Slashdot Asks: What Do People Misunderstand or Underappreciate About Apple? (fastcompany.com)

In an interview with Fast Company, Apple CEO Tim Cook says people who have not used his company's products miss "how different Apple is versus other technology companies." A person who is just looking at the company's revenues and profits, says Cook, might think that Apple "is good at making money." But he says "that's not who we are. In Cook's view, Apple is: We're a group of people who are trying to change the world for the better, that's who we are. For us, technology is a background thing.

We don't want people to have to focus on bits and bytes and feeds and speeds. We don't want people to have to go to multiple [systems] or live with a device that's not integrated. We do the hardware and the software, and some of the key services as well, to provide a whole system. We do that in such a way that we infuse humanity into it. We take our values very seriously, and we want to make sure all of our products reflect those values. There are things like making sure that we're running our [U.S.] operations on 100% renewable energy, because we don't want to leave the earth worse than we found it. We make sure that we treat well all the people who are in our supply chain. We have incredible diversity, not as good as we want, but great diversity, and it's that diversity that yields products like this. What do you think?

Comments

That is not the case

[SuperKendall]

Apple's trust model is broken.

I think you misspelled "secure"

This means one app can't access another app's local files.

Incorrect. An application CAN access another apps local files, but it has to do it through a channel the application specifically allows for.

That keeps rogue apps from modifying random files in other apps without you knowing, because the user is explicitly telling the system they want to open this file from this app in some other application.

On Android, I have the choice to... ...completely fuck yourself over. That's sort of fine for people who actually understand computer security and the implications of opening a file system. For the rest of the Earth it is a horrific disaster which we have suffered from for decades now.

But their "whole system" means sharing personal life data to an unprecedented extent with Apple.

No, it means putting it on your devices. Apple does not see nor use this data - iCloud stuff is encrypted, Apple does not look at it, and you do not have to use iCloud if you do not wish.

It also means carefully allowing access to this data to exactly who you choose, not to everyone because of massive holes in the security model.

Re:Is The Article's Title For Real?

[TheFakeTimCook]

Likely flamebait, but I'll bite:

My assessment of Apple:

Pros: simple to use, appealing and reliable hardware, decent hardware-software integration, frequent software updates, generally secure, mature ecosystem, privacy tolerant

Cons: expensive, limited features, highly controlling, abandoned product lines, erratic decisionmaking

Expensive? You mean like the iPhone X, that costs a whopping $50 more than the Samsung Note 8?

Limited Features? Like FOUR USB-C Ports on a Laptop, for an aggregate 80 Gb/s I/O bandwidth, and which can be easily and inexpensively broken-out into a MYRIAD of different configurations, up to FIFTY-TWO SIMULTANEOUS "Legacy" Ports?

Highly Controlling? Like for example, the fact that, since iOS 8, Apple has officially allowed "Sideloading" of Apps on iOS Devices, both through Open Source XCode Application-Building, and through the loading of precompiled .ipa files using Cydia Impactor, which runs on every desktop platform?

Abandoned Product Lines? Every OEM drops products and sometimes whole product-lines. So?

Erratic Decision-Making? As compared with, say, Microsoft? Yeahrightsure...

Re:It would take a lot of convincing

[dszd0g]

I think that is just marketing. If you read their privacy policy it is actually pretty bad. It's basically the extreme case of "all your data are belong to us" and we'll use it however we want.

Apple considers the "unique device identifier", "location", and "search queries" as non-personal information which they can do anything they want with including sell. They consider information that is personal as non-personal (even your location) and even if they did consider it personal, they say they share personal information for marketing purposes.

Non-personal information according to Apple:

• occupation
• language
• zip code
• area code
• unique device identifier
• referrer URL
• location
• time zone
• customer activities on our website, iCloud services, our iTunes Store, App Store, Mac App Store, App Store for Apple TV and iBooks Stores and from our other products and services
• We may collect and store details of how you use our services, including search queries.

"We may collect, use, transfer, and disclose non-personal information for any purpose."

"At times Apple may make certain personal information available to strategic partners that work with Apple to provide products and services, or that help Apple market to customers."

"Apple and our partners and licensees may collect, use, and share precise location data, including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device."

Source:
https://www.apple.com/legal/pr...