> Apple shared all their iCloud user data (messages, pics, docs, etc.) and keys with the Chinese government last year. [1]

They shared all their Chinese users' iCloud data. It's a huge distinction and I feel like you paraphrased it deliberately to try to make Apple appear to have sold out all of their users worldwide. While what they did in China is terrifying in general, it doesn't compromise security for any Apple user outside of China as you very strongly implied it did.

Here's the very first sentence from the link you posted (emphasis mine):

> A state-owned telecommunications company in China now stores the iCloud data for Apple’s China-based users.

This allows Apple to continue selling their hardware and software to people living in China (of which there are a lot). This is not a problem with Apple, but a problem with China.

This is constantly being misreported. No. They. Do. Not. Apple's data is kept on the device and so are the keys. If you enable that data to be put on the cloud (it's an opt-in) then they will also store the key, but otherwise they do not.

Boycotting of countries or not is one thing. Once in a country and following the law, Apple's business model is simply more conducive to privacy. Unlike Google, they are not reliant on the collection and analysis of data. On the contrary, like DDG, they use privacy as a differentiator and advantage. The only thing you can trust about companies is their business models.

Source? iMessage is E2E encrypted so no, Apple did not share that part (or other encrypted data like keychain). They’ve actually gone pretty far in protecting their E2E encryption from adversarial clouds.

Because Tim Cook, as a homosexual, has teared up when speaking about human rights abuses of homosexual under repressive regimes, and how as the CEO of apple, he will do anything within his power to ensure your data stays safe on apple infra / hw because he personally thinks about it. Can't remember the interview, but it was quite touching actually.

He's very clear in shareholder calls / letters and in their privacy policy. So much so that he even calls out the competition[1] for doing it as Apple does not. From an economics standpoint, Apple doesn't make money on your data. They sell you overpriced but quite sophisticated hardware and became one of the most valuable companies in the world doing this. That and he advocates for a US equivalent of the GPDR[2] which absolutely and directly would impact the bottom line of companies like Google and Facebook.

Then there is Apple's official privacy policy, where they are very explicit that they don't gather personal information to sell to advertisers. In much of the non-US world, saying that and not following that is blatantly illegal.

[1] http://time.com/5433499/tim-cook-apple-data-privacy/

[2] https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/24/18017842/tim-cook-data-p...

[3] https://www.apple.com/privacy/

Afaik Apple went above and beyond to make sure their original iPhone fingerprint sensor never leaked the fingerprint to any app or even the OS itself. Android always just did whatever with the print.

If that's the same philosophy now, Apple is definitely better than Google in terms of privacy.

Full disclosure: I own an Android device and no Apple product except an iPod from 2009 or so.

Apple are primarily a hardware company. They make money on the sale of devices. They also make some money as a marketplace for apps and media. They have no significant revenue from data harvesting or advertising sales.

Google are an advertising company. The overwhelming majority of their revenue is from targeted advertising. Their ability to harvest user data is the primary factor affecting their bottom line.

For Apple, privacy is a no-brainer. It doesn't harm either of their primary revenue streams and it gives them a substantial point of differentiation against their main competitor. Apple have an ongoing commercial imperative to improve the privacy of their products and services; Google have an ongoing commercial imperative to the contrary.

I'm currently on my first iPhone. They spell out what they do with data in just about every app and setting. There's an almost annoying number of modals related to privacy and general control of data.

Maybe it's all for show, but they seem to take privacy seriously.

It's a fair question. For starters, comparing the business models, and how iOS implements privacy relevant aspects vs. how Android does so, might lead to reasonable assumptions.

It is in the best financial interests of Apple to protect user data. Mr. Cook has a fiduciary responsibility to do so.

Apple's business model is not selling your data for advertisements. They make their money the old-fashioned way - charging customers for their product (hardware).

They failed with their ad network in part because they weren’t willing to share user data with advertisers. You’re conflating correlation and causation.

Isn't Apple's map data based on OSM too?

Is a "commercial" company inconsistent with privacy?

My own experience ( North east US) has been somewhat different recently.

Yes routes from Apple maps, may appear longer or more convoluted at first glance. However after using it ( due to CarPlay) for a while on routes I had previously regularly done using google maps, I inferred a reasoning for that.

On the ~90 minute journey to my in-laws, the predicted journey time, is generally advertised as being quicker on google, but in practice the time difference is marginal.

What was different in my experience anyway, is that Apple maps seems to try to minimize left turns where appropriate. The benefit being a noticeably less stressful journey.

Has anyone else noticed this?

At least here in western Norway, Mapbox’s directions are incredibly buggy, to the point where they’ll send you on a 150-kilometre scenic drive (including two ferries) to avoid a tunnel instead of going 15 kilometres straight through the mountain. This is apparently because they’re rolling their own telemetrics-based data on top of the OSM road network.

Then again, Apple Maps (on DuckDuckGo) seems to think I that want my maps labelled in Indonesian, so you may still have a point.