Apple is 100% correct. It’s the entire reason Android exists.

Then again, Apple also does a fair bit of data collection. I hate that Apple has been able to market themselves as some kind of bastion of privacy. They aren’t.

So Apple is not 100% correct. They are 50% correct because the second half of their claim is that Apple is somehow different and not tracking its users...

Actually, the reason Android exists isn't so one-dimensional.

• The company Android was initially concerned more with Microsoft dominating phones like they did computers at the time, before being bought by Google
• They created two prototype chains initially, one touch, one that was more akin to BlackBerry
• iPhone came out, they ditched the BlackBerry-esque one and focused on what became now Android

Google was mostly just doing what all tech companies were doing at the time, trying to compete in a mobile arms race for dominance. The data tracking was just a bonus. Appeasing shareholders is paramount. Look at how Apple created an Alexa speaker just because they had to as another example of this type of behavior.

Also, Apple actually has a long history of tracking user behavior that predates both Android and the iPhone.

Apple apps since some time shortly after the inception of OS X would (and likely still do) phone home to configuration.apple.com to send apple metrics on usage. Earlier variations of LittleSnitch could actually block this collection behavior.

Apple has since reconfigured the network stack to guarantee that direct encrypted connections to Apple are always possible above any VPN, or other type of network filter connection. So there's no way to prevent communication with Apple on an Apple product at all now short of keeping it off the Internet or blocking DNS to 17.* IP addresses, which would only work on a network one has control over.

I believe the reason Google acquired Android was to make sure that Apple didn't dominate the mobile device landscape, which would be a threat to their ad business. The data collection was just a nice side-effect, from their perspective.

All cell phones are tracking devices. Unless you faraday cage them. But yes, both apple and Android phones give out way more information than just that. And I definitely would not say that I would trust Apple more with data that I would Google.

Yup, the logic people use to call Apple phones secure would put Fisher Price toy phones at the S-Tier of security.

Is Apple trying to convince me that the Health app, Apple maps or Siri doesn’t track me?

No, they are trying to convince themselves. It's an internal brainwashing presentation after all, not for external PR.

Their slide seems to list Siri, Maps, and iAd not being tied to the user's Apple ID as a pro. I didn't realize this was the case.

Ideally you shouldn't have to compromise. GrapheneOS without Google is an option.

~~does not understand~~

Does not want to understand

They are not wrong

The best lies have a bit of truth in them, by making a factual statement and then deliberately coming to a wrong conclusion. They are wrong when the second half of the claim is that Apple is somehow any different. There is tracking and analytics everywhere in Apple systems. They don't need to formally tie the Apple ID to other tracking methods when they can just use other means to find out that two connections come from the same device.

At least in the Android world there at least is the option to go fully free of Google Services. There is no iOS Open Source Project that includes everything but a few things.

Apple, ruthlessly opposing standards any time it can make them a buck no matter how many people have to suffer the consequences.

I'm shocked.

Five words into the article says

Apple’s internal presentation from 2013

Literally at the top under TL;DR

They’re not wrong.

Apple has a better stance on data privacy than google because their profit model is being a premium consumer device whereas googles profit model is being a provider of ads.

Apple’s incentives are closer to the consumer since they want to make the consumer happy while googles incentives are aligned with the trackers because that improves ad revenue.

This changes the DNA of the OS.

Plus the integration of googles data insecure services with android mean that as a matter of actual reality then discussing the security of android really means discussing the data security of those integrated services. It’s unavoidable.

Don’t trust either of course but I simply do have more confidence my apple data isn’t being exploited as much as my google data simply because Apple doesn’t stand as much to gain and stands more to lose from being embarrassed on the issue.

And pointing to custom android roms that replace google services with FOSS alternatives is a technically correct but still wrong answer to this because it doesn’t reflect the reality of the overwhelming majority of android users.