| ▲ | Brendinooo 3 hours ago |
| >It's mind-blowing how one of the most advanced technology forums on the internet can take privacy for granted that's not what I did > just because the marketing not just because of the marketing > of a for-profit corporation with previous histories of privacy violations (there's even lawsuits) claims their closed source device connected 24/7 to the internet, is private. in other words, they are being watched and held accountable when they do screw up, which obviates a lot of the "well maybe they're stealing your data and we don't know about it" nonsense elsewhere in the replies. I'll ask something specific: We know that Rokus and built-in smart TVs are actively tracking and monetizing everything you do on your television. People can prove this by looking at what calls are made on your network. Does Apple do the same thing? |
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| ▲ | halJordan 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Apple literally does do the same thing. Especially (!) with Apple TV. Go read the eula's again. Apple TV, Apple Maps & Apple News all perform data mining largely akin to how their competitors do it. There are specific carve outs for those three services. |
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| ▲ | Brendinooo 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | A quick search suggests that Roku does ~380 network requests per hour. LG smart TVs running webOS typically generate regular hourly background checks, plus periodic or continuous telemetry and Automatic Content Recognition requests. Does Apple TV even do ACR in any form? Is it scanning my network and phoning home about it? | | |
| ▲ | halJordan 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Ah nice. You know Apple literally invented Bonjour and mDNS? They know what's on your network. The only difference is that we applaud them for it. Does the apple tv do acr? It has to, to do the first party "magic" it does. Again, we just applaud them for it because they "only use it for first party services." Why are you so offended that Apple is just another for profit megacorp. | | |
| ▲ | CharlesW 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Does the apple tv do acr? It has to, to do the first party "magic" it does. You're just making stuff up. Apple TV does not do ACR. Apple does provide a TV App API that allows select app developers to get a special entitlement allowing them to contribute viewing data. Read this carefully: https://developer.apple.com/support/terms/apple-developer-pr... "Apple will obtain user consent based on the user’s Apple Account before including Your Licensed Application in the TV App Features displayed under that Apple Account. Apple will also provide users with the ability to withdraw such consent at any time thereafter and to delete their TV App Data from Apple’s systems." | |
| ▲ | HelloMcFly 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Does the apple tv do acr? It has to, to do the first party "magic" it does. I'm sorry, you're stating this like some obvious fact. Apple has previously said this is not the case and they do not do ACR. The Apple TV is the only Apple device I have, so you can set aside any reflexive critiques of my brand loyalty. What is your precise claim? Why am I a dullard for reading that Apple TV does not use ACR and believing it? The entire reason I bought an Apple TV was to reduce the amount of data skimming happening in the background and ads being shoved in front of my face in the foreground, it's not like I'm lousy with options. | |
| ▲ | andylynch 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It’s quite a take to make lan sharing some kind of grand conspiracy. Is LAN manager sus too? | |
| ▲ | kakacik 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I just cant have a rational discussion with apple folks. Not here, not anywhere else. Its emotions and double values all way down. For profit org that has its personalized ad part of business growing massively, is scanning all your photos, gives all data to NSA like there is no tomorrow is somehow better, becase carefully crafted PR said so. Especially if one is not US citizen, or multinational, or US citizen not on US soil, and so on. They make great, hard vendor-locked hardware and mediocre software. Lets keep them at that and not some magical privacy champions when they are not, not where it actually matters. | | |
| ▲ | zapzupnz 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > I just cant have a rational discussion with apple folks. Not here, not anywhere else. Its emotions and double values all way down. Your post doesn't sound any different, what with the tarring a group of people with the same brush. You've decided that your feelings about a type of company trump anybody else's opinions about a particular company. With a fairly derisive tone, at that. |
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| ▲ | eli an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Unlike their competitors, Apple does not do Automatic Content Recognition (ACR). That matters to me. | |
| ▲ | neya 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Apple literally does do the same thing. ... all perform data mining largely akin to how their competitors do it. Funny how the OP carefully skimmed this part out in their reply, but BINGO, I think this is the attitude we should have towards privacy. Sometimes I just feel like we're talking to a bunch of bots on here when it comes to privacy with their blind support towards for-profit corporations that doesn't give a shit about them. | | |
| ▲ | Brendinooo 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > the OP carefully skimmed this part out lol >we're talking to a bunch of bots on here Ah. Okay. In a different tenor of conversation I'd be happy to clarify but...not when I'm up against this. |
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| ▲ | andsoitis 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The distortion field is powerful. Keep the firewall of skepticism high. |
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| ▲ | Brendinooo 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | What is a better solution here? What is something that lets me stream from the major services, has a good-enough remote, and doesn't require any fiddling on my part? I've always seen Apple TV as the least-bad option compared to Roku/Fire/whatever Google is doing these days/literally any built-in solution. | | |
| ▲ | neya 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > I've always seen Apple TV as the least-bad option compared to Roku If this was your original statement, I think we all would be on your side - I even use an Apple TV 4k personally and love it. It definitely is the best in the market for what it does. > it's the one box I can (reasonably) trust to not be mining my viewing habits for data. Instead, you framed it as the only privacy-friendly option and that is logically and factually incorrect. | | |
| ▲ | Brendinooo 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think you read a bunch into my stuff and then responded to the arguments you thought I was making, then accused me of craftily dodging things, then implied I was a bot. |
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| ▲ | andsoitis 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I think it depends on what you prioritize. I have an Apple TV, but also LG and Samsung smart TVs as well as Google TV Streamer. They come with different tradeoffs wrt price, A/V quality, user interface, privacy, etc. For me, the #1 thing is A/V quality. I don’t care about price, but most people do. | | |
| ▲ | Brendinooo 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | I want something that's capable, not fiddly, and reasonably respects my privacy. I haven't found a better product in this segment yet. |
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| ▲ | derefr 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I believe you could buy a random Android streaming box with an unlocked bootloader, and then install LineageOS on it. Not sure about the “streams from all the major services” part re: LineageOS, but last I heard it’s improving. (There are also some boxes made specifically for this, usually sold as development platforms for STB products, marketed based on what SoC they contain. Though they’ll tend to be $200, while the random “finished product” streaming box will be more like $30. Both come with decent remotes.) | | |
| ▲ | kybernetikos 38 minutes ago | parent [-] | | LineageOS on a cheap box will be L3 widevine, and fail play integrity, which means netflix and a bunch of other streaming apps won't even install. Even if you can get them to install, the L3 will stop you from viewing Prime, Disney+ or other similar services at anything better than SD. I'm also interested in alternatives, but LineageOS on a cheap box isn't really one. |
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| ▲ | colordrops 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > I can (reasonably) trust to not be mining my viewing habits for data That's precisely what you did. |
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| ▲ | steele 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| One of the products you mentioned is named Home View. It's right there. Both new SKUs ship with their voice assistant interface to Google Gemini (and friends) in an environment where memory and storage availability is being monopolized by cloud infrastructure. |
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| ▲ | neya 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > Does Apple do the same thing? Yes, they did: https://www.reuters.com/legal/apple-pay-95-million-settle-si... Apple routinely recorded their private conversations after they activated Siri unintentionally, and disclosed these conversations to third parties such as advertisers.
Can you prove they aren't actively doing it now?edit: link |
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| ▲ | matwood 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-clarifies-siri-priv... "Apple has never used Siri data to build marketing profiles, never made it available for advertising, and never sold it to anyone for any purpose," Apple said on Wednesday. Unintentionally activating Siri and then recording is very different from the active listening things going on. Shared with advertisers was speculation. | | |
| ▲ | neya 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | A billion dollar company's public statement defending itself of a crime it was accused of committing and is sued for, is the source of truth now and what it was actually accused of doing is considered speculation? Sure. | | |
| ▲ | Brendinooo 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Since you clearly know something the rest of the world's regulators do not, you should file a multi-billion lawsuit and get your money. | | |
| ▲ | neya 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Since you clearly know something the rest of the world's regulators do not, you should get an unpaid employee of the year award and get your money. Again, you don't know they aren't doing any of these privacy violations again right now. You are just vomiting their marketing BS again and again "Apple means privacy". Historically their shady acts weren't discovered until much later - battery gate, siri lawsuit, etc. You're starting on personal attacks and sounding more like a bot, so I'm going to stop here. | | |
| ▲ | zapzupnz 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > You're starting on personal attacks and then > and sounding more like a bot Pot, kettle, etc. Per HN guidelines: "Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes." |
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| ▲ | Brendinooo 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | >Yes, they did This has nothing to do with the specific question I asked, and I'm not sure why you'd think so unless Roku has some kind of Siri-like feature (which wasn't what I was intending when I asked regardless). (also, that's a dead link) | | |
| ▲ | neya 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | You did mention "monetizing everything you do (on your television)", my answer was for that part. Again, my question to you is - it's closed source, do you have proof they aren't actually doing it? Or are you going to wait for another half a decade for another lawsuit to find out? My point is, it's a for-profit corporation. And a really efficient one. They don't care about anyone's privacy or anything else. Only profits. History has proof - battery gate, siri lawsuit, etc. | | |
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