No doubt as part of the promotion around Apple’s WWDC, Apple’s SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi gave an interview to Fast Company magazine about Apple’s relationship with Privacy. It contained this curious quote:
“But in the fullness of time, in the scope of hundreds of years from now, I think the place where I hope people can look back and talk about the places where Apple made a huge contribution to humanity is in helping people see the way of taking advantage of this great technology without the false tradeoff of giving up their privacy to do it.”
There exist companies that have multi-year business strategies. But there are very few companies that are willing to go against prevalent norms for extended periods of time on principle because they believe they will be vindicated years, decades – if you believe Federighi – centuries later.
Similarly, it is rare for a company to take a stand that is not opportunistic. Taking a stand against racism or for LGBT+ rights has become expedient today. Taking a stand against climate change will soon become expedient globally. But advocating for privacy, making major investments in an area that does not even have mainstream awareness, much less the momentum of public opinion, is admirable.
In terms of data custody for the 21st Century, Apple as of today is far ahead of Google and Microsoft, the other mainstream services ecosystems.
See: Apple’s main public-facing page for Privacy, which terms privacy a fundamental human right, and this page on how services tied to a user’s Apple ID keep data private.