[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]

That’s true, though I wish Apple gave me the freedom to define a new search engine, beyond the small provided selection.

[fsflover]

How many people do you think actually do it?

[jmaker]

I think AdSense is still an Alphabet subsidiary?