alt Hacker NewsSaddened but not surprised.
This makes me glad. I do not own or use an iPhone. I have 2 iPads, one on iOS 9 and one on iOS 17, and neither can be updated. Neither talks to my email or anything: they're ebook readers, basically. Nobody in my immediate family uses iPhones either, nor Apple Watches or Apple TV or any of that.
I do not use Apple's App or Music stores, or their email, or calendar, or notes, or web browser, or even the text editor. I don't use Siri. I don't have a payment method on my 30Y old Apple account.
My email goes through Thunderbird, chat through Ferdium, web via Firefox. Office work is in Panwriter and occasionally LibreOffice.
I suspect, but don't know, that Apple doesn't know much about me and I suspect I wouldn't care about what it did.
It's still possible to use a Mac as a prettier Linux box, and that's what I do. I have no OS newer than macOS 15 and I don't even use Homebrew to extend that.
> I suspect, but don't know, that Apple doesn't know much about me and I suspect I wouldn't care about what it did.
I used to have similar thoughts. But then i realized everyone was emailing me from Gmail, sending me evites, posting pictures of events I attended but didn't RSVP to social media, etc. If you live in a moderately populated city in a western economy these apps know a ton about you. You should not give up your digital hygiene but don't lie to yourself and pretend that your friends and family are not feeding your data to the beast.