| Apple attacks the core primitives of Adtech very strategically with this update. This is very smart actually, much better than the first iteration. They're going after the meat right away, like cookie synchronization ("Tracker collusion") and the first-party tracker hack that Criteo pioneered, effectively disabling almost all the tracking possibilities on iOS. As a user, this is awesome. And if you want to track, you need to provide both value (i.e. an authenticated service) as well as get explicit consent from the user. Unfortunately, this will also serve to concentrate the power in the hands of Google and Facebook, who have and/or will create such authenticated embeds. Note that all this hardtalk specifically excludes the mobile ad IDs. Apple would face much more headwind from GOOG and FB if they went about killing these. This is going to be very interesting, as Apple will need to carefully tread up to a point, after which there could be harsher repercussions. They also know that an iPhone without access to Google Maps, Search, Mail, Authenticator, Youtube and a whole lot of other essential services won't be worth much to end users anymore. Source: I'm working in Adtech, but we chose a different approach of giving users an actual benefit and being careful, compliant and frugal with data. All these recent updates about Apple and GDPR mainly hit the really bad players of the industry that just hoard sensitive data through shady channels and arbitrage it to hell — and I consider that a good thing. |
I don't know. Apple Maps is almost as good as Google Maps for me. Search I could use DuckDuckGo. Mail I use the native iOS mail client and could easily switch out from my GMail account to anything else. Authenticator I don't use and don't know anyone else who does either. YouTube's an interesting one, but I use it tons less since I got Spotify Premium.
If it was a choice between Apple protecting my privacy and losing all Google services these days, after everything players like Google and Facebook have done? It wouldn't be a difficult decision to keep my iPhone.