They’ve also quoted me more than a whole new pair to repair some AirPods Pro that I accidentally washed in the laundry. They didn’t tell me that was the case when I was on the phone with them.
Apple uses a lot of customer hostile behaviors nowadays. Recently:
* I canceled the Apple TV+ year trial that came with my iPhone. While, I believe, they require other apps to allow access until the trial ends, they ended my access immediately.
* Apple Music pulls up a slow interstitial almost every time I open it up to try to get me to pay. I have like 4 albums on my phone I listen to, it’s incredibly annoying how they’ve broken the music app to upsell their services.
I’m trying to get rid of most of my Apple devices in favor of anything else at this point.
I just swapped from Android to an iPhone for privacy concerns. The other side of the fence is pretty user hostile as well. Google makes you disable a lot of functionality on the phone if you try to get out of their invasive tracking. And they are constantly nuking apps that I use like Google Play Music and Google Inbox.
Maybe check out PinePhone if you're interested in hacking something together!
>I just swapped from Android to an iPhone for privacy concerns.
Understandable, if Apple's claim on Privacy is to be trusted, then it does seem to be a better alternative to android when it comes to privacy; But for a power user android ecosystem offers more without rooting, is not dependent upon 'trust on a company alone' and there's no separate power-user level ecosystem for iOS without jailbreaking.
e.g.
• AOSP, so there's LineageOS as aftermarket alternative, /e/ with e foundation phone or Fairphone, dozens of other alternatives.
• Firewall VPN for android are more refined e.g. Netguard (open-source) even allows selective blocking of connections per address/ per app; this is the closest thing to Little Snitch on macOS.
• Tasker allows automation to such an extent that, several things which required writing apps can now be performed by creating tasks. Tasker is Siri shortcuts on steroids without Siri.
You can deactivate pretty much all the Google apps you're not using. I use VLC, Firefox and K-9 Mail instead of the default Google apps and have been doing it for ages. Pretty much doesn't break anything, other than some banking apps that immediately assume you must have Gmail installed, so they direct you to that instead of your default email client. That's not a big deal, you can just open your email client by hand. A small price to pay for giving less space to Google on your phone.
But you can't disable play store and framework(s) without losing a ton of integrated facilities. Probably also why the integrate most ad and tracking stuff in there.
> But you can't disable play store and framework(s) without losing a ton of integrated facilities.
But can’t those basically be considered part of the operating system at this point? I can’t disable Apple frameworks on my iPhone either. Mind, iOS of course does less user tracking.
> But can’t those basically be considered part of the operating system at this point?
That's exactly why I switched because the idea that I can't disable Play Services is bonkers. It does look like MicroG (open-source replacement) is maturing a lot recently though!
> I can’t disable Apple frameworks on my iPhone either. Mind, iOS of course does less user tracking.
Apple makes their money up front by me purchasing the device. That's why they're expensive. They are a hardware company.
Whenever you use an iOS feature for the first time, you are prompted with a privacy policy statement that is presented in both a summary and a long form to be read before you click agree. And they have an icon that they show you whenever data will leave your device.
With them being the forward about it, I trust it way more.
If you don't believe me, go and read this[0] privacy policy on (arguably) the creepiest feature that Apple provides you (Siri).
Some quotes from it:
> Siri Data is associated with a random, device generated identifier. This random identifier is not linked to your Apple ID, email address, or other data Apple may have from your use of other Apple services.
> Siri Data and your requests are not used to build a marketing profile, and are never sold to anyone.
That immediately hits me differently from Google's policy (I read it a long while ago now), and it makes me view Apple with enough of a positive light to make the ecosystem jump.
> Apple makes their money up front by me purchasing the device. That's why they're expensive.
Apple also charges 30% of much of your software and content purchases, and the hardest isn't particularly expensive relative to similar competitor hardware.
You could try out LineageOSformicroG.
(Basically LineageOS + microG + signature spoofing patch)
It's not 100% of the user experience, but most things work well enough that it's worth it imo. (Running this daily on my OnePlus 3 since last year or so)
Thank you for sharing. This is awesome! It looks like they replace Google Play Services with MicroG and so this is (fairly truly) a full de-Google'd phone. I might try to flash this on my old phone sometime soon. :)
How is anything Android Google free? Is Android its own separate entity not under the Google/Alphabet lineage? This has kept me from seriously considering Android as something I could ever use.
I guess I'm asking what part of Android is not Google? I get trying to detach apps like GMail, Maps, PlayStore, etc. But if Google created Android, why is it assumed to be okay of doing Googly things?
the concern is not code written by google, but code that depends on googles infrastructure, requires a google account, phones home, gives google control over my phone, is not released under a FOSS license (so i can't change it), anything that violates the users privacy...
so what /e/ is doing is essentially an audit of android, and an attempt to remove everything that is of concern.
it's a major project, and it's not complete. work in progress.
This and disabling google apps. Surprisingly not much of a difference in functionality, my data usage is low, downloaded local maps on OSM. Motorola something
So if you use their cloud services, both Apple and Google have access to your photos, but Apple has access to all of your whatsapp and signal conversations, while Google does not (if you decide to password protect your backups).
And you have to use iCloud if you want to keep your 3rd party chat history safe, unless you jailbreak to extract it from the file system.
iMessage is of course purposefully flawed to allow for MITM.
Yeah, death of Google Play Music will be remembered, and mentioned in the same saga as Google Reader's demise.
I would love to know how many subscribers of Google Music have they lost during this transition to YouTube music. Not that I think Google actually cares, and seeing how big companies BS themselves from inside, they probably sooth themselves with "it is temporary", "we will catch up on features", "they will come back".
Everyone who paid for Google music for moved over to YouTube music. I don't think they've lost much yet. I hate the YouTube music app but the music and playlists are still there.
Right now my android phone is GrapheneOS with no Google Play Services/Apps. I download everything via F-Droid. However like you said, there is a lot of functionality disabled.
I have a Pinephone and hope that sooner then later that I can use it full time.
I used Play Music and Inbox as well, and also just switched (3-ish months ago?) to an iPhone.
The YouTube Music app is not that bad, but definitely missing a feature or three that I used a lot on Play. It also seems to need to be manually started every time my phone connects to Bluetooth whereas Play would start automatically if it was the last thing that was playing on that BT connection.
Youtube music's biggest drawback is being required to subscribe to listen with the screen off. I was willing to change interfaces since I thought google play music was reasonable. Then my free trial ended.
I use Spotify for 95% of my listening. Their ability to sync songs that aren't on Spotify though is pretty bad, and that's why I used Play Music. There are just some albums/bands that I want to listen to that aren't easily available without having the raw MP3 somewhere.
Wow, I had no idea about the interstitial. I happily pay for Apple Music for the convenience / never-sync factor (and, if I'm honest, to make it easier for my wife to manage music on HER devices without having to hook them up to the server and download from our library), but that's a choice I made. If they're being obnoxious with an ad for people who just want to use the music app on their phone normally, that's really disappointing.
I'm using Music app without Apple Music subscription. They are not obnoxious, I think that's an overstatement. Yes, they remind about Apple Music, but that's quite a rare event.
Agree, about 7 years ago I spilt liquid on my MacBook Pro. They let me off the repair costs (significant, new motherboard etc..), just said be a bit more careful. Have recounted this story many times since, sad to hear things may have changed.
I've still encountered cases like that recently — I'm not sure the situation is any worse now (at least with support incidents). It's all just anecdotal.
I think to be fair it probably depends on which country you're in. In the UK I've found their support to be downright poor, even when compared to other device manufacturers, but I'm told in the US they're better.
All those free repair and decent Apple experience are all from US. Worldwide Apple Services tends to be crap.
I even heard in some part of the world Apple started to paid commission to Apple Retail Staff for products sales. ( They used to pride themselves the lack of conflict of interest and to provide the best services possible )
I had a similar anecdotal story just a couple of months ago. I've spilled a few drops of juice on my 16" MBP keyboard, which was enough for three keys to become sticky. They've replaced the keyboard and whole top case chassis for free without any comment and I got my laptop back in three days.
It was the best tech support experience I've had in my life.
It's one thing for Apple's product quality (or quality control) to be less now that Steve Jobs is no longer with us. But it's another thing for customer-hostile dark patterns to become Apple's norm. :/ (I was subjected to the worst customer support experience of my life with the #KeyboardGate defect.)
Counter-anecdote: I have spilled liquid on MBPs more recently (latest is 2019 MBP with touch bar) and didn’t need to bring them in for repair as they kept working after having been thoroughly dried.
Seeing reports about old laptops breaking from the same, I suppose the upside is that they are becoming less fragile.
I broke the screen on a new Macbook 2 years ago, days after buying it. It was entirely my own fault so not covered by warrantee. I called Apple support and was told £800. Since I bought it with an Amex card, it was covered on that insurance, so I made an appointment to get it replaced. I went to the Apple store and was given a formal quote of £645 parts + labour. They went off to get the paperwork and were gone for a while. When they got back, they told me that the part wouldn't be available for 3 months (it was a new release) and gave me a new laptop, free of charge, on the spot.
Something similar happened with my two year old, out of warranty iPhone with maxed out storage. It had the original battery swollen. I assumed they would just swap out the battery and charge me, but they said they wanted to send the whole thing in to be inspected, and unfortunately they didn’t have any prior gen phones with that level of storage on hand, so asked if I would mind receiving a current gen replacement.
Vehicle breaks, the part or component that fixes it is unavailable/backordered/allocated for months+.
Manufacturers will offer to buy back the vehicle, at original sale price, rather than force you to wait (and relieving them from having to provide a loaner/rental).
It’s a mass market set of products now, so different problems. Still, they are better than any competitor I’m aware of.
Their staff are more empowered than most companies though. Usually I’m able to get what I want with a minimum of fuss, you just need to go in person and be very calm.
The replacement price issue there is probably both a protection against resellers and an incorporation of an expedite fee.
AirPods are made of three components: left earbud, right earbud, and charging case. More granular repairs are neither offered nor possible due to glues and so forth, though damaged parts can be recycled for scrap. So repairs can only replace those three parts in total, and perform no other purpose. This is still useful if you lose an earbud on the subway, or if your charging case lid snaps off, but it opens the door for an exploit as well.
If you have a set of AirPods and you want to jump the line at Apple to buy another set and sell them to someone else, you can simply 'lose' each piece of your set of AirPods. Once you have a complete set of all three parts, you can assemble a fully standalone AirPods and sell it, using the parts that you got from repair.
To prevent this, repair sets their prices for the individual parts to exceed the final unit price of the whole. This isn't a big deal if you damage one part only
Repair costs probably also include 'expedited priority' versus those purchasing new products for the first time, so if there was a waiting list of 4-6 weeks to buy new AirPods, repair's full replacement price would bypass that list and get you your replacements immediately.
They still should have told you on the phone that the repair cost exceeds the repurchase cost and offered to discount the price in exchange for whatever the current wait is for folks buying them on the website.
I find it hard to believe that Apple overcharges all of its customers, just to combat the minority of scammers. Just seems so unbalanced...
Also, aren't waiting lists usually due to manufacturing latency? Not arbitrary delays that can be bypassed via purchasing repairs? Moreover, no one can assemble a Macbook/iPad/iPhone by ordering replacement parts. Your example only holds good for Airpods.
No such option exists for the Apple News+ interstitial.
It's obvious that there is a bug in the code, I get the interstitial at random times, not only when I open the app. Wifi drops and then comes back? Interstitial right on top of whatever I was reading...
PS, am I the only person that puts a "cancel free trial for XYZ" in my calendar the minute I sign up for anything?
am I the only person that puts a "cancel free trial for XYZ" in my calendar the minute I sign up for anything?
So much so, I have an "Add expiration reminder" iOS shortcut. Pretty sure I downloaded it from the Shortcuts gallery or something, it doesn't look like something I'd write.
Had the same thing happen with my wife’s Apple Music 3 month trial.
She accepted the trial, then went into settings to cancel the subscription so she wouldn’t be automatically charged at the end of 3 months.
With no warning, the subscription was then completely cancelled with no ability to use the rest of the trial. (Unlike some other Apple trials.) When asking Apple Support about this, they referenced an obscure sentence in their terms and conditions. They could do nothing to re-offer the trial to my wife. So consumer hostile.
The iPhone 4 was also one of their best selling models of all time (iPhone 6 I think exceeded it).
Geoffrey Moore’s “Inside the Tornado” makes an argument that companies deliberately need to become less customer focused when they’re in hyper growth mainstream adoption.
> companies deliberately need to become less customer focused when they’re in hyper growth mainstream adoption
But, Amazon doesn't seem to have done that. Someone even claimed Amazon sells customer service, they still seem to do so but at the expense of their employees.
Apples demolition of their entire universe of music products is unbelievably frustrating.
I know iTunes never got a great rep but it worked, and iTunes Match was fantastic. Now however they still charge for it, except its totally broken unless you instead pay for Apple Music (9.99/mo instead of 24.99/year).
Annoyed but there really isn’t much alternative on that front.
Apple's pivot into services has just been the worst. They've been getting gradually stingier for years—to the point of it affecting product quality—but it's only recently they've started to add some scummy behaviour and dark patterns, and I can't see it getting any better.
I was anoyed by Apple Music ads as well. To a point where I really started to hate them for that. I do not want a monthly subscription for a streaming service, I do prefer to buy what I want and thats it. After half a year of tapping "No thanks" it suddenly stopped. I am guessing they actually know that some of their customers hate the idea of music subscription. I havent seena Apple Music pop up since many moons.
Hm, trial period (3 months) is longer than non-trial payment cycle (1 month) for Apple Music, and in my experience, you can still use it after cancellation, until the trial period expires.
They completely destroyed the music app. And they prevent third-party apps from having the same APIs as their music app! I used to use Cesium but Apple even managed to break that app.
The first year is $0 when you buy a new iPhone, so pro-rating wouldn't make a difference.
I often sign up for trials and immediately cancel (so I don't forget about them). That way it requires a positive action on my part to keep the subscription. That doesn't work if your access ends as soon as you cancel.
You shouldn't have to though. Apple Music can potentially be offered once, or advertised in the App Store/iTunes Store, but not in the default, local music player app.
It’s simply targeted advertising. People are more likely to consider your ad if it’s related to what they are doing. In this case, it’s a music streaming service ad when you are going to play music. The ad wouldn’t be as effective if it was in the iTunes/App Store.
>Apple uses a lot of customer hostile behaviors nowadays
Nowadays? Apple has been doing anti-consumer behavior for multiple decades. I remember only allowing purchased itunes music being exported in their specific format.
You'd have to burn them to a CD and rip it back to a useable format.
This isn't new, any educated consumer is well aware of how Apple plays.
Maybe you're thinking of the DRM'd files that couldn't be played back by other players, and even iTunes on other computers without your iTunes store account. In that case indeed burning a CD and ripping it would be one solution. They stopped selling DRM'd files completely by 2009, though.
The DRM was not a whim by Apple, it was demanded by the labels, though. At the time that was the only way they'd even permit an online music store. I don't think there were alternatives that weren't just as locked down, unless you're talking about sailing the high seas.
This is exactly it. Songs were 99¢ with DRM. In 2009, Apple managed to convince enough labels to sell DRM-free copies, but at $1.29. You could, at the time, “upgrade” your DRM copy to be DRM-free for 30¢ a song.
Apple uses a lot of customer hostile behaviors nowadays. Recently:
* I canceled the Apple TV+ year trial that came with my iPhone. While, I believe, they require other apps to allow access until the trial ends, they ended my access immediately.
* Apple Music pulls up a slow interstitial almost every time I open it up to try to get me to pay. I have like 4 albums on my phone I listen to, it’s incredibly annoying how they’ve broken the music app to upsell their services.
I’m trying to get rid of most of my Apple devices in favor of anything else at this point.