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by webmobdev 2270 days ago
> I wish people would qualify their “Apple Hate” every time they mention it.

Sure, let me do that: Apple is a corporation and it is stupid to believe that they care more about you than making profits.

This applies to any corporation. I've particularly noticed that the US citizens are increasingly buying into this propaganda that corporations can better protect their rights than a democratically elected government. And that is just sad and dangerous. We should be campaigning for our privacy rights directly with the government, and not just hope that some corporation will act benevolent towards us.

(And it is not a coincidence that this "news" came up in the social media feeds when the [news about exploits that granted unauthorised access to your camera through Safari is going around](https://www.ryanpickren.com/webcam-hacking-overview).)

The issue here is that instead of adding a physical switch to disable the microphone and camera, Apple is again asking its users to blindly trust it. We just have to take their word for it that it will work. They can always blame a bug in the firmware if somebody finds a way to exploit it tomorrow ...

(Note: I mentioned the Safari exploit only to point out that there is some negative news which obviously a corporation would like to bury with some positive publicity. It is commendable that Apple paid the discoverer a nice bounty and will be fixing it soon.)

Edit: And, ofcourse, the downvotes begin as the social media management team steps in.

2 comments

I don't think caring about the user and making profits are mutually exclusive. A company that is interested in delivering what the user wants and needs will often make profit. It's not a case of 'with the user' or 'against the user'.
I think the OP is trying to say that there is no evidence that apple cares about the user, only its own image in the eyes of users.

There is always an antagonistic relationship between buyers and sellers. Buyers want more money for less features, Sellers want more features for less money.

There is no such thing as "with the user", unless the users are shareholders in the company.

I see opinions like this and then see corporations like Costco that you’d have to try hard to find a reason to hate. Ultimately you’re not going to align the interests of different groups perfectly, but profits and competion align value with consumer value we’ll most of the time. And I think it’s fair taking Apple at its word for now— you can bet a lot of tear down people want to test this.