Apr 5, 2019
How Apple claimed your personal data
What happens in the iPhone stays in the iPhone.
Is it that good?
Apple’s pivot
We have all watched Apple’s presentation and have perfectly caught that its central axle is turning around the safety of the personal data of the users. However, apart from the “What happens in the iPhone stays in the iPhone”, the usage of personal data is now on the foreground. Apple declares, that it is no longer using the materials you’ve watched or your previous decisions in their predictive algorithms. Everything starts from a blank sheet and only you choose what to see, nobody has the right to offer you the content.
Looks like an appealing pivot, isn’t it?
What are the potholes of such an approach as a value proposition of a whole presentation?
To begin with, why would Apple at the current stage of the lifecycle of their infrastructure offer their users anything, if they had already made the decision. Defining the decision as choosing Apple instead of anything else. The company’s offer has always sounded as “we know what’s best for you”, keeping in mind that the pricing policy and united infrastructure are the best motivators for the content consumption, over the predictions and analytics. Obviously, there is no need for predictions as you are independently choosing what is shown and what you’re going to read on your Apple device. All that’s left is to make such an environment that you would use it more and more, over multiple devices. Which is exactly the reason why Apple has announced AppleTV on some models of SmartTV, that aren’t even produced under the Apple trademark.
The real danger isn’t laid upon the personal data, but the person as a whole, and is hidden behind the fact that the manufacturer of your phone, watch and notebook is also becoming the issuer of your credit card and via a wallet is showing you how satisfying it is to be wrapped into the warm and cosy blanket with the apple logo printed on it. Yes, your personal data and preferences are safe, however, this glass jar doesn’t have an exit. All of your data is packed into one infrastructure, which puts everything at risk altogether.
Meanwhile, what about the Google/Alphabet?
Obviously, a reasonable question arises: “What about Google? Isn’t it all the same?”
Yes, Google is also looking to wrap you into their infrastructure, however, it is much more functional and providing mobility (speaking of the Chromebook) with an honest approach to the content creators. (talking of the opportunity for distribution through the sale points). The reality is — Google simply can not create social services by using the influencers and bringing celebrities to promote their products. Remember Waves or Google plus — absolutely reckless attempts to create self-organising and free communities, that are open for criticism and without any bias towards the “good corporation”. Yeah, you can tell that Youtube is a social platform, however, don’t forget that it was bought by Google and is still functioning quite independently.
Google’s real contribution to the global attention for the security of the personal data can hardly be overvalued as the company has created excellent tools for data management, search and so on.
Zuckerberg doesn’t remain silent as well.
You have probably already read Mark Zuckerberg’s «a privacy-focused vision for social networking» material.
In a particular case, we can observe the pursuit of staying on top of the wave of caring about the personal data, however, as it is commonly said — if you want to lie, tell the partial truth.
This is how users react to the Zuckerberg’s words.
Obvious, that the key to the consumer’s hearts in the 21st century is trust.
And it is tightly connected with the responsibilities taken. Every corporation faces the question: How to broadcast the responsibility for the possible problems without scaring the users off, since if you’re talking about problems that can occur — they actually can. Murphy’s law.
Well, let’s leave this dilemma to the corporations. The only thing that is absolutely clear is that all of us on the internet need to pay careful attention to our personal data. Of course, nobody’s thinking of it until they get approached by the big men in black suits with a whole lot of unpleasant questions, however, the time to change that paradigm has come and it’s awesome that the community of Medium is at the avant-garde of such change.
