Does Apple TV even do ACR in any form? Is it scanning my network and phoning home about it?
I'm sorry, you're stating this like some obvious fact. Apple has previously said this is not the case and they do not do ACR. The Apple TV is the only Apple device I have, so you can set aside any reflexive critiques of my brand loyalty. What is your precise claim? Why am I a dullard for reading that Apple TV does not use ACR and believing it?
The entire reason I bought an Apple TV was to reduce the amount of data skimming happening in the background and ads being shoved in front of my face in the foreground, it's not like I'm lousy with options.
The problem is that you need to trust Apple, and verifying what is going on is difficult. Apple controls the device entirely, and the user is captive because the hardware cannot be repurposed. The "hacker community" should simply reject these user-hostile devices that feel like jails.
You're just making stuff up. Apple TV does not do ACR.
Apple does provide a TV App API that allows select app developers to get a special entitlement allowing them to contribute viewing data. Read this carefully: https://developer.apple.com/support/terms/apple-developer-pr...
"Apple will obtain user consent based on the user’s Apple Account before including Your Licensed Application in the TV App Features displayed under that Apple Account. Apple will also provide users with the ability to withdraw such consent at any time thereafter and to delete their TV App Data from Apple’s systems."
For profit org that has its personalized ad part of business growing massively, is scanning all your photos, gives all data to NSA like there is no tomorrow is somehow better, becase carefully crafted PR said so.
Especially if one is not US citizen, or multinational, or US citizen not on US soil, and so on.
They make great, hard vendor-locked hardware and mediocre software. Lets keep them at that and not some magical privacy champions when they are not, not where it actually matters.
Your post doesn't sound any different, what with the tarring a group of people with the same brush.
You've decided that your feelings about a type of company trump anybody else's opinions about a particular company. With a fairly derisive tone, at that.
Isn't that what they are actually complaining against? This is just circular reasoning.
I even had a mod here tell me that's not the case..lol
Do you consider Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro as mediocre?
Apple Intelligence takes a single screenshot of your screen when you explicitly direct it to. It does not take routine or scheduled screenshots and it does not exfiltrate or otherwise use the information other than to answer your query.
Private Cloud Compute goes to great lengths to prove it can't violate your privacy. In general, Apple likes to back itself up like this, which is one of the reasons I have such high confidence in them.
Funny how the OP carefully skimmed this part out in their reply, but BINGO, I think this is the attitude we should have towards privacy. Sometimes I just feel like we're talking to a bunch of bots on here when it comes to privacy with their blind support towards for-profit corporations that doesn't give a shit about them.
lol
>we're talking to a bunch of bots on here
Ah. Okay. In a different tenor of conversation I'd be happy to clarify but...not when I'm up against this.
Keep the firewall of skepticism high.
I've always seen Apple TV as the least-bad option compared to Roku/Fire/whatever Google is doing these days/literally any built-in solution.
If this was your original statement, I think we all would be on your side - I even use an Apple TV 4k personally and love it. It definitely is the best in the market for what it does.
> it's the one box I can (reasonably) trust to not be mining my viewing habits for data.
Instead, you framed it as the only privacy-friendly option and that is logically and factually incorrect.
They come with different tradeoffs wrt price, A/V quality, user interface, privacy, etc.
For me, the #1 thing is A/V quality. I don’t care about price, but most people do.
(There are also some boxes made specifically for this, usually sold as development platforms for STB products, marketed based on what SoC they contain. Though they’ll tend to be $200, while the random “finished product” streaming box will be more like $30. Both come with decent remotes.)
Is there any examples of this that isn't an obscure model last sold in 2015? This would be quite compelling as an alternative to a Linux box, especially now that hardware is expensive again. You don't really need Netflix et al if you can open a Web browser and head for the sea.
I'm also interested in alternatives, but LineageOS on a cheap box isn't really one.
You don't need Netflix, Prime, or Disney+. Don't be a sheep, build a collection of Linux ISOs and/or use your Web browser. There is plenty of content out there.
“Content”. Yuck. I’m a discerning series and film watcher.
That's precisely what you did.
Yes, they did:
https://www.reuters.com/legal/apple-pay-95-million-settle-si...
Apple routinely recorded their private conversations after they activated Siri unintentionally, and disclosed these conversations to third parties such as advertisers.
edit: link
"Apple has never used Siri data to build marketing profiles, never made it available for advertising, and never sold it to anyone for any purpose," Apple said on Wednesday.
Unintentionally activating Siri and then recording is very different from the active listening things going on. Shared with advertisers was speculation.
Again, you don't know they aren't doing any of these privacy violations again right now. You are just vomiting their marketing BS again and again "Apple means privacy". Historically their shady acts weren't discovered until much later - battery gate, siri lawsuit, etc. You're starting on personal attacks and sounding more like a bot, so I'm going to stop here.
and then
> and sounding more like a bot
Pot, kettle, etc.
Per HN guidelines: "Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes."
This has nothing to do with the specific question I asked, and I'm not sure why you'd think so unless Roku has some kind of Siri-like feature (which wasn't what I was intending when I asked regardless). (also, that's a dead link)
My point is, it's a for-profit corporation. And a really efficient one. They don't care about anyone's privacy or anything else. Only profits. History has proof - battery gate, siri lawsuit, etc.