Firstly in terms of market and brand perception Apple absolutely leads on privacy. That’s not really credibly contestable.
Next even if the source was published there’s no way to know of the published source is what is in the phones they sell. This is just as true of an AOSP or any open source phone unless you literally audit the source and compile the whole stack from source yourself.
However at least we have Apple on record and accountable, and it seems like their actual commercial interests align with their stated policies. Going with them seems like a reasonable risk to take, especially considering how poor we know for a fact most of their competition is in this regard.
> Firstly in terms of market and brand perception Apple absolutely leads on privacy. That’s not really credibly contestable.
I'd say it's highly contestable, especially since we have no actual direct proof that they do value privacy. Additionally, I don't care about brand perception, I care about reality.
> Next even if the source was published there’s no way to know of the published source is what is in the phones they sell.
So because they ship a poor OS that doesn't let you manage and control your own system means that there's no way to tell? Interesting, considering that a lot of other hardware works that way....
> This is just as true of an AOSP or any open source phone unless you literally audit the source and compile the whole stack from source yourself.
A) So? What if I want to do that?
B) The point of open-sourcing everything isn't so that everyone can audit everything everytime. It's so that we can audit when we need to. I would never buy a car that doens't let me pop the hood if I wanted to make modifications, why can't the same be true for Apple's products?
> However at least we have Apple on record and accountable, and it seems like their actual commercial interests align with their stated policies.
Their commercial interests actually align to look like they care about privacy, while actually double-dipping. Additionally, they still cater to governments.
> Going with them seems like a reasonable risk to take, especially considering how poor we know for a fact most of their competition is in this regard.
I completely agree that their competition is awful, but that doesn't in any way mean that Apple is good.
In the end, none of what you said refutes my point: You are still reliant on Apple being honest.
Android isn't really open source. They let you look at some unimportant parts of it, that's all. It's a token gesture at best, or deliberately deceptive at worst.
> The point of open-sourcing everything isn't so that everyone can audit everything everytime. It's so that we can audit when we need to
But you can't audit the most important parts of Android, as they are closed-source. Hell, even Google doesn't have access to the source of the most important bits such as the baseband firmware.
That is my complaint. There are plenty of other operating systems where I can. The fact that Apple won't let me implies that they are hiding something.
> Android isn't really open source. They let you look at some unimportant parts of it, that's all. It's a token gesture at best, or deliberately deceptive at worst.
I agree, but this is whataboutism. Android being shitty doesn't give Apple the right to be shitty.
That aside: Just because we have shitty foss offerings doesn't mean Apple has a good offering.
> No, but you can whine about stuff you're never ever going to get, or you can just pick the least problematic option available. Currently that's Apple.
A) Currently that is not Apple. There are many other systems that do a much better job of protecting your privacy that Apple.
B) I'll choose to whine about things that I'm "never going to get". I'm in the business of reality, not wishful thinking. Just because Apple is more convenient when it comes to privacy, doesn't mean it solves the privacy problem, and sweeping that lie under the rug doesn't make it any less of a lie.
Next even if the source was published there’s no way to know of the published source is what is in the phones they sell. This is just as true of an AOSP or any open source phone unless you literally audit the source and compile the whole stack from source yourself.
However at least we have Apple on record and accountable, and it seems like their actual commercial interests align with their stated policies. Going with them seems like a reasonable risk to take, especially considering how poor we know for a fact most of their competition is in this regard.