While I agree that one should remain suspicious and be vocal about privacy violations and security issues, I find your attitude of continuing to attack Apple inappropriate.
Apple competitors Google and Microsoft which control the great majority of OS installs both for mobile and desktop don't even pretend to care about privacy. I have collected over the years reports about dozens of underhanded tactics they use to manipulate users into sharing data, when they're not downright forcing them to do it.
Currently Google is showing in the EU a modal pop-up asking users to accept to be tracked or fuck off to a labyrinth of "See more" and "Other options" which are obviously violating the GDPR. They got fined five times already for GDPR violations.
Microsoft have told their non-enterprise customers to bugger off and learn to live with telemetry. They're actively working around people blocking telemetry and they're being investigated for these practices.
How about a thank you that at least someone at Apple listens to their customers?
> I find your attitude of continuing to attack Apple inappropriate.
I do so because I am an Apple user - this is being typed on a mac mini. I also own other Apple hardwares.
I also advocated for Apple hardware within my family & friends to switch from Android to Apple quite successfully (I am the IT guy in my circle). I did so because I would like to believe their commitment to privacy they have publicly stated. (Tim Cook being Gay adds to that trust because he understands that privacy is not just about hiding secrets but protecting ourselves from political persecutions by those who do not like some part of our identity - whether it be regional, gender, political, cultural, religious, sexual etc.).
It doesn't mean I trust them blindly or completely or will allow them to screw my customer rights (like right to repair, and OWN my device). Would you?
Your CV or Apple credentials are not relevant. If one considers privacy important, as you seem to, then they should engage with companies which at least try to behave in a privacy-friendly way instead of typing backdoor in all caps several times and painting those companies in a bad light while not recognizing any of their contributions to improving the privacy of their customers.
And here are those contributions spelled out for you: Apple is the only company preventing Google from having the private information of all smartphone users on the planet on their servers.
Maybe not to you. It should be for Apple, if they actually care about their users / customers.
> Apple is the only company preventing Google from having the private information of all smartphone users ...
No, it isn't. There are other worthy contenders to both ios and Android, like Sailfish OS. (In fact, using a Sailfish OS mobile phone actually protects my data from both Apple and Google - it's a double win for me).
And unlike you, my idea of privacy isn't trusting one corporate over another, but ensuring that no corporate has access to my personal data itself in the first place - I absolutely do not want Apple to have access to any of my data. (And whether you like it or not, until Apple does precisely that, I will keep criticising it).
As a queer person myself, I think your trust in the "gay experience" of rich guys is dangerous.
We just had this Szajer scandal, where a powerful outspoken homophobe was caught in an gay orgy.
The gay experience (shame, rejection and discrimination) also comes with increased chance of "co-morbid" personality defects, which may be more pronounced worh exceptional wealth and status.
Queer solidarity by gay men is not a given anymore.
The fact that their competitors are as bad or worse in this regard does not make Apple saints - and this has all the hallmarks of an intentional addition to position Apple apps differently from the others, which is a classic Apple move.
Compromise in security and prviacy clearly has been deemed worth by someone at Apple before the stink was raised.
This kind of black and white thinking is very impractical and self-defeating, except maybe for RMS, to remind us what we should strive for.
For most of us, the real world decision is to either work with a company which is actively working on undermining privacy or with one which is trying to improve things.
In the real world, Apple still gets to have their business and people work with them, but enough stink is raised to both externally and privately to get them to change their decision. Which they have evidently done here, so working as intended. Reputation damage is a thing if it involves conversations with other F100 companies.
This particular debacle is one of the reasons why $CurrentCorpo I am occasionally working with decided to skip Big Sur until much later in the lifecycle - not the only one, though.
Apple competitors Google and Microsoft which control the great majority of OS installs both for mobile and desktop don't even pretend to care about privacy. I have collected over the years reports about dozens of underhanded tactics they use to manipulate users into sharing data, when they're not downright forcing them to do it.
Currently Google is showing in the EU a modal pop-up asking users to accept to be tracked or fuck off to a labyrinth of "See more" and "Other options" which are obviously violating the GDPR. They got fined five times already for GDPR violations.
Microsoft have told their non-enterprise customers to bugger off and learn to live with telemetry. They're actively working around people blocking telemetry and they're being investigated for these practices.
How about a thank you that at least someone at Apple listens to their customers?