Apple is known for having a user base that’s very loyal and enthusiastic about their products.
But there is an equally enthusiastic hatred toward Apple from other people in the tech
community, who have trouble understanding why anyone would choose Apple devices over
their competitors.
And in this video I’m going to give you the #1 reason why you should be using Apple
products over anything else, and it’s a reason I think should be discussed a lot more
often.
This is Greg with Apple Explained and if you want to help decide which video topics I cover,
make sure you’re subscribed and these voting polls will show up in your mobile activity
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So what is the the #1 reason to use Apple products?
Could it be their beautiful industrial design?
Their approachable user interface?
Their optimized operating systems?
Or perhaps their seamless user experience?
In my opinion, those are all legitimate advantages of Apple products, but there’s one huge
reason that’s rarely mentioned by news outlets or users themselves.
And that is privacy.
Apple has maintained such an uncompromising stance on privacy, that it actually led to
a lawsuit from the US Justice Department.
Now we’ll talk more about that later, because I want to begin by acknowledging a question
most of you are probably thinking.
Which is, “why does privacy even matter?”
After all, it appears the importance of privacy is declining these days.
With social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, people are comfortable sharing
more of their data to the public than ever before.
In fact, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg had this to say on the subject, “People have
really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but
more openly and with more people.
That social norm is just something that has evolved over time.”
And while I think that’s true, I don’t think it suggests privacy isn’t important.
Individuals can choose to make as much about themselves public as they want.
It’s how their data is used that becomes deceptive.
If I share my email address, work location, and personal interests with facebook, it’s
because I want my friends on the platform to have access to that information.
Not because I want Facebook to sell it to companies in exchange for targeted ads.
But it isn’t just Facebook who engages in this practice.
The Cambridge Analytica scandal revealed Amazon and Google also collect huge amounts of data
on their users to sell to advertisers.
And it’s easy to understand why.
The business of selling user data is very lucrative.
That’s why Facebook has grown into a $138 billion dollar company without selling any
hardware or premium services.
And as you’ve probably heard before, if you’re not paying for a product, you likely
are the product.
But despite these privacy violations, we continue to use services from Facebook, Amazon and
Google.
Likely because the vast majority of us don’t even know these privacy violations are happening.
Typically, companies do disclose this information, but it’s often buried in their terms and
conditions which very few people actually read.
In fact, your right to privacy is violated by simply browsing the web.
Since your internet service provider and government agencies can see what websites you visit and
are likely logging that information on their systems.
That’s why many people, myself included, use services like NordVPN when browsing the
internet.
VPNs act as a kind’ve virtual invisibility cloak that mask internet behavior from ISPs
by encrypting internet data and shielding your location from websites.
And this leads me to a question I hear a lot when arguing in support of digital privacy.
And that is, “why should I care about privacy if I have nothing to hide?”
And the answer is, privacy isn’t about hiding something because you’ve broken the law.
Privacy is about having the right to withhold information in certain circumstances to prevent
misuse and misappropriation.
For example, most people prefer to keep personally identifiable information like their social
security number, address, and bank information private.
Not because they’re doing something bad, but because something harmful, like identity
theft, could be done to them if that information were public.
And in more extreme circumstances, data has been used against citizens by totalitarian
governments.
From 1950 to 1990 East Germany had a so-called “security agency” that consisted of 90,000
spies and about 200,000 informants.
The agency kept detailed records on hundreds of thousands of their citizens and used this
information to psychologically harass, blackmail, and discredit people who opposed the despotic
regime.
Keep in mind, this was all before the internet existed.
That’s why today, the system of mass surveillance happening in countries like the US is extremely
dangerous.
No one can predict how this information will be used by future administrations or by foreign
governments who successfully steal data from the US.
Which has happened, by the way.
And if you think your data is safe with corporations since they operate outside of the government,
you would be mistaken.
Here’s a list of twenty-one of the biggest corporate data breaches, most of which occurred
in the past ten years, and effected billions of people.
So chances are, some of your personal data is already being used by hackers to access
certain accounts.
But this goes further than data being leaked, it’s how data is used by corporations to
infer things about you that haven’t even been shared.
For example, Target can accurately predict which of their shoppers are pregnant based
on the items they buy.
This led to the company accidentally exposing a teenage shopper’s pregnancy to her father
by mailing coupons for baby clothes and cribs to their house.
Now I give all of these examples just to prove the ways unwanted data collection can negatively
effect everyday, law-abiding people like you and me.
It’s why privacy is so important and should be taken seriously.
And Apple has proven to be the only major tech company in the world that not only refuses
to sell their users data to advertisers, but is willing to stand up and fight for digital
privacy on behalf of their users.
Just last year Tim Cook expressed his support for Europes data regulations and called for
a “comprehensive federal privacy law” in the US.
And this position on privacy is nothing new for Apple.
Steve Jobs shared the same beliefs when he was CEO [clip]
So it’s clear that Apple is satisfied making money from hardware and services rather than
advertising.
But their privacy policy is so strict that some people think it actually stunted the
growth of Siri.
Supposedly, after it was first introduced, Siri improved rapidly and was on track to
outperform competing voice assistants entering the market.
But after some time, Apple realized Siri was sharing data with multiple third party apps,
which they decided was dangerous and violated their users privacy.
So Apple reengineered the voice assistant and that’s when it began losing ground to
its competition.
Now if this story is in fact true, it demonstrates just how committed Apple is to protecting
users privacy.
Perhaps an even more convincing case happened in 2016 when the FBI asked Apple to unlock
an iPhone that was used by a terrorist in the San Bernadino shootings, in an attempt
to find more information about their contacts or affiliations.
But Apple declined.
Saying, “The implications of the government’s demands are chilling.
If the government can use the All Writs Act to make it easier to unlock your iPhone, it
would have the power to reach into anyone’s device to capture their data.”
The FBI subsequently sued Apple for noncompliance and claimed that the software would only be
used to unlock one iPhone, but it was later discovered that the agency had over 200 iPhones
ready to be unlocked using the tool.
Which actually proved Apple’s point when Cook said, “the U.S. government has asked
us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create.
They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone.”
Now in the end the FBI supposedly found another way to unlock the device and didn’t need
Apple’s help after all.
And if you’re wondering why other companies like Microsoft or Google haven’t had similar
run-ins with the FBI, it’s because they’re known to’ve incorporated backdoors into
their services for government access.
Something Apple refuses to do.
In fact, one of the reasons why Apple doesn’t collect identifiable user data like iMessage
conversations, is because if they don’t have the information themselves, then they
have nothing to turn over to the government.
And when they do collect data, Apple uses techniques like differential privacy.
Which prevents them from identifying the particular device data is coming from.
And by combining this anonymous data sourced from thousands of devices, Apple is able to
recognize patterns and behaviors that reveal how people are using their devices, all without
revealing the users themselves.
So while it may not be an obvious benefit of the Apple ecosystem, privacy is the quality
that differentiates them the most from competitors.
And it isn’t something Apple implements once for bragging rights and then moves to
the back-burner.
Privacy is integrated into just about every feature of every product.
iMessage and FaceTime are fully encrypted end-to-end, so only you and the person you’re
talking to are hearing the conversation.
Apple was one of the first companies to include native OS disk encryption with FileVault in
macOS, which prevents anyone from accessing the data on your Mac with the proper credentials.
Maps uses on-device data to collect and store information like search terms and route navigation,
so where you’ve been and where you’re going isn’t stored on Apple’s servers.
And for apps that do feature advertising like the App Store, Apple News, and Stocks, access
to your data is limited to behavior inside each respective app.
And you can even turn on Limit Ad Tracking in your Apple devices settings to stop receiving
targeted ads.
Now I mentioned earlier that this issue of privacy isn’t discussed very often.
But in the past couple years, it is getting more media attention since personal data from
various social media sites and tech companies have been weaponized in some very serious
ways.
And Apple seemed to’ve caught on to this, since they are now promoting their stance
on privacy very publicly with things like ad campaigns and an updated privacy page on
their website.
But I don’t think they’re doing this is solely for good publicity, I think Apple is
trying to mount as much pressure as possible on companies like Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft,
and Google, in order to force them to make a tough decision: Either end the mass collection
of user data, which would likely cost them billions in lost revenue.
Or change nothing and concede that Apple is the superior company when it comes to protecting
user privacy.
And as I mentioned before, if you care about privacy, then using a VPN while browsing online
is a must.
Personally, I use NordVPN since they’re not only highly recommended by outlets like
PCMag, but they’re one of the only VPN services that uses AES-256 encryption, which is about
twice as secure as the industry average.
NordVPN also provides 24/7 live chat and email support which is perfect is you’ve never
used a VPN before and may have questions.
They were also kind enough to give Apple Explained viewers 75% off a three year plan which is
an incredibly good deal that I highly recommend taking advantage of.
So if you’d like to get started with NordVPN, just click the link in the description and
use the code apple to get 75% off your three year plan, and receive an extra month for
free.
Alright guys, thanks for watching and I’ll see you next time.