This is a problem for all of us. Most people who can afford one have bought their iPhone or iPad already. The programmers already have their MacBooks. And while everyone will need to buy replacements at some point, that’s a steady-state or at best low-growth business. When Apple says more, it means the Wall Street kind of “more”: a hockey stick of growth.
Which means, Apple needs to find growth outside its usual business.
And these days, that means: advertising.
And online advertising requires: surveillance.
And a surveillance-enabled ad business leads, inevitably, to deceiving customers.
It’s already happening, and like the boiling frog (which is not actually how it works – the frog will definitely jump out if it’s being slowly boiled; the tiny detail not part of most retellings is that the researcher had removed the frogs’ brains), Apple users are slowly being prepped for slaughter.
Apple was just late to the party, but they’ll find themselves in “good company” with all the other tech giants in bed with advertisers.. By not running more invasive ads, they were leaving money on the table and we can’t have that. Who’s going to fund their offshore and tax-free bank accounts for a rainy day? Apple was always going to come around one way or the other just like all the others. I saw ads in microsoft teams for the first time the other day. Ads are infecting everything everywhere, including products and services that we pay for. There’s no turning back the clock on this one. It’s become a permanent fixture of the human condition. The profit motives underlying capitalism pretty much guaranties it.
I agree with what you say, and I’m reassured by the fact advertising on paid products isn’t a new thing (TV, cinema, magazines, newspapers, books,… it goes way back). Surveillance for advertising, on the other hand, is a new thing. So maybe there’s still a very slim window of opportunity for society to understand the consequences and row back on it.
As we discussed on the other thread, I’d hoped Apple might help in making that happen, but as the article highlights, it’s now overtly heading in a different direction. Maybe if there’s a backlash it’ll change direction again, but it’s not like any of the mainstream alternatives are offering better privacy (happily there are still plenty of smaller alternatives which are).
flypig,
How new are we calling it? I think google, facebook, even cable companies have been doing it for a long time.
Several years ago now my own ISP was injecting it’s own payloads into other websites…
https://www.infoworld.com/article/2925839/code-injection-new-low-isps.html
They’ve since stopped (https helps with that) but it seems unbelievably creepy that this made it past the drawing board. In the mid-2000s I recall there were some ISPs selling browsing habits, though I think they ended up in court and lost.
I’d hope so, but somehow PR would spin it as a plus and users could buy it up. It reminds me of this animated parady of user acceptance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbmgV7Oyp0w
I’m inadvertently showing my age. When I say “new” I’m comparing the beginnings of surveillance capitalism (circa commercialisation of the Internet) with the earliest advertising (circa invention of commerce).
I agree, if Apple is good at anything (and of course Apple is good at many things) then it’s certainly good at managing its public image.
The sky is always falling when it comes to Apple. Lol
While Android devices are getting ads from Google play to the Lock Screens, Apple users are the ones in trouble.
I see nothing on my stock Android 4, 6 or 11.
To be fair, I don’t think anyone right now could claim Alphabet has a better record on tracking its users than Apple, but this story is about Apple’s hypocrisy when it comes to privacy, not Alphabet’s. If you think there are double standards, it’s worth remembering that Google already went through this process and lost its shine a decade ago (cf “Don’t be evil”).
I’ve got a Pixel, and I haven’t seen any ads anywhere in the OS other than sponsored search results found everywhere on Google.com.
None on the lock screen, home screen, screensaver, app drawer, Gmail app, the Earth app, etc etc.
That’s because ads are only shown in the Play Store on Android (annoying, but the most logical of places to put them, I guess, and Google’s algorithm is actually quite good at bringing up ads for apps that fit your search query), and nowhere else. There’s a massive reality distortion field around Google and Android when it comes to ads, even though it’s iOS that’s riddled with ads, CTAs, pop-ups, notification bubbles pestering you to sign up for shit, and so on.
There is definitely a reality distortion field, and it is of your own making.
If you look at the level of targeting Google and others provide for Android and Android based applications it is an order of magnitude more sophisticated than what you can do with iOS.
Heck, as an application developer – even a top tier, top 10 downloaded app developer – I have almost no say as to where an add for my app will show up in iOS other than it will match a ‘related search’, in a given geography ( country ), language and device. In contrast, given my relationship with Google, they will give me vastly more data to use in targeting including household income and viable spend.
But, hey, yeah, Apple bad! You keep telling yourself your data is in good hands with Google.
If you’re getting ads on your lock screen, you most certainly have installed some garbage on your phone.
But how can you spy on users of the most trusted, secure, uncorrupted, impenetrable operating system in the history of the galaxy?
So Apple are going to monetize what they already do, surveillance, shocking!
How is this not just speculation, and therefore just hot air or clickbait?
Making some revenue from ads when margins are tight due to competition and a myriad of competitors = smart.
Making additional revenue from ads when you have complete control end to end of your market with zero competition and ultra high margins = genius.
So, how will the Pentagon excluding Apple as part of it’s $9B Cloud spend be spun up by Apple?
I can just imagine the spin we are going to get from the fan base!