- This is deepen our calculus
about what a good experience is for a customer
and what's healthy for the future
of our industry and the future of the world.
- Okay, so stop me if this isn't the first tech executive
you've heard wax on
about how their product can save the world.
Except this isn't just any tech executive.
This is Apple's Craig Federighi.
He sits right below Apple CEO Tim Cook
on the org chart.
Does Tim Cook really call you Superman?
- Certainly not to my face.
- Okay.
Does he call you Hair Force One?
- Lord no.
(both chuckling)
Usually Craig.
- [Joanna] The software on your iPhone, iPad or Mac,
Federighi oversees the development of it all.
He's got a lot of power
and he's been putting it behind a new privacy feature
called ATT, App Tracking Transparency,
being released today in iOS 14.5.
Apps now have to ask to track you in a popup like this.
Apple only gave me 15 minutes with Mr. Federighi
to talk about the new feature.
- Joanna, am I just a voice or do I have a face?
- So I've got my stopwatch.
I did not trust the Apple Stopwatch app.
I'm going to give you 30 seconds
to explain what App Tracking Transparency is.
- All right, I think I can do it in eight seconds.
- And go.
- App Tracking Transparency gives users the choice
of whether they wanna be tracked across apps and websites.
- 8.69.
- Oh, sorry.
I could do it again faster.
- [Joanna] Well, it's a bit deeper than that.
- It also affects something called the IDFA,
which is an identifier that iOS has had for many years.
- [Joanna] Every iPhone has this unique tracking number
and it's used to track your activity between apps.
So say you're thinking about buying,
I don't know, Craig's blue shirt
in this shopping app.
The shopping app has your unique tracking number.
Then you open your favorite social media app
and what do you know?
A shirt ad.
That's because the two apps shared info using the IDFA.
In iOS 14.5, this number isn't automatically shared.
If you wanna let the app share it,
you'd have to tap Allow here.
- We needed to make sure both
that the user had a clear understanding
of the decision
and that we gave the developer an opportunity
to explain themselves as to the purpose
for which they were potentially asking to track.
And so the developer, of course,
can present messaging even before they ask the system
to prompt the user.
And then they also get a little area
on the panel itself to explain
that they're using this for presenting more effective ads
or whatever the case may be.
- Why the verbiage ask not to track?
Why not just do not track?
- There are other techniques
that developers over time have developed,
like fingerprinting, there's a bit of cat and mouse game
around other ways that an app might scheme
to create a tracking identifier
and it's a policy issue for us
to say you must not do that.
And so we can't ensure at the system level
that they're not tracking.
We can do so at a policy level.
- Will there be any Apple Apps with the ATT popup?
- No, not at this time.
I mean, there's no Apple app or service that tracks.
There's no app that's sharing information
with external data brokers.
No app or service of ours
that is tracking you across other vendors,
apps and websites.
If we ever did do something
that fits the definition of tacking,
we, of course, would have to show that prompt.
- So I wanted to read a quote from Steve Jobs back in 2010.
And he said, "I believe some people."
- Wanna share more data than other people do.
Ask 'em.
Ask 'em every time.
- We the people of the internet,
we're sort of sick of popups.
I don't wanna speak for everyone on the internet
but I think most are.
How did you think about that?
- I share your frustration with sometimes being bombarded
with every website usually telling you
that they're going to track you
with a big blue Accept button
and no real choice at all.
We had to make it a meaningful choice.
And we had to make it a clear choice
and one that had effect
and that I think is in deep contrast
to most of what you see on the internet.
As people get today's update
and begin to launch apps,
they'll see it at first and pretty soon,
this will become a pretty infrequent occurrence,
both because some apps will stop tracking
or maybe never did.
And the apps that you use that do track,
you'll make that decision once
and that'll be it.
- [Joanna] You also have a choice
to turn off all these popups
and completely opt out of any tracking in all apps.
You can go to Settings, Privacy, Tracking
and switch off Allows Apps to Ask to Track.
What will Craig do?
- For me, ask app not to track.
- [Joanna] And well, that's what the industry expects
the majority of people to pick too.
And all sorts of companies,
apps and social media networks
that rely on data for personalized advertising
aren't happy about it.
Facebook specifically has called Apple's move hypocritical
and anti-competitive.
- We've been on this road of improving privacy protections
in our platform really since the beginning of iPhone.
Before that truthfully.
And so we're accustomed to initially some panicked responses
from some quarters.
It wasn't surprising to us I think
to hear that some people were going to push back on this
but at the same thing,
we were completely confident
that it's the right thing to give users a choice here.
- But what's in all of this for Apple?
Is this all altruistic for this trillion dollar company?
How much is privacy factoring into buying decisions?
Do you have a sense of that?
- I don't know.
It's a value that is so deep in us.
Personal information can be used
and abused and even weaponized
in ways that can be really, really destructive,
often in a way that's not at all apparent
to the person who might be giving up that information.
Years ago, people were saying oh, privacy's dead.
Everyone's given up their privacy.
And so we just kept doing it
because to us, regardless of whether it was a selling point
for a phone, we thought it was the right thing.
- A lot of the criticism right now
about Apple is about control.
And that it has too much control,
specifically over its platforms and the App Store.
What's the conversation like right now
amongst you and other top brass at Apple about this?
- Well, I think we've always felt
that customers have a real choice
in terms of what phone they wanna buy,
what ecosystem they wanna be a part of.
And we think we're offering people a choice
to buy into an ecosystem
where there is a degree of curation,
where there is protection for privacy,
where there are certain standards.
We don't think everyone's going to prefer that choice.
- Do you feel like there will need
to be from Apple a lessening of some of the control?
- I don't know.
I feel like we're making the right choices now.
We're always considering the right things primarily
from a customer perspective.
So as long as we're keeping our eye
on that North Star,
I think we feel good about the course we're on.
- And of course,
I had to sneak in a few non-privacy questions.
Wireless charging, corded charging?
- I am primarily a cord guys.
I have enough devices
that it works out for with my stacking arrangements.
- Tim said, I believe it was a couple weeks ago,
that he says that he won't be at Apple for at least
in the next 10 years, he will not stay at Apple
for the next 10 years.
Your name's being floating.
- Insanity.
Yeah, no, that would be irresponsible.
- How's the software going in the mixed reality headset?
- I don't know anything about what you're talking about.
- What do you think of mixed reality?
- I think it's got a lot of potential.
I think it deserves exploration.
- [Joanna] Whatever that next big Apple product looks like,
it's a pretty safe bet that Mr. Federighi
is gonna be pushing hard for privacy in it.
- These devices are so intimately a part
of our lives and contain so much
of what we're thinking and where we've been
and who we've been with
that users deserve
and need control of that information.
Abuses can range from creepy to dangerous.