'polarization' and 'violence'
<https://9to5mac.com/author/michaelpotuck/> Michael Potuck
Speaking at the EU data protection conference CPDP today, Tim Cook gave the
opening keynote with his talk entitled "A path to empowering user choice and
boosting user trust in advertising." Cook covered Apple's concerns about
privacy and security in the technology industry, the hope it sees for change
going
forward, what it is doing to protect privacy, its deep concerns and
consequences with Facebook's business model, and much more.
Tim Cook touched on a variety of concerning issues Apple sees when it comes
to privacy and security across the technology industry. He reiterated the
point
that in many cases, people aren't customers anymore but rather the product
that businesses are selling to advertisers.
block quote
"As I've said before, if we accept as normal and unavoidable that everything
in our lives can be aggregated and sold, we lose so much more than data, we
lose the freedom to be human. And yet, this is a hopeful new season, a time
of thoughtfulness and reform."
block quote end
Cook praised GDPR for being the most concrete progress in consumer privacy
and security and said it's time for the US and the rest of the world to pass
similar legislation.
block quote
Together, we must send a universal, humanistic response to those who claim a
right to users' private information about what should not and will not be
tolerated.
block quote end
Cook made the point that advertising thrived for decades without invading
personal privacy. And detailed Apple's recent privacy features like privacy
nutrition
labels and the upcoming iOS 14
ad tracking transparency feature.
While Cook didn't call out Facebook by name, he condemned its business model
that any engagement is good engagement and capturing as much user data as
possible.
block quote
If a business is built on misleading users, on data exploitation, on choices
that are no choices at all, it does not deserve our praise, it deserves
reform.
block quote end Going further he said:
block quote
Too many are still asking the question, "how much can we get away with?"
when they should be asking "what are the consequences?"
block quote end
Cook believes the end result of this approach to technology is the
polarization of society, loss of trust, and violence.
The tension between Apple and Facebook has been growing over recent months,
and particularly even more since yesterday.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said
during the company's earnings call that "Apple has every incentive to use
their dominant platform position to interfere with how our apps and other
apps
work, which they regularly do to preference their own. This impacts the
growth of millions of businesses around the world, including with the
upcoming
iOS 14 changes, many small businesses will no longer be able to reach their
customers with targeted ads."
He also said that Facebook increasingly sees "Apple as one of our biggest
competitors." And just this morning we learned that Facebook may be
preparing an antitrust lawsuit against Apple regarding the new ad tracking
transparency in iOS 14. However, the
Electronic Frontier Foundation and many others have sided with Apple
on this.
Working to contrast Apple with Facebook and others' approach, Cook
elaborated on what the company sees as ethical technology:
block quote
At Apple, we made our choice a long time ago. We believe that ethical
technology is technology that works for you. It's technology that helps you
sleep,
not keeps you up. It tells you when you've had enough, it gives you space to
create, or draw, or write or learn, not refresh just one more time. It's
technology
that can fade into the background when you're on a hike or going for a swim
but is there to warn you when your heart rate spikes or help you when you've
had a nasty fall. And with all of this, always, it's privacy and security
first, because no-one needs to trade away the rights of their users to
deliver
a great product.
block quote end
<https://9to5mac.com/2021/01/27/tim-cook-apple-new-product-apple-car/> Tim
Cook: Apple focuses on product categories where 'hardware, software, and
services come together'
<https://9to5mac.com/author/chmiller44/> Chance Miller
During Apple's Q1 2021 earnings call with investors and analysts, CEO Tim
Cook was asked a broad question about how the company decides to enter new
markets. Cook provided an interesting response, explaining that Apple likes
to work on products where there's a "requirement for hardware, software, and
services to come together."
The question came from Morgan Stanley's Katy Huberty, who asked Cook to
elaborate - without specifics - on how Apple evaluates when a new market
might be attractive.
The framework that we use is we ask ourselves if this is a product or
service we'd want to use. That's a pretty high bar. Is it a big enough
market to be in? Unless it's an advanced product, it's about customer
experience. There's no set way that we're looking at it, no formula kind of
thing. We're taking into account all of those things.
The Apple CEO specifically said that Apple looks for markets where it can
intersect hardware, software, and services:
The kinds of things we love to work on are those where there's a requirement
for hardware, software, and services to come together. Magic occurs at that
intersection.
Cook went on to say that he believes there are "some really good
opportunities" out there for Apple:
I think that we have some really good opportunities out there and if you
look at our current portfolio of products, we still have a relatively low
share in a number of very big markets. We feel that we have really good
upside there and good upside in the services area, which we've been working
on for some time.
Cook, of course, did not provide any specific details on what markets Apple
might be looking at entering. The current rumors, however, indicate that
Apple is
<https://9to5mac.com/2021/01/10/apple-car-hyundai-production-deal/> working
on a self-driving electric car, potentially in partnership with Hyundai, as
well <https://9to5mac.com/2021/01/21/apples-first-headset/> as an AR/VR
headset.
More from Apple's earnings call:
*
<https://9to5mac.com/2021/01/27/facetime-call-all-time-record-holidays/>
Apple users set all-time record for FaceTime calls over the holidays
*
<https://9to5mac.com/2021/01/27/apple-crosses-1-billion-active-iphone-users-
for-the-first-time-as-install-base-reaches-new-milestone/> Apple crosses 1
billion active iPhone users for the first time as install base reaches new
milestone
* <https://9to5mac.com/2021/01/27/aapl-earnings-q1-2021-apple/> Apple
(AAPL) reports record-breaking Q1 2021 earnings with $111.4 billion in
revenue
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