As someone who bought an iPhone specifically for privacy reasons, I'm not really upset about this. What I'm concerned about is passive, mass-scale corporate surveillance, not a one-off bug that allows an individual with mal-intent to listen through my microphone for a few seconds and also let me know about it.
Are you able to root an iPhone or use one without signing in with an Apple account (that's tied to a credit card, etc)? If not, then I believe the devices are still very much part of a mass-scale corporate surveillance network.
You can root, but it's security-suicide because the OS' security model isn't designed for that.
> or use one without signing in with an Apple account
Technically yes, although you couldn't download any apps so you really don't want to.
> If not, then I believe the devices are still very much part of a mass-scale corporate surveillance network.
What I always tell people is to look at the economic incentives. Apple makes the vast majority of its money from paying customers, not advertisers, so it has less use for big data. It has also invested huge amounts of money in marketing itself as a champion of privacy, a key diversifier from its competitors. If it tried to do some shady data-gathering, it would have relatively little to gain and everything to lose when that inevitably leaked. Apple usually can't even keep the next iPhone a secret; there's no way they could conceal a massive conspiracy to secretly collect data on customers. And if they did, and it became public knowledge, their sales would go down the tube. It's just bad business. I don't trust any corporation to do what's right out of the goodness of their hearts, but I certainly trust them to do what's best for business.
Well, that's a plain and simple lie, since you can't download apps from the App Store without an Apple account, nor do I believe you can install software updates.
I haven't tried in a while, but last I checked, updates worked fine.
It's not necessary to download apps from the App Store to use an iPhone.
I'm not sure what was the need for you to call me a liar. If anything I've said is inaccurate, I guess it has changed in the last few months, and I would love to know that.
