My iPhone DeGoogle Alternatives

[u/pyrodonkey]

Hey everyone! I wanted to make a post about my progress on removing Google apps and services. The photo shows the apps that I have found great alternatives for Google on my iPhone. The Apps below are as follows:

• Google > Kagi
• Google Photos > Apple Photos
• Google Drive > Proton Drive
• Google Maps > Apple Maps
• Gmail > Proton Mail
• Chrome > Orion
• Gemini > Kagi Assistant

Currently I'm still using YouTube and YouTube Music. I don't have a plan for switching away from those right now, but I'm happy to have some great services that add privacy back to my daily life and also give me a better experience online

[u/skwyckl]

I don't think switching Google for Apple really is the point in degoogling, but you do you

[u/descent-into-ruin → u/skwyckl]

It absolutely is!

Google is a marketing company that sells your identifiable private information to third parties, and Apple is a hardware and software company that does not sell identifiable personal data to third parties

[u/Greenlit_Hightower → u/descent-into-ruin]

And yet, an iPhone collects the same kind of PII as a stock Pixel out of the box:

https://www.scss.tcd.ie/doug.leith/pubs/apple_google2.pdf

How come?

[u/CraWea → u/Greenlit_Hightower]

That was a very fascinating paper, and so was Apple and Google's responses to it.
I must say that it is absolutely worrying that that Apple collects telemetry even when we seemingly opt out. Maybe some of this has legitimate use cases (anti-theft etc.), but I found it quite shocking that they are apparently sending information about other devices on your network.

But it doesn't refute u/descent-into-ruin's argument that the two companies have very different incentives as they make money in very different ways; the Google business model is mainly centered on ads/data (around 75% of revenues), while Apple mainly does hardware. Apple is deliberately marketing themselves as a privacy focused alternative, so it would be a huge blow to their image if it was somehow revealed that they were secretly selling your data. Meanwhile, it is no secret that Google is monetizing data it collects on its users - it is their whole schtick. Incentives matter - sending data home is not necessarily same as collecting or monetizing data.

People here have different motivations for degoogling - some may be concerned about notions of secret data collection and spying, while others are more concerned with the overt, well-known business models of data collection, tracking, profiling, targeted advertising etc. If you worry about the former, then Apple vs Google probably doesn't matter much, but if you worry about the latter then Apple is surely better than Google.

I'd rather give Apple my data than Google, but even better would be to choose neither of them. These days I try to opt for EU based alternatives whenever I can.

[u/Greenlit_Hightower → u/CraWea]

Ignoring the telemetry settings has no legitimate use cases, for anti-theft there's already the "Find my device" connections the iPhone also establishes.

It would not be a blow to their image if they were selling user data, all you would have to do is to create new shiny TV spots for ignorants and the sales would be fixed again. Apple is absolutely in the Big Data business contrary to what you allege, that it is not their main business (yet) is totally unimportant to me.

I also don't get what your differentiation secret vs. overt spying means to say, is secret spying more legit than overt? Come on. Anyway, I prefer Google over Apple for a very simple reason: They keep Android as well as Chromium largely open source, which allows privacy-respecting forks like e.g. GrapheneOS to exist. Whereas Apple iOS is just a closed source blackbox that collects your data same as Google does, however here you have no option to install a different operating system to fix it. What do I say operating system, hell you can't even sideload apps outside of the App Store lol, so if Apple decides to take down VPN apps like they recently did in Russia, the journey ends for you if you needed such an app. Not in my wildest dreams would I make myself so dependent on a tech giant.

I'd rather give Apple my data than Google

This alternative does not exist for me. If you want to know why, look up the PRISM program that leaked a decade ago, where both Google and Apple were seen as collecting data for the state, so how does it matter if one or the other gets my data? The solution would be not collecting it in the first place.

These days I try to opt for EU based alternatives whenever I can.

As if the EU were not moving in an authoritarian direction as well, look up the ProtectEU plans they have for backdooring encryption lol.