Apple doubles down on privacy

10

October

2020

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The big tech names such as Facebook, google and amazon are famous for their data collection on customers to feed their advertisement business model. This has lead to an immense lack of trust on the consumer end, paving the way for Apple’s new strategy; individual privacy. By launching tools such as “Sign in with Apple”. This allows you to create a new account for 3rd parties using your Apple ID, however it hides your Apple-ID email.

The importance of privacy can be seen across a variety of Apple products. The bio data of users, such as Face ID & Touch ID are stored locally on the device instead of the cloud. Thus, not even Apple has direct access to it, but only the users. Additionally, Apple just launched additional privacy & security tools with IOS 14. Within the password manager “keychain”, apple will track the passwords and notify users if these have appeared in a recent data leak or have been compromised, prompting the user to change it (Newman, 2020). Additionally, they launched in-depth reports on safari, which show the user which websites and apps are tracking you, which information they’re tracking and how many attempts apple has blocked (Newman, 2020). This continues in the App Store, where a security & data rating is given to all the apps based on the information they collect.

Apple’s strategy of doubling down on privacy seems to align with their targets of improving the apple eco-system and in return strengthening their market position (Brandom, 2019). Especially in the current turmoil of data breaches, privacy concerns and lack of consumer trust.

However, there are some fundamental flaws that lead to consumers questioning their privacy strategy. For example, in 2018 Google paid Apple 9$ billion to remain their default search engine, ultimately a tax to harvest the data from IOS devices (Lindsey, 2019). Although, apple is signalling their stance, their actions still bring the question if they’re serious or just virtue signalling.

Brandom, R., 2019. Apple Wants To Be The Only Tech Company You Trust. [online] The Verge. Available at: <https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/26/18282158/apple-services-privacy-credit-card-tv-data-sharing> [Accessed 10 October 2020].

Lindsey, N., 2019. For Apple, Consumer Privacy Is Just A Business Strategy. [online] CPO Magazine. Available at: <https://www.cpomagazine.com/data-privacy/for-apple-consumer-privacy-is-just-a-business-strategy/> [Accessed 9 October 2020].

Meyers, J., 2020. Ios 14 Monitors Your Passwords To Protect You Against Data Breaches — Here’s How It Works. [online] Gadget Hacks. Available at: <https://ios.gadgethacks.com/how-to/ios-14-monitors-your-passwords-protect-you-against-data-breaches-heres-works-0341281/> [Accessed 10 October 2020].

Newman, D., 2020. Apple’S Ios 14 Privacy Update Changes The Complexion Of User Data Collection. [online] Forbes. Available at: <https://www.forbes.com/sites/danielnewman/2020/09/30/apples-ios-14-privacy-update-changes-the-complexion-of-user-data-collection/#6be3c07eed9e> [Accessed 10 October 2020].

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Future predictions – fairytale or accurate?

8

October

2020

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“We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters” – Peter Thiel

During the late 60’s, the future of computing was going to be massive centralization. Companies such as IBM were building massive computer centres in a centralized locations (Zimmermann, 2017). These computers could only be afforded by large corporations, governmental agencies and universities. Furthermore, the market was also centralised and in the hands of a few large companies (IBM) (Zimmermann, 2017). However, the dreaming of the future was extravagant. In the 1960’s the comic Closer Than We Think! written by Arthur Radebaugh and published in 1958 a wild future consisting of solar-powered cars, crops the size of school buses, global weather control, space hospitals, moon bases were depicted. But the 60’s didn’t just have large computers and comics fantasising about the future, humans also managed to land the first time on the moon in 1969. In combination, this led to an exciting and rightful vision for the future full of technological advancements.

Contrary as it seems, in 2020 it seems like we are back to a similar Zeitgeist as the 1960’s. Although the personal computers have gotten smaller and decentralised over the globe, computing processing power still seems to be more centralised via Amazon AWS. Additionally, there seem to be a few large corporations (Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook), similar to the market environment in the 1960’s. The people are getting excited again for space travel through companies such as SpaceX and are making wild predictions about what the future of AI, VR, crypto, etc. hold.

Similar to what happened in the 1960’s, will happen again in the next decades. Many of the dreamt-up versions of future technology will cease to exist. However, on the contrary many of these technologies will also be developed even though they still sound crazy in today’s time. In the aforementioned comic Closer Than We Think! 42 wild visions of future technology are shown, yet in 2020 around 21 of them (electric cars, speech recognition, etc.) have become reality. Thus, although future technological predictions can sound crazy and borderline insane, they often tend to become reality given enough time.

Novak, M., 2020. 42 Visions For Tomorrow From The Golden Age Of Futurism. [online] Gizmodo. Available at: [Accessed 8 October 2015].

Thiel, P., n.d. Peter Thiel At Yale: We Wanted Flying Cars, Instead We Got 140 Characters. [online] Yale School of Management. Available at: [Accessed 8 October 2020].

Zimmermann, K., 2017. History Of Computers: A Brief Timeline. [online] livescience.com. Available at: [Accessed 7 October 2020].

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