To be fair my iPhone spys on me in much more actively creepy ways than my android ever did. Showing ads for nearby pizza places at lunchtime on the homescreen. Telling me at about the time of my son's soccer that I may be interested in going to the place where his soccer is about now (despite me never using navigation on my phone) etc
Not sure where ads for pizza places are coming from, but the suggested maps trips are part of the “Significant Locations” feature. That data is end-to-end encrypted across your devices and is unreadable by Apple. It can be disabled if you don’t want it tracked.
If you have evidence to the contrary, it would make for a great lawsuit. Apple is very explicit that they cannot read it. This data is end-to-end encrypted, much like the data collected by the Health app. They never have the keys to it.
In comparison, Apple also has plenty of your data “encrypted at rest”, where they have the keys (unless you use advanced data protection). That data is only superficially secured. That’s not what this feature uses.
Just to play both sides here, on pixel there is a news feed if you swipe the home screen right. It is now infused with ai summaries rather than the first few lines of the story with no way to go back.
Course, I can switch to a different launcher, but it makes it much less of a "batteries included" sort of product.
Apple is more "here's this refined product which we designated as refined after a heavy session snooting cocaine off a toilet seat"