty of alternatives to the bundled apps if you choose a platform that allows them. Android has alternative email (K9), browsers (Opera), maps (Osmand), market (Amazon). The only thing that doesn't have a replacement (that I know of) is the YouTube app, but if you enable HTML5 you should be able to browse the mobile site and play videos with the built in Android media player.

Re:Want Privacy? Get your own BES

[sarhjinian]

Agreed. If you want absolute privacy, your own BES is the way to go.

And you can get BES Express for free (you lose some of management policies, but the core security stuff is there) though you'll need a mail/calendaring/contact server to hook it up to, which means (if you want to avoid Exchange) probably VMware's Zimbra.

Re:Where is iOS intrusive?

[wzinc]

Agreed. Plus, the one time there was a bug in privacy (location tracking); they fixed it quickly.

Re:Want Privacy? Get your own BES

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhm... you do know a BES still connects through RIM's network and servers right?

Yes, but it's encrypted, and RIM doesn't have the keys. Your packets also transit your cellular carrier, but they don't have the keys either.

Just like when you're doing your online banking, your packets are carried by your ISP, it would be trivial for your ISP to snoop those packets, but due to https encryption, the bad guys can't listen in (when properly implemented).

Carrier IQ - a spy built into any phone.

[jimwelch]

Check them out at http://www.carrieriq.com/

Re:Carrier IQ - a spy built into any phone.

[King InuYasha]

Put CM or some other custom ROM, then. Or try your hand at ripping it out yourself...

Common misunderstanding

[Pf0tzenpfritz]

FIrst of all - RIM ("Blackberry") are not running "centralized mail servers". They only connect your smartphone with your IMAP mailbox (say: your existing email account) and do the HTTP-push and wireless part. Their core business was (and probably still is) some sort of middleware between companies' email and calendar servers and employees PDAs and phones. Secondarily: Any smartphone that provides a regular IMAP client or lets you install one will perfectly meet your needs. Almost any smartphone will do. You'll just connect to your actual mailbox via SMTP through the internet, as you do now. No Google involved (unless you are using Gmail). My girlfriends stone-aged Motorola can do this out-of-the-box and so does my Blackberry (I use a BB, but not RIMs data service, just my wireless network provider's regular data plan)

Stallman

[Pesticidal]

Came here expecting to see a link to this video of why RMS doesn't use cell phones: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGkNiRFwmOg. Left dissatisfied.

Smartphone and privacy may be mutually exclusive,

[ridgecritter]

for the most part. I use an iPhone, in part because the UI works for me, in part because Apple's "walled garden", while limiting, insulates me from an increasing range of malware that I would have to deal with on Android. iOS privacy issues are so far acceptable to me. Android is too open to malware, and too beholden to Google, whose business model depends on your surrendering all your personal information for their use. Blackberry seems like a sunset system, not much future to it. As for Windows, I have had so much grief with MS products over the years that I would never use one if there were any alternative. So for me, iPhone is an imperfect approximation to my ideal. YMMV.

Re:There was

[RobbieThe1st]

Well, there's still the good old N900 or newer, not-quite-so-good N9 with Maemo...

Suggestion...

[shuttah]

There is nothing stopping you from using a GNU System with the linux kernel, or concocting a mix of the linux kernel with GNU & non-GNU software. I whole-heartily share your concern about privacy in the smartphone world, and that is why i would suggest using the Geeksphone with either a linux distribution or Replicant.

I would also suggest using webDAV at home or setup remotely, and configure your calendar, contacts, bookmarks and other file-syncing that way (of course encrypting everything before it hits the wire).

Additionally, in September RMS wrote a great piece on Android that might be of interest to you. Also, this little nugget from Firefox developers doing a pseudo-Q/A on Reddit (i know, i'm sorry) regarding your privacy in the browser might also be of concern to you.

Re:Where is iOS intrusive?

[Drakino]

And the two bugs were:
- The cached data of locations of WiFi and Cell towers was stored in a directory incorrectly flagged for backup to the PC/Mac.
- Turning off Location Services didn't clear the cache.

Apple also did change the behavior of the cache to clear entries after a week, which I find annoying. I've noticed the difference in time it takes to find me when I want to use location services when I'm out and about in the larger metro area on the weekends.

The rest of the bugs were in the so called "journalists" the blogged about it, turning it into locationgate thanks to the internet echo chamber.

BlackBerry wins

[Tiger_Storms]

It's the first, and the oldest smart phone OS

Enough said.

Re:BlackBerry wins

[Fri13]

Older than Linux operating system since 1991?

Operating System what RIM use in blackberryes ain't older than at least 1995....

So Linux wins and so on Android as Linux is used operating system in it.

Re:BlackBerry wins

[Tiger_Storms]

Your talking about linux, a slowly build together peice of software that's kernal has more swear words in it than most websites have in their life time. I'm sorry but no. I was talking about an OS that was built for Mobile application and for that alone.

Neo Freerunner is the closest

[aloniv]

All the software (including drivers) is FOSS. Of course the GSM chip still tracks your rough location in order to work.

iOS

[Roogna]

I see a lot of people discussing Android in this regard, and just want to point out the same is true of iPhones. You don't have to share anything with Apple really. There is nothing forcing you to turn on any of the features that share your location, contacts, or any other data. So your biggest concern is still the telephone company. If you want to get a iPhone, but use your own servers for e-mail, and your own local machine for contacts, and such, it is as easy as pie to set up.

Now, note: If you use the Maps application you are sharing that info with Google (Who processes the searches). If you use the App Store you will need a account with Apple (big shock there). If you use your smartphone to post info on Facebook, well guess what you're sending them data. Typing in google searches in Safari, yeup, sending info to Google.

While I don't know or use Android phones, from everything I can tell any of the Smartphones are fine for privacy if you pay attention to what you turn on and use. The real question is, who are you trying to be private from? Because if there's a batch of tech companies that I wouldn't trust in any way shape or form to respect my privacy from government or corporate overlords it would be the phone companies themselves. So if you're that desperate to be private, perhaps a cell phone isn't what you actually want in the first place.

But if you really want a smartphone, well get the brand and model that you want. Just watch what you turn on, what you install, and what you do. Like any computer system.

Unable to logout

[lsolano]

I've just got a SGSII and I was shocked when I realized that, you can not log out of gmail.

How can that be? Locking the screen is the safest way to keep your gmail account private in an android device.

That's why people like me loved the Nokia N900. I remember how my forsaken OS phone let me do whatever I wanted.

Re:Unable to logout

[Fri13]

Thats why we have lockscreens so EVERYTHING would be secure behind it.

Too bad if user just use slider and not at least PIN code.

Re:Unable to logout

[lsolano]

Absolutely. In fact, my PIN code is 6 digits. I prefer to miss it sometimes instead of making it easy to guess.

Get privacy using Android

[warpi]

I still have my privacy using Android, but you have to install some new applications - OS: CyanogenMod - Calendar = Jorte - Mail = K-9 E-mail - Maps = Osmand Now I atleast think Im secure, but who knows? It would be conforting if there was a android distribution which have moved everything that have to do with googles servers.

Re:Get privacy using Android

[Fri13]

CyanogenMod ain't operating system. It is a project to bring a latest vanilla Android with their own mod (CM) to Android phones.

The Linux is still the operating system in the Android and CyanogenMod version of Android.

CM community would be stupid to switch Linux to other operating system in Android, like HURD. As Android would not work so well anymore.

How is Android less intrusive?

[aristotle-dude]

Android is a Google product and Google's main business is selling advertising. Android just another channel for ad traffic for Google and so Google does not consider android users to be their customers. Rather, users of Google's services are the "product" sold to their real customers namely, advertisers.

Given this nature of Google's "free" services, explain to me how Google is interested in preserving your privacy and not intruding on it?

Re:How is Android less intrusive?

[Tomahawk]

Google don't sell your data to the advertisers. Of the advertisers we want to target a group, google's algorithms will decide, based on your data, if you are part of that group. No human looks at the data, just the cloud computers.

The sheer number of people using Google products ensure individual privacy, as there is just far too much days there to talk through.

Re:How is Android less intrusive?

[Fri13]

Not like that....

Or unless you want to say you are a product of TV manufacturer or even your government as they want to sell your information to every advertiser out there, on streets, television, radio....

Re:Want Privacy? Get your own BES

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

RTFA. That is only on BIS and BBM. BES is encrypted with the client's own key.

Its about *targeted* advertising

[perpenso]

Google's business model is collecting and selling information.

Not true. Google's business model is collecting users and selling some advertising. They do not sell personal information, and there is no way for advertisers to get access to your anonymised profile.

Still not true. Google's business model is collecting users and information about these users, and selling some targeted advertising based upon their user profiles and/or the information (web, email, social network, etc) that they are currently viewing.

Re:Its about *targeted* advertising

[Fri13]

Advertisers never receive data about users when ads are shown to the users what Google has collected.

It is always User Google Advertiser

It is never User Google -> Advertiser
Or it is never User Advertiser

Google always stands between user and third party. And it does not give information to advertisers what can be linked anyway to any user.

Basicly Google says to advertisers "We have shown your ad 15 287 times, so you pay 1 cent per time so it is 15,29 to us.

Advertiser does not get any more information than placing a advertiser next to the street where every person passing by can see it.
The advertiser placement price is about calculations how many possible views that advertisement, how long it is there and on what season.

Of course on streets, advertiser can pay someone to sit next it and count people or order a camera system to be installed and then count view counts.
But with Google, they cant as Google does the calculations for them.

Re: Android w/ multiple accounts

[rwa2]

Not really sure what kind of privacy invasions you're trying to "run away" from...

But I find that the Android support of multiple accounts comes in pretty handy. I have one gmail address for personal interactions with people and holds my address book, then I have one (or more) "spam" accounts that I use for all of the social network accounts, logins, etc., for just about any interaction with any online business or service that wants an email address for something. Notifications are only enabled on the personal account, and it tends to be rather quiet (yay for having no friends!).

Team that up with multiple google voice options, and I don't even have to give out my "real" phone number most of the time for texts. And the voicemail transcriptions make it easier to wade through incoming stuff. But other than occasional calls from the Red Cross, I barely ever get any kind of telemarketing or "survey" calls to my cellphone number even though I've been handing it out for various things for over a decade.

So of course Google could link all my various accounts together to get a more complete profile of me, but not really sure what they'd do with it. All of the marketing gets directed at the spam account. They likely get more advertising bucks if they can say they're selling access to multiple personas (even if they all lead back to me) anyway, so it's probably win/win.

Re:Sure it is ......

[Alunral]

Last I checked, Cyanogenmod was made by Cyanogen and his crew. Cyanogen is employed by Samsung. All of them are well known in multiple places. They are most certainly not "anonymous hackers", you tool.

iPhone doesn't require iCloud at all.

[Anonymous Freak]

You can use an iPhone without ever creating an iCloud account. Manual-entry-only contacts, calendars, etc, are fully possible. Or, sync with your PC via iTunes over USB, no network connection required to anything. The *ONLY* thing you would have to deal with Apple about is putting your info on file along with a billing source to download apps.

Or you could go for a just-retired Nokia Symbian S60 phone. I used S60 phones before moving to iOS, and they were great for the time. I understand they kept up reasonably well until very recently.

Good old Windows Mobile

[dunkelfalke]

As strange as it sounds, you really have the most privacy with a WM6 phone. You don't even need a network connection with that one, it can be synchronised with Outlook, you can install applications from anywhere, you can develop your own applications and most of the WM6 devices are insanely hackable. On the one I own you can even install WP7, Android or Ubuntu.

gta04 - help making it solve the problem

[JoSch1337]

why not instead of whining about the situation, help making a privacy respecting smartphone platform happen?

The successor to the openmoko gta02 is the goldendelicious gta04 featuring an omap3 processor and umts internet and many more things you would want your smartphone to have.

They started preorders now: http://www.handheld-linux.com/wiki.php?page=GTA04

So quit whining, get yourself a truly free and open phone and help making the operating system where YOU choose and not some evil corporation.

I've been using Android

[miquels]

You can do the same with Android.

- I use my ISP's IMAP and SMTP servers
- I run my own calendar (caldav) and contacts (carddav) server, Davical right now.

You just need carddav-sync and caldav-sync for Android from http://dmfs.org/

Mike.

Re:Who to give your data to?

[cheros]

Thank you - that was exactly the same thinking I was following. So far, Apple has not abused its ability to poke into people's lives yet, although it is trying harder with iCloud and iMessage which both seem to say to me "iWant your data on our systems" (iMessage is basically the same idea as WhatsApp, who is already tapping the SMS traffic of millions of users without explicitly telling them this).

My conclusion is that all really want to have your data, but some still have the decency to ask (although that attitude is waning - I guess too many people say "no").

One extra consideration: Android is "Too Open" source for me - as there is no control on the market other than after-the-event removal, the place is literally teeming hit malware. It seems to provide a good argument for Apple's walled garden after all..

Zarafa and z-push

[EG_1000]

I'm amazed nobody seems to have mentioned this combination yet. Point your Android phone at a z-push installation and it won't know it's not talking to Exchange/ActiveSync. Point your windows clients at Zarafa and they don't know they're not talking to Exchange. On my Android device(s) I use Activesync for contacts and calendar, but K9 with IMAP for mail (Zarafa does IMAP too, and supports NOTIFY so you get "push" email). There's a CalDAV gateway which KDE and/or Evolution can talk to, and of course IMAP for mail. The only thing missing at the moment is desktop contacts sync, but there's a read-only CardDAV extension I plan to try to get working at some point.

I wouldn't be using anything which isn't mine to control; when someone gives me their contact details, I do not wish to assume they have also given me permission to hand that information to a third party. Same for calendars.

And there's a pretty decent web interface for casual use (I wouldn't use it for anything serious as it doesn't do threading), but it's OK for casual stuff, and you can keep it open as a calendar application if you don't want to use CalDAV.

There are packages for everything but Z-Push in Fedora and presumably other distros. Z-Push is easy to install anyway.

Can we please stop pretending there is any privacy

[redstar427]

Unless you are hundreds of years old, or actually living in a cave and off the grid, life never was private.

In most countries, people are required to have an ID, like Social Security number in the USA.
From that alone the government has your ID number, name, and usually an address and contact information.
This info is often shared in many places, like banks, credit card companies, places of employment, etc.
If you work for a company, as most people do, chances are you applied at many places before you got this last job.
Each company gets lots of information about you, checks your info, credit, criminal background, references and past history, even if you don't get the job.

Then most people live in some type of dwelling. You have to give lots of your information to them, even if you buy the property.
Like most people, you probably get service of utilities like electricity. They want your information also.
Unless you like staring at the walls most people have some sort of tv service, like cable or satellite. They want your info.
Same is true for Internet service, and most any other type of service. They all want and usually get your info.

When you pay your expenses, unless you use only cash, you tell these service business where you store your money, and your financial companies which services you buy. The secrets are out!

If you don't choose to be a hermit, you might choose to make friends, buy groceries, visit places, and they want your info too.

So of all the millions or possibly billions of people these companies like Google have information on, with billions of bits of information, why is YOUR information so special or interesting that it even matters if you store your contacts or emails with them or on your local phone or some computers and servers???

Your life was never private, and unless you really want to remove yourself from any sort of life, it never will be. Privacy is a facade. Only tiny bits of your information can be kept secret. Even account numbers and passwords have to be stored on these companies servers just so you can login.

Using many of the conveniences of life, they can make life easier, simpler or both. Technology is a big part that. To give up so much versatility to hide so little information that is stored with only those companies that provide the services, just like all the other services you already use, seems too high a price to pay just for some pretend privacy.

Re:Sure it is ......

[rtfa-troll]

.... because running a software made by "anonymous hackers" is much more safe than original OEM version.

Except a) the hackers aren't anonymous; the guy is well known and has just taken up a job with a phone manufacturer. b) The people who write for the big companies actually are anonymous and often don't even work directly for the big companies c) most of the privacy violations we see are motivated by commercial interests which is before we even get to d) the thing about Cygenomod is that the source code is out there

c) that I mentioned above is the most important thing though. According to reviews, Windows Phone has no native contacts data store. This essentially means that you end up using Facebook (or linkedin etc) for storing data. This is a simple commercial decision which compromises the user's security in order to push forward Microsoft's partnership with Facebook and against Google+. It's very key to understand, at this point, that Microsoft's investment in Skype and Facebook tells us that the company's entire attitude to personal computing and privacy has changed. They will now do whatever they can to make up for the lost years when they allowed their own users to do more or less as they pleased.

Simply put, to have any chance of privacy at all we need something which has at most limited influence from commercial develpers and must have no influence from Microsoft.

just turn off synchronisation

[Tomahawk]

When you first login to the Android phone, you have the option to turn off sync for any services you don't want to sync with the cloud. You might leave on mail, but disable contacts, calender and gallery. This way, none of that data will be sent to Google, our pulled down from Google.

Also, remember that a LOT of people use Google - 200m Android , 550k new daily - so unless there is a very specific need for Google to look at your data, they won't. You can assume that to a fairly high degree your secrets will be safe.

N900

[GameboyRMH]

Phones and tablets are pretty much post-freedom, curated computing has taken over them. The N900 was the last open phone. In the future maybe a completely different OS can be put on a rootable Android device.

Symbian isn't dead! Get Symbian

[ryzvonusef]

Elop may have tried it, but it still isn't dead, they just issued a few new ones. After the Belle update, Symbian is *finally* what it was supposed to be, it's now at par with other OS, at least at the base level.

Also, update-wise, updates C- and D- are also already planned (sorry I don't remember the names, but Symbian is following the android pattern for update names)

So why done we....

[Lumpy]

Have a Linux for smartphones?

Honestly, with the number of android phone cracked wide open why is there NO linux on them? OpenMoko was 90% there and all source available. Why dont we even have some "Linux for Droid" or other projects out there?

Honestly, a "Hardened" smartphone is something that many paranoid geeks would be all over, and the "uber 1337 hax0r's would wet themselves over such a thing.

Re:So why done we....

[__aavqan3009]

Try this...https://www.tizen.org/

Re:Sure it is ......

[BrokenHalo]

Simply put, to have any chance of privacy at all we need something which has at most limited influence from commercial develpers and must have no influence from Microsoft.

In other words, the best solution for privacy might be to use a cheapie burner phone for making calls, and use a proper computer for doing anything online. Yes, this probably sounds like I'm being a troglodyte, but given the current state of the technology it might still be the better solution than any kind of smartphone
- no matter much we might wish otherwise.

Don't use iCloud

[jbolden]

You don't have to use iCloud. I have a brand new iPhone 4S and I sync the old fashioned way, to iTunes. I might switch for the music features but until I do Apple doesn't have a copy of that stuff. Further what you sync is determined by you.

Hard to Believe

[stewbacca]

I know this is hard to believe for most of you, but outside of your Moms' basements, the majority of users see these smartphone features and cloud services as a feature, not a security flaw.

More importantly, there is continuum of convenience and security. Most of the world thinks you lot here err on the side of security, which compromises user friendliness (hello, ever try to get an entire office to install their certs correctly?) in favor of security. Most users err on the side of convenience, at the risk of security. The correct choice depends on each user's individual needs and situation, and these one-size-fits-all corporate IT policies you all love around here aren't always very good for Average Joe.

Applications

[whatkey]

What worries me more than Google is definitely the apps. Pretty sure most of the apps now ask for permission to read contacts, text messages, etc. It's all good and fine if it makes sense that the app needs that type of access...but why does a dictionary app need to know my location? I think it's these third parties we need to worry about more. I think Google needs to allow Android users to deny apps certain permissions.

Re: Android w/ multiple accounts

[Medievalist]

So of course Google could link all my various accounts together to get a more complete profile of me,

They already have. So have several other organizations.

but not really sure what they'd do with it.

In Google's case, they sell access to your eyeballs. That is, they target advertising in their search engine (at least) towards your profile. It's fairly benign, all you have to worry about is someone more evil getting into their data.

In the case of the other organizations profiling you, well, what they are doing is selling your profile.

All of the marketing gets directed at the spam account. They likely get more advertising bucks if they can say they're selling access to multiple personas (even if they all lead back to me) anyway, so it's probably win/win.

True, that. But it's not private in the sense that some people value. It's just reasonably safe from the viewpoint of identity theft protection and the like. Which is good enough if you trust your government at all.

Cell Phones are Not Private

[Greyfox]

Even the cheapest no-frills cellphone is not private if you leave it on all the time. The phone company still knows where they are. They have to know where you are, so that your calls go to the right place. Your phone is always communicating with a tower, the entire time it's on. If you're up to no good, that information could be used as evidence to establish your location.

The most private cell phone you can get? The one with its battery out. Or, barring that, a prepaid one paid for in cash, in another town, using a mode of transportation other than your car. That's not foolproof, but it'd be reasonably private. Running around with 14 user-installed apps all broadcasting your location, not so much.

Samsung Bada

[It's the tripnaut!]

Try Samsung's Bada (also linux-based), it can be found on the Samsung Wave line-up of phones. Nothing stored in the cloud at all and has a great UI (looks like a bastard son of iOS and Android).

Re:Sure it is ......

[houstonbofh]

Actually, this is me, but not for any security reasons. A phone is just a crappy UI for the net. I hate typing messages with my thumbs, and trying to navigate a website on a screen that makes an Osborn look huge! So I have a dumb phone, (Verizon calls them "feature" phones, and is trying to get rid of them) and a very light laptop.

iPhone comes out as clear winner to me

[bytesaber]

You said: "Android comes out as clear winner to me." Obviously you haven't looked very close at the market. It's not Android my friend. With all of the Google support for iPhone, you don't need Android. All of your complaints are solved by iOS. If you don't like networking your contacts, then don't use Google Sync on your iPhone nor iCloud and just manually enter your contacts. Sync your mail via gmail, exchange, or plain ol imap. Use a non networked iCalendar. Disable bluetooth when not using it. Lock your phone with a real password, not a passcode. Clear your call and text history. Then backup your phone with the click of a button entirely with iTunes to "centralize your world" as you are asking. All offline by choice. If you don't already use gmail, you won't be forced to create one. Just use whatever email identity you have already established in your life. Android struggles with polishing these basic abilities across their 100's of phones and multiple chaotic vendors as compared to Apples simpler and more successful 5 phones.

incorrect focus

[farble1670]

anyone that is today, running around trying to keep their data private is at best fighting a losing battle. for an average person living an average life, it's impossible. i imagine there are people here that are tech-savvy enough to pull it off, but the curtain is drawing even for them.

in stead of focusing on how to keep data private, i'd rather see data be free ... but with strict regulations on how it can be used. for example, i don't care if my insurance carrier can find my complete medical history ... as long as they aren't allowed to discriminate against me based on it. i don't care if a company uses my data to target advertising to me, as long as we have laws allowing us to opt-out. anyway, they are already spamming me with untargeted advertising. could targeted advertising be worse?

Funambol + imap + caldav on android

[trevelyon]

My solution is to host my own funambol (contacts only), IMAP (email) and caldav (calendar). It hasn't taken too long to get everything working and it works reliably with over the network sync between my local clients (email/contacts/calendar) and my android device. All in all it just works. If you really do not want to share your information with cloud providers (as I won't since I use it for business and will not allow them to harvest my clients contact info) this is a good solution. I suspect you can use exchange or zimbra to accomplish the same thing if you prefer.

I use an android phone and as someone here has pointed out it does need to be configured with a google email account to activate you can set it have sync with that account off. I've verified that no contacts, calendar, etc show up on that gmail account.

Use Funambol on Android! Not Google services.

[AHTuttle]

I love Android, but don't trust Google that much with my most personal data (particularly email and contacts). So I don't use gmail for anything but app purchases or save any contact or other personal data on my Google account. I use Yahoo email (eventually I'll get my own mail server) which works just fine with the Android email client or I can use the Yahoo mail app. Funambol let's me sync all my contact data to a private, personal account that is not searched or mined. Funambol will sync all sorts of data on all sorts of devices, it's open source and free unless you need to sync huge data, like multimedia files. There's even a web interface for my data. Finall!y!!! All the advantages of Android without the feeling Google's looking over my shoulder. (Well, they are probably looking at my browsing habits, etc.) Not associated with the company, just overjoyed with this solution. I looked for something like this long and hard before finding it. I can't believe it's not a household name given how useful it is.

iPhone with manual Sync (no iCloud)

[johnrpenner]

i run my iphone with the local-sync only - the contacts and calendars go between my hard disk, usb cable, and iphone ONLY - i have totally switched off the 'sync to the iCloud' - unlike google - the contact info is nowhere except on my hard drive and my phone.

you have the option (and convenience) of using the cloud if you want to - but unlike google, iCloud isn't required, you can set it to run completely locally, and in iOS 5, you can turn off your navigation services, and you're pretty good.

however, all cell phones still track all incoming and outgoing phone numbers, that the time and length of those calls - you're not going to get around that -- so, if you get rid of the phone, and run it completely on the internet with skype (which is registered somewhere anyway) -- you could do it all with an ipod touch. at least that way, you don't have the long trail of phone calls, numbers, and times following you.

2cents
jp

Loaded question

[Iniamyen]

Are There Any Smartphones That Respect Privacy? Did you phrase it this way to get a more "impassioned" debate, or did you just not proofread before posting? First of all, smartphones aren't sentient beings. They can't respect privacy any more than my lawnmower can respect privacy. So ok. Maybe you really meant "what smartphone hardware/software/service provider combination allows me to keep as much personal data private as possible?" In which case I would tell you that you shouldn't get a smartphone. Heck, maybe you shouldn't even have a normal phone. A phone is by its nature something that communicates things, something that is at odds with "privacy" in the nebulous way you have used the word. What you asked is sort of like "Are there any Ford vehicles I can get that won't make me a bigoted, racist redneck?"

Markets are NOT rational

[PeterWone]

While markets are rational, product value is not the sole or even the governing factor under consideratopm. Share market decisions are based more on assessment of what "the market" (everyone else) will do next than on any intrinsic value of stock. Similarly, vast hordes bought an iPhone because they lacked sufficient stature to risk the social consequences of being different. This is completely rational even though it has nothing to do with any intrinsic value of the phone. A rational comparison of WP7, Android and iPhones would conclude that the phones themselves do all the same things in extremely similar ways with very similar UI metaphors on functionall identical hardware.

But a phone alone is worthless. Quality of network is very important, and if you want to develop software for your own use, WP7 is the pick of the bunch; the free tools for WP7 are streets ahead of the paid tools from Apple or Android, and the programming model is better. Contrary to widespread misinformation, the Android toolchain is no more free than the WP7 toolchain, which is to say that both provide a freebie version for non-commercial use. It will cost you to register for use of the WP7 marketplace, which is a Microsoft copy of the Apple app store infrastructure, and serves the same QA function that protects both Apple and Microsoft users from the malware plaguing Android.

Re:Markets are NOT rational

[jbolden]

Similarly, vast hordes bought an iPhone because they lacked sufficient stature to risk the social consequences of being different.

Huh? When the iPhone came out it was different, The norm was the blackberry. Apple has consistently pushed the "think different" motif. I think you could make that claim about Windows, though even there I'd be doubtful. For iPhone it isn't plausible.

As for the rest on the tool chain. A tiny percentage of phone users develop software for their own use. It simply isn't a major consideration. Were it, probably JavaVM, the most mature platform is likely the best. Most of the fairly good RAD tools for mobile work equally well for Apple and Android. So again I'd want some evidence.

As far as QA the issue is what's in the respective stores. Right now the Apple store is 7x the size (in terms of sales) of the Android, Blackberry and Nokia stores put together. I don't even think the WP7 store is 1% of the size. The apps aren't there yet. They may be in the future and QA I think is a great model. We'll see if Microsoft does as well a job, or perhaps better.

Re:Markets are NOT rational

[PeterWone]

When the iPhone was first released, it was different. Quite so. Toy commanders and Apple fanbois bought it, in comparatively modest quantities. For a short period, it was qualitatively superior, and enjoyed deservedly high demand. But the set of people who actually need it is much smaller than the number of people who bought it, and the bulk of sales can be qualified as "me-too". I stand by my comment.

As for Apple's grammatical atrocity "think different", Monty Python summed things up perfectly:

[thousands of voices] We're all individuals!

[single voice] I'm not.

Re:Sure it is ......

[rtfa-troll]

Having had a very bottom end dumbphone (that means it even had a web browser; but was S40) I'm pretty convinced by this. I have some Androids and an N900; my friends have iPhones and lots of Androids. They're great for some uses but they just can't nearly compete on battery lifetime, (small) size or convenience.

Why is NoScript on N900 unfeasible?

[KWTm]

"""I think that AdBlocking on a phone can only improve the usage.I don't see what problem you could possibly have with the idea? AdBlock Plus on my N900 works great, and makes certain sites much less intensive on my phone. Unfortunately, there's no NoScript equivalent for the Maemo browser, which IMO is a must have as well."""

Alas, it's also not in the cards short of rooting your phone.

First, Google owns AdMob, the largest mobile ad company out there. They sell in-app ads (Google knows your app usage habits bevcause of this). It's not in their interest to let you easily block it.

Not sure what you mean: GP poster was talking about N900, which more or less comes with root. Not sure how Google would have anything to say about the Maemo browser (micro-B, I think it's called) or how they could make it less/more easy to have NoScript equivalent. Presumably you can run NoScript on Fennec (ie. Firefox for N900) although I haven't tried on mone.

Hello, are people ignoring the Carrier IQ story?

[derfla8]

People, I am amazed that when Apple makes a fumble on location services there is huge media attention on Apple "spying" on people. Where is the noise on Carrier IQ? A real root kit installed on all devices (not confirmed on iOS though) http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/11/rootkit-brouhaha/