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Has Apple finally arrived in 1984?

6 points by mironathetin ↗ HN
In 1984, Apple said: with the Macintosh we will see, that 1984 will not be like "1984".

Yesterday they announced the iCloud with many services whose main purpose is to move the digital hub from our computers at home to Apples server farms. Everything: contacts, mails, music, images, documents, spreadsheets, backups.

Think of how many talented developers are working on code that cross-relates data (we had threads about this recently). Today for efficient marketing. Tomorrow for whatever smart people come up with.

Is this the beginning of "1984"? Or is this just a cultural thing: americans see a new service that solves a problem, think it is great an use it. Europeans see it is free and think: wait a minute, why is it free? What's behind?

What does everybody think?

15 comments

[ 6.8 ms ] story [ 59.0 ms ] thread
tobylane
I don't see your point, are you referencing Orwell, it sounds too good to be true, or we will be data mined out of privacy?
mironathetin
What is hard to understand? Orwell is about big brother watching you. Apple collects all our data. This allows an incredible amount of control, doesn't it?

One of the questions is: is iCloud only the bone that Apple hands us, while they get the meat. It is naive to believe that all these masses of data are stored only for our convenience. The investment for server farms is huge, so there must be a return, right? Thats business.

We also know that, since the internet still tends to offer free services, our data is what we use to pay with. Apple takes this to the next level (like always).

Microsoft has tried the same back in the 90s with their slim workstations (don't exactly remember the name). The idea was: the Pc only has a small drive (with windows on it), the data is stored in the internet. Back then it completely failed and the idea was criticized a lot. Today, combined with a useful service, people seem to accept it.

Is that really a good development?

tobylane
Watching over our music tastes (Genius did this already), calenders (iCal, Calendar, MobileMe) and so on. If you want to say they have too much information on us, you didn't pick your target well (they care more about user privacy than most companies).
mironathetin
"If you want to say they have too much information on us, you didn't pick your target well (they care more about user privacy than most companies)."

Perhaps yes. I tend to think that Steve Jobs indeed has a service in mind. But it was easy to see yesterday that Steve may not be with us any more for long. Who comes next? Erich Schmidt? Or types like Marc Zuckerberg (surely not he himself)?

I certainly don't want my data in hands like this. Do you?

tobylane
Yes, Eric and Mark aren't the people I want having much data, but then at least Facebook doesn't really give your information to the advertisers, it just looks like it. Apple will always care, it doesn't matter who's CEO.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
mironathetin
"Apple will always care, it doesn't matter who's CEO."

Rofl

cph1
- "Facebook doesn't really give your information to the advertisers"

How do you know? I think this is an appropriate time to mention what Zuckerberg once said about Facebook users: "They trust me - dumb fucks."

- "Apple will always care"

Apple uses conflict minerals and has its devices made on slave-like factories. You really think they care about anything other than creating value for its stockholders? I use Apple products myself, but I'm certainly not naive about how big business works.

tobylane
If you research their ad system, there's a lot of easily findable stuff about how your friends names get involved, and how you're matched to the ads, not the other way around.
cph1
I know their ad system - I've used it myself. My point is that they may do other kinds of things without you knowing.
tobylane
That's getting close to paranoia. EU law is enough to keep you safe, and Facebook follows such law, here's what they have to say https://www.facebook.com/policy.php
cph1
> That's getting close to paranoia.

Selling users' personal data to data mining and advertising companies is very common. It's not really paranoid to think that Facebook would do such a thing, considering that they call their users trusting dumb fucks and blatantly disregard their users' request for decent privacy.

> EU law is enough to keep you safe

Most of the times when an American Internet company have been challenged by EU law, the response from the company has been, "We're an American company, and our users uploaded their data to our servers which are placed in America." Then there's not much EU can do.