Apple seems to be going all-in on privacy at #WWDC19. I may be hesitant about their design and engineering decisions lately (macbook keyboards, Marzipan, etc.) but baking privacy into the OS foundations trumps that handily.
@baldur at first blush I feel good about it -- but also begin to worry about crazy lock-in driven by this privacy focus. What happens when you have used apple id to authenticate with an outside service and for some reason need to pivot outside of the Apple ecosystem? Yes privacy is wicked important, but is it also being weaponized a little bit?
@eli This is true. But in terms of my personal priorities (YMMV) the ability to silo less important accounts at services that I trust less is more important than the lock-in. Especially given that most, if not all, of the usable alternatives leverage my private data for their profit and have their own systems of lock-in. (Like what Google is doing with Gmail, GDocs, etc.)
At least on Apple's systems you have the option to reach for those anonymised sign-in methods when you need them.
@baldur that makes a lot of sense -- perhaps it is being weaponized, but not really against the user, but these other folks already using your data. Now they'll just know you as "iOS user." Great point!
@baldur It’s the language that Apple uses that is also pleasing. In contrast, when you listen to Zuckerberg, he says things like, ‘Privacy is important to our users now’. It is not just now; it has always been the case. Apple approaches it as a crucial value and selling point.
@martinfeld Yeah, it seems to be a genuine reflection of the company culture, which in turn seems to be reflected in the features that are being implemented.