I am not convinced that Apple cares about user privacy the way we think it does. Rather, I am suspicious they are entering the advertisement business, requiring them to profile their users for the purpose of better advertisement capabilities, simultaneously preventing advertisement competitors from actually competing. The fact that it seems to provide better privacy to its users is the cherry on top.

The result is we now have privacy services by Apple such as Private relay (and even earlier, Apple Card) which give them a heap of information, in addition to the fact that they host their users emails and imessages (which even though is e2ee, allows for a great social graph) while their competitors had their hands cut off with Privacy nutrition labels and app tracking transparency (which doesn’t apply the same way to apple or might even be irrelevant to them).

And they own the keyboard, the browser, the location tracking and many more features. In the end, it’s in my opinion just a matter of time before they expand on their advertisement business. They are already doing advertisement in their online stores after all.

So yes, I’m suspicious and if we see anything with how Apple behaves in China (easily following all the rules by the government instead of standing up for their consumers who deserve privacy) and how they keep pushing malicious compliance in the EU to secure their turf, this should not be a surprise. If some people are idolising Apple for being a good company, I’m afraid to say, today’s Apple is not the company from 20 years ago and also, this is not a surprise if pulling these actions make you rich: it is after all a profit driven company, responsible for generating profits to its shareholders.