[wcfrobert]

Apple's commitment to privacy and security is really cool to see. It's also an amazing strategic play that they are uniquely in the position to take advantage of. Google and Meta can't commit to privacy because they need to show you ads, whereas Apple feels more like a hardware company to me.

[jtbayly]

modeless linked to this article earlier today:

https://james.darpinian.com/blog/apple-imessage-encryption/

My current understanding of the facts:

1. Google defaults to encrypted backups of messages, as well as e2e encryption of messages.

2. Apple defaults only to e2ee of messages, leaving a massive backdoor.

3. Closing that backdoor is possible for the consumer, by enabling ADP (advanced data protection) on your device. However, this makes no difference, since 99.9% of the people you communicate will not close the backdoor. Thus, the only way to live is to assume that all the messages you send via iMessage will always be accessible to Apple, no matter what you do.

It's not like overall I think Google is better for privacy than Apple, but this choice by Apple is really at odds with their supposed emphasis on privacy.

[indemnity]

Enabling ADP breaks all kinds of things in Apple’s ecosystem subtly with incredibly arcane errors.

I was unable to use Apple Fitness+ on my TV due to it telling me my Watch couldn’t pair with the TV.

The problem went away when turning off ADP.

To turn off ADP required opening a support case with Apple which took three weeks to resolve, before this an attempt to turn off would just fail with no detailed error.

Other things like iCloud on the web were disabled with ADP on.

I just wanted encrypted backups, that was it.

[Angostura]

That chimes roughly with my experience, but to be fair ADP is designed not just for encrypted backups, but to harden the ecosystem for people who may be under the greatest threat. Worth noting that it has been outlawed in the UK and cannot be enabled, which makes me think it's pretty decent

[traceroute66]

> Worth noting that it has been outlawed in the UK and cannot be enabled

For the record, there is an ongoing court battle between Apple and UK government about getting it overturned.

Which also says many positive things for Apple that they are willing to put their money where their mouth is and put up a fight.

[jmaker]

And that’s a significant PR and marketing posture for Apple.

[mvandermeulen]

You wouldn’t happen to work in North Norfolk would you?

[int_19h]

FWIW I've been running ADP for over a year now, and so far I haven't noticed any problems.

iCloud on the web not being available is kind of expected; how would it work with E2EE?

[blueone]

Huh, that’s crazy because ADP doesn’t break anything for me. Then again, I’m not trying to connect an Apple Watch to a tv. What a simple life I live.

[miki123211]

Apple's other emphasis is customer experience, and there are more "I forgot my code, help me recover my stuff" people than you can imagine.

It would be bad PR for Apple if everybody constantly kept losing their messages because they had no way to get back into their account.

[jtbayly]

You think there are fewer people who forget using Google devices? I don’t it. The article talks about how Google prevents that from happening.

[lxgr]

That’s all fine, but then show the sender whether their connection is actually end to end encrypted, or whether all their messages end up in Apple’s effective control.

One might consider differently colored chat message bubbles… :)

[dd8601fn]

ADP isn’t the default, and almost nobody who isn’t a journalist/activist/potential target turns it on, because of the serious (potentially destructive) consequences.

How does Google manage this, such every normie on earth isn’t freaking out?

[buckle8017]

Nobody expects their text messages to be backed up.

They get deleted and people shrug.

[weikju]

Or IOW, Googles solution affects only messages. Apple’s solution affects your whole digital life so the consequences are a lot more dire.

[trympet]

> Apple’s solution affects your whole digital life

I don’t know if that’s generally true. I could lose my apple account and not really give a a damn. Not that I see how such a thing would happen, save for apple burning down all their datacenters. I’m running ADP

[deafpolygon]

Google’s solution also ensures that they know all the metadata of your messages, except the content of the message itself.

[jmaker]

Apple too collects unencrypted metadata but now promises to reduce its scope.

[weikju]

How convenient...... indeed

[saagarjha]

I keep my messages and would like them to not go away.

[trympet]

Why?

[saagarjha]

I reference them every so often

[trympet]

> because of the serious (potentially destructive) consequences

Huh? What are you talking about? I don’t see anything destructive about it.

[LoganDark]

People don't always have enough Apple devices to justify confidence that they couldn't lose them all at the same time, which with ADP is a permanent death sentence if you don't have your recovery key.

(Apple says you can also use a device passcode; I'm not sure if this works if the device is lost. Maybe it does?)

[trympet]

I have 2 or 3 yubikeys associated with my account. I think apple does a decent job at communicating the importance of having recovery keys to the point where they deter those who can’t be bothered.

Yubikeys are great

[LoganDark]

I'm always put off by the incredibly low limits on yubikeys. What's the point of having a security key if you can only have 25 accounts in its lifetime? What are you supposed to do, buy tons of keys and then figure out a system to remember which key each account is? Like fucking hell just let me use passkeys in iCloud Keychain. My bank's mobile app specifically supports only security keys and explicitly not passkeys for literally no reason because passkeys are practically just as secure as any security key. It's actually harder to specifically exclude passkeys and allow only security keys than it is to just use passkeys which automatically include security keys.

[eddyg]

I still like to encourage people to watch all of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLGFriOKz6U&t=1993s for the details (from Apple’s head of Security Engineering and Architecture) about how iCloud is protected by HSMs, rate limits, etc. but especially the timelinked section. :)

[bigyabai]

I still recommend Mr. Fart's Favorite Colors as a refutation, describing why all of these precautions cannot protect you in a real-world security model: https://medium.com/@blakeross/mr-fart-s-favorite-colors-3177...

  Unbreakable phones are coming. We’ll have to decide who controls the cockpit: The captain? Or the cabin?

[eddyg]

Krstić: “Here’s how we reduce the chance that even Apple can access or alter X, and here’s how we can make that credible.”

Ross: “Even if you make X cryptographically airtight, the real fight becomes political/physical coercion: ‘ship this or else.’”

Those can both be true at the same time.

[Thorrez]

I don't understand.

That article (written in 2016) says that Apple will build unbreakable phones in the future. Now is the future. So it seems to imply that Apple phones today are unbreakable.

Also, where does the article discuss "all of these protections"? (HSMs, rate limits, etc.)

[bigyabai]

> So it seems to imply that Apple phones today are unbreakable.

Indeed. If you don't control the "unbreakable" security though, then the lock is not for your benefit.

> where does the article discuss "all of these protections"?

You could read the danged article, it's pretty clear about the vulnerability of proprietary mitigations. I hate quoting spoilers verbatim but here you go:

  The sharper you get, the more important the work. But the more valuable the work, the craftier — and more determined — your adversaries. Every attack is more novel than the last. [...] By the time you land an engineering gig at Apple, you are a twitchy, tinfoily mess.

  And it is in this spirit that you develop one of the most secure systems the world has ever known. [...] So adversaries be damned: You finally win on the merits. But who said anything about meritocracy? During the champagne toast, Mr. Fart steps from behind the curtain and pulls the pistol of last resort:

  “Don’t ship this. Or else.”

[Thorrez]

That quote is about building security vs not building security. It's about the government potentially ordering Apple to not build security. It's not about proprietary security vs non-proprietary.

Nothing in the article is saying that HSMs, rate limits, etc are weak.

[jmaker]

Can someone explain what the real difference is to a consumer user between an iPhone and a Pixel or a Samsung device? Across all services, push notifications, and device backups.

Both promise security, Apple promises some degree of privacy. Google stores your encryption keys, and so does Apple unless you opt in for ADP.

Is it similar to Facebook Messenger (encrypted in transit and at rest but Meta can read it) and Telegram (keys owned by Telegram unless you start a private chat)?

There are things Pixels do that iPhones don’t, e.g., you get notified when a local cell tower picks your IMEI. I mean it’s meaningless since they all do it, but you can also enable a higher level of security to avoid 2G. Not sure it’s meaningful but it’s a nice to have.

[isoprophlex]

Some of these companies don't make money from you, the end user, but by selling ads and data to more effectively deliver said ads.

Differences in capabilities, experience and implementation are all downstream from that. In other words, everyone pays lip service to privacy and security, but it's very difficult to believe that parties like Meta or Google are actually being honest with you. The incentives just aren't there.

With Apple, you get to fork over your wallet, but at least you seem the be primarily the user they've got to provide services to.

With Google/Meta, you're a sucker to bleed dry.

[jmaker]

I think there’s also a topology chasm at play. Apple controls most of its hardware stack, with Qualcomm modems and Samsung displays, but the SoC is now Apple’s own. Google relies on rotating third parties to assemble the Pixels, hence poor QC. Samsung makes its own Exynos modems which they don’t dog-food and like Apple rely on Qualcomm instead, while Google still depends on Exynos.

Then there’s a big disparity across all Android hardware vendors. Google must cater to that more or less federated topology of Android devices. It’s much harder.

Yet I don’t see any technical blocker for an opt-in for an Apple-grade ADP in Pixels and Galaxies.

It’s all quite weird. Even with Google Passwords, how do I know that it’s E2EE if I can unlock it from a browser with just a device PIN? Lots of loopholes.

[isoprophlex]

Addendum: this just in. Apple has much more to lose if they pull something like this; for meta, news like this... barely registers? At least I'm not surprised at all

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/31/us-author...

[tpolzer]

Apple, Samsung and Google all earn money from ads on your phone, just with different monetization pathways.

[JKCalhoun]

My understanding though is that the monetization pathways for Samsung and Google are 3rd party—Apple keeps your data to itself.

[tpolzer]

Apple sends your searches to Google for money. I would call search queries data?

[jmaker]

I wonder how exactly Apple Intelligence works with ChatGPT and soon with Gemini. If I remember correctly, there’s no privacy there? If so, where’s the privacy boundary in Apple Intelligence?

Google pushes Gemini everywhere and wants to keep on to your interactions, with human reviews. While I applaud the transparency, having Gemini scrape my screen makes me uneasy. My frog’s not warm enough for that, yet.

And Gemini in Sheets and Docs is just a toy. Microsoft 365 Copilot is a step ahead but is wrong more often than not, at least from my interactions with them. Both very disappointing. No way to justify access to my personal or my company’s or clients’ information.

Apple promises something they call Secure Compute or so, don’t remember the exact name, which appears to be encrypted and randomized in their cloud compute, which is off-device. With iPhone being the most powerful to date (per GeekBench), Tensor Pixels will have to offload most of the edge compute to GCP, and Snapdragon Samsungs while being powerful (I have no idea but would assume) must follow the Pixel Android approach.

So AI features will exfiltrate even more personal information, occasionally, accidentally, or purposefully, and the user would have consented to that and the human reviews just to get access to the smart features.

[traceroute66]

> Apple sends your searches to Google for money. I would call search queries data?

Yawn. Changing your default search engine takes 5 seconds.

[jmaker]

I think AdSense is still an Alphabet subsidiary?

[bossyTeacher]

> Can someone explain what the real difference is to a consumer user between an iPhone and a Pixel or a Samsung device? Across all services, push notifications, and device backups.

By default, Apple offers you at no charge: email aliases, private relay, Ask No Track barrier. These are just the ones I can think of right now. I am sure there are more. A big thing with Apple is not that they offer different privacy services but they make it EASY and SEAMLESS to use. No other company comes close.

[jmaker]

Aren’t they part of iCloud+ only? Ask no-track can arguably compromise your privacy by fingerprinting.

I agree that the privacy controls on Apple systems are well-organized.

Still, it’s more important to have confidence that the privacy services are not smoke and mirrors with carefully carved-out loopholes. It’s one thing to provide something and hold the competitor as the litmus test, the other to sustainably live up to your promises, like the now pejorative “do no evil” slogan, with retroactive ramifications. There’s really little users can effectively validate about Apple’s privacy promises.

[jcgl]

Email relay at least is available to me, a non-iCloud user.

[traceroute66]

> Apple promises some degree of privacy.

Apple also makes it easier to achieve that privacy:

    - They put all the privacy controls in one place in Settings so you can audit
    - App developers are mandated to publish what they collect when publishing apps to the App Store.

[jmaker]

> - They put all the privacy controls in one place in Settings so you can audit

That’s true. On Pixel Android, there’s several unrelated places in the various settings for the device and for the Google account to take care of and see that they do not collide. And for every function there’s always some sort of small print like “it’s all private to you unless you choose to share” - but to use any of the features/services you have to “share” like with Google Photos and Calendar and Tasks, you lose track of what you share with whom in the end. So essentially not only the metadata is collected but also the content and nothing’s private as a result, at least that’s what I got to understand. And even if you ask Google to delete your personal information, it will retain it for a while for compliance purposes.

As for

> - App developers are mandated to publish what they collect when publishing apps to the App Store.

I believe that’s still moot and rather a voluntary disclosure that no one vets. I’ve seen apps with no collection stated on App Store but deviating privacy policies, or app functions that contradicted their own privacy policy.

From what I heard and read, I understood that as a well-meant idea but still a misconception on the consumer part due to lack of enforcement by Apple.

[traceroute66]

> From what I heard and read, I understood that as a well-meant idea but still a misconception on the consumer part due to lack of enforcement by Apple.

I'm not familiar with the detail so I cannot comment directly on what you are saying. I don't have the time to go read up on it right now.

But what I would say is that many aspects will be indirectly enforced by Apple (and can be audited/enforced by the user) through the privacy controls (location services, microphone, camera etc.). Clearly that does not cover everything, but it covers a large chunk.

Apple have also made it impossible to for example get a device-level ID, you can only get an app-level pseudo-device-id. So there are various code-level enforcements too.

[jmaker]

Is it different with Google Play?

[derbOac]

It's all tempered by them ultimately controlling what you can put on your phone though.

As was demonstrated in LA, it's starting to have significant civil rights consequences.

[throwaway290]

Security is pointless if platform allows 90% users to be social engineered into running code disabling that security

[bigstrat2003]

The ability for people to do stupid things is the inescapable price of freedom. That does not make freedom not worth it.

[derbOac]

What's funny is you could read that statement as being an argument for or against walled gardens, depending on what kind of social engineering is being referred to.

[throwaway290]

Also depending on whether review process is going to catch the bad code...

[nozzlegear]

What happened in LA?

[derbOac]

https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/03/tech/iceblock-apple-removed-t...

[nozzlegear]

I forgot about that and hadn't tied it to LA specifically in my head. Thanks for reminding me, really shitty thing that made me a lot more sympathetic to alternative app stores where I'd been against them before.

[ioasuncvinvaer]

Apple is an ad company now though

[shepherdjerred]

Apple's ad revenue was 1% of its total in 2024. It was estimated to be 2-3% in 2025.

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/fy2024-q4/FY24_Q4_Consol...

https://www.macrumors.com/2025/10/30/apple-4q-2025-earnings/

[raw_anon_1111]

Their net profit was a little over $100 billion last fiscal year. They get $20 Billion+ in pure profit from Google being their default search engine.

That’s 20% of their profit

[nozzlegear]

Google paying Apple to be the default search engine is not the same as Apple selling $20 billion worth of ads to track you.

[raw_anon_1111]

Google isn’t just paying Apple $20 billion, it’s based on click throughs on ads in Safari. Apple is very much getting paid based on the ad economy.

[nozzlegear]

But it still isn't Apple doing the tracking or receiving the data about your Google searches. They aren't Apple's ads, they're Google's ads.

[jojobas]

Yes it is.

[nozzlegear]

Is this what you consider discourse? At least justify your position, don't shit out some drive-by popular opinion that I can't even begin to respond to.

[lern_too_spel]

The point is that Apple will make money any way that it can, including ads. That's why iOS privacy is worse than its competitors. You can't install an app without telling Apple because if you could, Apple wouldn't be able to monetize you as well. You can't get your location without also telling Apple because if you could, Apple wouldn't be able to build its location services as easily. No such problems on Android.

[baxtr]

Apple sells some ads yes. But it’s a tiny fraction of their revenue.

Would Google or Meta go bankrupt if they stopped selling ads? Yes. Apple wouldn’t.

[raw_anon_1111]

As long as you don’t count the $25 billion that Apple gets from Google.

[mediumsmart]

I was wondering why Apple bought an identity clone patent that would wreck targeted ads and never used it. Maybe it’s a $25 billion insurance policy.

[JKCalhoun]

Are you suggesting that is what is keeping Apple afloat?

[raw_anon_1111]

No. But guess how much their stock would drop if one quarter they lost 20% of their profit?

[JKCalhoun]

No doubt.

[bigyabai]

Apple would go bankrupt without US protectionist policy propping up their service revenue.

That's pretty bad. Maybe not "reliant on ad monopoly" bad, but pretty close.

[nozzlegear]

That seems like a stretch. Even in Europe where people can choose to use different app stores, few people actually do. So few, in fact, that one of the alternative app stores recently shut down.

Have you considered that people just like Apple's products and services?

[porcoda]

In their revenue report this week out of $140B, services made up 30B. 140B-30B = 110B. Thats pretty far from bankruptcy.

[baxtr]

And that was just one quarter…

[bigyabai]

Run 12 quarters, for all I care. Service revenue accounts for more than 50% of Apple's YoY revenue growth: https://www.statista.com/chart/14629/apple-services-revenue/

Hardware sales aren't picking up the slack, and advertisement revenue is also following a growth trend. Apple's stock would indeed be cooked if they went balls-out against the government that guarantees them access to cheap hardware and software that has been declared illegally anti competitive by foreign sovereigns. Apple needs this.

[manuelabeledo]

Elaborate? Financial results say otherwise.

[avazhi]

What does whether they’d go bankrupt or not have to do with whether they’re an ad company?

They sell third party ads: companies unaffiliated with Apple pay Apple to advertise on Apple platforms.

They’re an ad company. Just because it’s currently a small slice of their total revenue doesn’t make it untrue.

[anon7000]

What matters is that the parent comment said “Apple is an ad company now,” as if that negated all the privacy and security stuff they do.

Making some cash on ads doesn’t have to rely on targeted tracking. That only matters if ads are an existential part of your business, and without huge ad revenue growth, your company is dead.

[manuelabeledo]

I guess it’s also a financial company, since they have a branded credit card?

[baxtr]

I mean if you don’t care about details that’s fine I guess. Let’s call any company that sells and/or buys any amount of ads an "ad company". Let’s put them all into one bucket and judge. That’s super valuable.

[Noaidi]

That people fall for this corporate BS while Tim Cook is giving gold bars to Trump and dining and dancing with him When people are being murdered on the streets by ice is just amazing to me.

[OGEnthusiast]

Well that’s what Americans voted for. So I don’t think anyone cares that every CEO (definitely not just Tim Cook) is schmoozing with Trump.

[bigyabai]

> Well that’s what Americans voted for.

Americans are not one person.

> So I don’t think anyone cares

Clearly they do.

> every CEO (definitely not just Tim Cook) is schmoozing with Trump.

Tim Cook was (supposedly) principled. I guess it's hard to pretend that you care about privacy or human rights while eating dinner next to bin Salman.

[OGEnthusiast]

> Tim Cook was (supposedly) principled. I guess it's hard to pretend that you care about privacy or human rights while eating dinner next to bin Salman.

I guess if you thought he had principles then yeah that could be disappointing. Personally I've never tried to moralize corporations though, I just assume the only principle that every company and CEO operates by is whatever increases the stock price.

[pjmlp]

And me thinking company values actually meant something in all those trainings. /s

[Noaidi]

Funny that you think that people have free will under this zombie social media mind controlled Internet world we’re living in.

Besides Trump‘s approval ratings are worse than ever so I don’t think people really got what they wanted, they got who they voted for not what they voted for.

[n8cpdx]

The Twinkie defense is alive and well, I see.

[bambax]

Yeah Americans voted for Trump. But that shouldn't prevent CEOs to show a spine. Tim Cook is no different from all the others, therefore Apple doesn't deserve any less contempt from us.

[raw_anon_1111]

I still like their hardware. But let’s not pretend that there is any part of Trump’s body that he won’t kiss and sell out his customers for. If Trump asked Cook to put a backdoor in iPhones or impose tariffs on Apple, Cook would do it in a minute

[JKCalhoun]

My Mother Night hope is that Cook publicly shows obsequiousness only so that in private he can hold the line on backdoors, etc.

I know, I'm living in a fantasy world in my head.

[nozzlegear]

Cook couldn't personally put that backdoor in himself though. There would (presumably) be Apple employees who would blow the whistle if they received such a command.

[raw_anon_1111]

In today’s market? You see how many tech workers have shut up about protesting every little thing inside large companies with all of the layoffs happening?

I have been cocky for 30 heads with the thought that I could always find a job quickly - and have even in 2023 (3 offers within 2 weeks) after being Amazoned and in 2024 (just replied to one recruiter the day after a layoff). But even I shut up and keep my head down these days. As long as we ain’t killing kids, I am not saying anything.

[nozzlegear]

That's a good point. I'm lucky enough to be self employed, and I tell myself that if I were ever in the position to blow the whistle at a corporate or government job I'd do it in a heartbeat. But what we tell ourselves in our head and what we do when our family's livelihood is on the line aren't always the same.

[int_19h]

> As long as we ain’t killing kids

Even that level of non-involvement is getting increasingly difficult with anything Big Tech given their IDF involvement, although Apple might just be a rare exception.

[epolanski]

I claim bs at this whole apple privacy thing, nothing but propaganda.

Two years ago I was locked out of my MacBook pro.

Then I just booted in some recovery mode and just..reset the password!?

Sure macos logged me off from (most) apps and website, but every single file was there unencrypted!

I swear people that keep boasting that whole apple privacy thing have absolutely no clue what they are talking about, nothing short of tech illiterate charlatans. But God the propaganda works.

And don't start me on iMessage.

[n8cpdx]

You chose not to enable FileVault during setup. Probably because you were worried about being locked out and wanted an easy way to reset the password.

Would you prefer that Apple did not give you the option to disable the security feature you disabled during setup?

[epolanski]

Ain't nobody paying attention, in any case it's still propaganda.

[fsflover]

Giving all your private data to Apple is not "privacy and security", https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39927657

[dangus]

Apple has ads. See the App Store, Apple Maps is also planning to roll out advertising.

[bigyabai]

You know what's even cooler? Apple's commitment to hiding US federally-mandated backdoors for dragnet surveillance: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-...

  Apple has since confirmed in a statement provided to Ars that the US federal government “prohibited” the company “from sharing any information,” but now that Wyden has outed the feds, Apple has updated its transparency reporting and will “detail these kinds of requests” in a separate section on push notifications in its next report.

[isodev]

> Apple's commitment to privacy

We know now that it was all marketing talk. Apple didn’t like Meta so they spun a bunch of obstacles. Apple has and would use your data for ads, models and anything that keeps the shareholders happy. And we don’t know the half of the story where as a US corp, they’re technically obliged to share data from the not-E2EE iCloud syncs of every iPhone.

[astrange]

> Apple has and would use your data for ads, models and anything that keeps the shareholders happy.

Illegal to do this in (at least) the EU, California and China.