this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2026
495 points (98.1% liked)
Privacy
10275 readers
317 users here now
A community for Lemmy users interested in privacy
Rules:
- Be civil
- No spam posting
- Keep posts on-topic
- No trolling
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
What the fuck do AirPods have to do with this? Any wireless earbuds are awesome. I can start playing a video on my phone, and it connects. I take a call on my laptop, and it jumps there immediately. I don’t have to fiddle with a cord that constantly gets tangled and then eventually just stops working because it’s been bent in the same spot for 2 years. I can connect my AirPods and my wife’s AirPods to my phone on a plane, and we watch a video together, and I didn’t have to remember to bring my headphone splitter. Wireless earbuds are not the same as a mass surveillance device.
Dude, you to offense like nobody's business... I'm not dissing on wireless ear buds, I'm specifically calling out Apple brand for the "always active mic" which is a privacy concern in itself. And 2. Its the popularization of trying to make it a normalized thing that everybody wears. It wasn't socially acceptable to otherwise wear them around all the time, but now it's seen as a "status symbol" so now is OK to do..
Go ahead and keep spending exorbitant money on Apple products, they've clearly wrangled you into their ecosystem and I somehow hit a nerve lmao. I get the point to their functionality, too, you don't have to explain magical wireless technology to me, it sounds like you're trying to justify something to yourself.
The pair/brand I own don't have an always-on mic, they don't send data to the Mothership, and they probably sound a whole HELL of a lot better than yours trash apple product 😂
Cracks me up though, you're spending $600+ on 2 SETS of airpods for a (2-4hour?) flight vs a <$10 headphone splitter.. Who you convincing they're great, yourself??
ANYWAY back to my point, I can see Apple trying to release their own version of these glasses and trying to normalize them, and poor fucking saps like you will gobble it up and continue trying to justify it all the same... I bet you have a pair of their $3500 augmented reality headset too...
Listening for a phrase is not the same as always recording.
Calling me offensive because I used “fuck”? It’s called poe’s law. Don’t assume people are mad just because of words. I was just trying to figure out what the heck you meant with AirPods. The always on is for the transparency mode. It’s all on device and not even sent to the phone. AirPods are t even that expensive and we use them for more than just a flight. We have jobs where we listen to music and work with our hands so we don’t get stuck in our cords.
But you’re the one being very extra and aggressive now, even going into name calling, which I never did. Take a step back. This is Lemmy, not Reddit or Xitter. Take a chill pill and engage in the conversation instead of spewing vitriol.
Also, why would I have the AR headset? There’s no use for it. You can’t even play games! 😂
It read angry and defensive. You made a lot of cases for why they're "so great" like you had to convince more than me. Anyway, I know how they work, I'm a pretty big tech nerd myself, but at no point would I ever use their tech. This is a privacy group, so you can't defend a company that's known for spying on their customers. Apple might push themselves as privacy-focused, but maybe they just keep other "bad actors" from your data while they happily gather as much as they want and ~~share~~ sell to 3rd party partners.
I’m going to need a source on Apple selling your data. Just one source is fine. They do push themselves as security focused, and they are very overpriced for what you’re getting. But I haven’t seen any news or sources of them actually breaking any of their privacy promises. They did give anonymized audio data to a third party contractor to quality grade their “hey siri” detection but this is something the user has to opt into. They have a better track record than Google, and back in 2009 when I was getting into smart phones, those were the only two options.
Totally understandable, and yes, Apple does have a better track record with consumer/customer data. They've pushed really hard to hang on directly to user data since they have their own ad platform now. They gather the same types of data that Google does, and Google goes to extra lengths to get even more. I get that.
I think it's the verbiage I don't trust in some of their privacy policy:
Apple may share personal data with Apple-affiliated companies, service providers who act on our behalf, our partners, developers, and publishers, or others at your direction. Further, Apple does not share personal data with third parties for their own marketing purposes."
So data IS shared, but not allowed to be used for marketing purposes, so it sounds great at face value, but they leave out what's allowed... Again Apple has their own ad platform.
Apple’s websites, online services, interactive applications, and advertisements may use “cookies” and other technologies such as web beacons.
While they allow you to disable cookies, there's still other tech at work... It later says:
I just don't fully trust it. Apple has A VERY large legal team and they certainly have better wording to sound super great!! They do offer better privacy out of the box and settings to lock down or opt out, yes, 100%. But they do admit several times data is shared, be it personal or non-personal (anonymized).
They also allow Google to still remain the default search engine (for $12b) which then for millions of people all that data is gathered... And you KNOW Apple gets a slice of that data... So while Apple appears to take the high road on this one, I think they're far from innocent. They're allowing other companies to do the legwork for your data while maintaining its "pure" view. inserts Clever_girl.gif
Anyway, sources: https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/en-ww/
https://fossbytes.com/apple-data-collection-explained/
https://www.wired.com/story/apple-privacy-data-collection/
The gist: data is gathered, data is shared, days is allowed to be stored with 3rd parties "until they're done with it" just don't use it for marketing, that's our space, etc.. They've come a long way, but far from innocent!