[slaman]

The parent argument is that without transparency it's difficult to actually know.

Apple's true incentive is to provide value for their shareholders.

If they can improve the value provided to shareholders by hoovering up information while also maintaining consumer confidence and sales then why would they not?

I think that Apple's incentives are better aligned with my desires for privacy, but it's only an assumption.

[sjwright]

> why would they not?

Because this sort of thing inevitably leaks? Apple has a formula that demonstrably works, a formula that everyone can directly observe making them an utterly stupid amount of money. It would be the height of stupidity to risk their unparalleled monetary successes to pursue a few dirty little crumbs.

[aoeusnth1]

Exactly - especially when you are employing privacy-conscious developers, it would be nearly impossible to keep it contained. Someone would leak it to the EFF. It's better business strategy for Apple to not defect.

[mikehotel]

Off topic

Saiya-jin, your comments all appear to be flagged and dead. You may want to contact a mod about this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=saiya-jin

[saiya-jin]

Guys, this is all just plain old wishful thinking. Neither you, nor me, nor most people here have any real clue what decisions are being done behind closed doors of Apple, or other companies. All the high profile cases are mostly PR-oriented, see how PRISM was handled (not that they had any choice, but it is what it is).

Don't attach these emotions where they are not appropriate. Apple is a for-profit company. If they will be pressed hard by US government behind closed doors, they will bulge and you won't know about it, why should you (maybe in 10 years as part of some leak). If they will decide to change their strategy, they will. They have 0 moral issues hiding gazillions of cash offshore from IRS. Just like any other company out there.

Simple fact is, most people don't care about security. I work in IT, and I have numerous friends with iPhones, but exactly 0 of them cares about extra potential security when choosing phones, most have no clue about these issues. Regular people choose Apple because of Apple and how things look and feel, and how they are perceived among others as a status indicator.

[sjwright]

I think you massively overestimate the power of the US government. What would they do if Apple said no? Shut them down? Put Tim Cook in jail? Never going to happen. That perception of power might exist against mere civilians, but not against the big multinationals.

Apple has engineered their products to be unbreakable by Apple. That says a lot about their desire to cooperate!

Apple's billions held internationally aren't hidden, everyone knows where it is. And it was never money destined to be "on-shore" in the first place – it's profits from retail sales which occurred in Europe and elsewhere. Their offices in Ireland have the Apple logo on them and they're one of Ireland's largest taxpayers. Everything they do is on the public record. That money wasn't expatriated from the USA, the IRS isn't owed any of it.

[glenneroo]

You underestimate the power of the NSA, CIA, FBI and in general the US government. They don't need to imprison the CEO or shut them down, there are subtle yet nefarious ways of getting what they want. Anyways let's forget this part, it's just speculation from both of us.

According to their privacy policy[0], they comply with requests by the government for user data and inform the user unless gagged.

> In the second half of 2016, Apple received between 5,750 and 5,999 National Security Orders.

If their products are unbreakable, how can they provide this data to the government?

[0]: https://www.apple.com/privacy/government-information-request...

[panda88888]

The data stored on newer iOS devices with hardware security enclave are unbreakable even by Apple, but the iCloud backups are accessible by Apple. That’s probably how the requests are fulfilled.

[blibble]

outside of the nerds, how much of a percentage of apple users would switch if it did come out they had been doing this?

it's going to be less than 1%

... and where are they going to go?

[sjwright]

I think it would have much greater repercussions over time, eliminating one of the few concrete advantages of Apple products. But for now let's assume it only lost them a tiny share, perhaps one percent. Even that is a massive fortune compared to the money Apple could possibly make selling a bit of marketing data under the table.

[odammit]

I’m a nerd and I wouldn’t switch.

I’d be pissed for an hour but at the end of the day my phone, laptop, watch, TV and car all syncing my music and crap with no effort is too appealing to scoff at.

Hell if I found out they had a meat locker of dead kittens hidden in the basement of 1 Infinite Loop Id probably stay loyal.

[rayiner]

It would be a ballsy play of limited utility. For one, you're talking about Apple risking epic legal liability if they got caught. For the other, they'd be doing so for limited upside. They can only sell ads on the premise that they don't have all this inside information on their users.