Comment by alt227
25 days ago
Dont want to plug your TV in to the internet but happy to plug in an Apple TV?
I still never understand people who are dead against giving all their personal info and data to one company but are fine with giving it to another.
Yes this is an apple thread on HN and so I am expecting to be downvoted into oblivion by the Apple fans who believe Apple is better than any other company with data and security, when they have been proved multiple times to be just as bad.
Different companies have different track records and incentives with regard to privacy. There may be companies more trustworthy than Apple, but there aren't many companies less worthy than most TV manufacturers.
Right but if you are streaming then you are happy to give all your personal info and viewing habit data to Netflix, Disney, Amazon etc to build ad profiles on you, as well as Apple who own the hardware and are feeding telemetry data into your ad profile on their system.
But for some reason Sony or Samsung doing the same on your TV is too far?
> But for some reason Sony or Samsung doing the same on your TV is too far?
The content streamers get your viewing habits by virtue of you viewing their content (like Youtube, or any web site, getting information on what you're looking at by simply logging HTTP GET requests).
There is no reason why television OEMs need to do screen captures and send them to the mothership.
It's the first- and second-party interaction: you gave money to Sony/Samsung/etc for a product, and after the exchange there is no reason for any further interaction.
You have a regular/monthly interaction with content providers: there is at least a valid reason for the content providers to have that information in the first place, and none for the TV OEMs to collect it.
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> as well as Apple who own the hardware and are feeding telemetry data into your ad profile on their system.
Are they, though? Is Apple snooping into the Netflix app’s data to track what you’re watching and phone home with that info? Are there studies showing that happening? Are they selling that data to third parties like the TV manufacturers are?
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> But for some reason Sony or Samsung doing the same on your TV is too far?
Yes.
I got an AppleTV because the modal experience of using webOS on my TV was having my toddler scream "WATCH TRASH TRUCK" while watching a loading spinner. Garbage computer experience. I never disconnected it from the network though. I was watching the NBA Playoffs on broadcast (so no internet involved in the content delivery) and I got an overlay in webOS system fonts suggesting I order delivery food through my TV. I saw it again when watching the World Cup through the Peacock app on the Apple TV.
So I watch like a total of 2 hours of sports in Summer 2026 and my kid gets an hour of TV while he eats lunch and webOS works its hardest to make those both suck ass, and the Apple TV Just WorksTM and we can put our weekly Facetime with Grandma and Grandpa on there. Absolute no brainer better experience.
For privacy specifically, I'll refer you to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%E2%80%93FBI_encryption_d...
For privacy specifically, let me retort with the evidence of Apple giving all of its users data to the US government.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants...
I’m not sure you’ve read your own source.
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I would invite you to read all the investigations that have been done on how much various smart TVs surveil households and exfiltrate all kinds of personal data.
Then find investigations where Apple TVs are proven to do the same, of which there are none.
You’re chalking this up to fanboyism but this is just people making informed choices. In today’s streaming era “just don’t connect anything to the internet” isn’t possible.
> Then find investigations where Apple TVs are proven to do the same, of which there are none.
Instead, Apple sends that straight to the NSA.[0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM
> just don’t connect anything to the internet
A practically e-waste mini-PC running an ordinary Linux distro paired with an airmouse remote is a much better TV box. You don't need streaming apps when you are free to use a Web browser, something Apple won't allow for obvious reasons. No surveillance, no crapware, no ads. It can even double as a console for GOG/Steam.
> The Washington Post indicated that "98 percent of PRISM production is based on Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft"
> Apple: "We have never heard of PRISM" "We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer data must get a court order."
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> A practically e-waste mini-PC running an ordinary Linux distro paired with an airmouse remote is a much better TV box. You don't need streaming apps when you are free to use a Web browser, something Apple won't allow for obvious reasons.
That setup will work in the most basic sense, but browser streaming is often limited (reduced quality, etc) and things like HDR and color spaces are still a mess (though improving) in the Linux world.
Im really not chalking this up to Fanboyism. The same can be said for anyone using a streaming device to avoid plugging their TV into the internet, be it Nvidia or google etc.
I am well aware of the recent LG controversy. However In my opinion if you are happy to sign up to Netflix and Disney+ and use a streaming box to give them all your personal data and viewing habits to allow tracking and ad profiles then its pretty hypocritical to target a single company in the chain and call them out for it.
You really don’t think there’s a difference between a company collecting data about the usage of their own video library and another company tracking audio with microphones, sniffing local network devices, monitoring all video output and selling all of the above to third parties?
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Consumer Reports has generally rated them as highest in privacy and security, whether or not they've had any issues in the past.
I really don't think it's fair to chalk this up to fanboyism. It's really hard to argue that a majority of the platforms natively available on smart TVs are pretty bad, and that they have made a habit of using software updates to cram in more ads. I used a TCL roku TV 10 years and recommended them to everyone looking for a decent budget TV with a good minimal interface. That same exact TV is still used on occasion; the interface has gotten awful and interactions are sluggish.
Many platforms have gone the same way: Google TV boxes are known to be broadly awful at this point, my samsung TV's built-in apps got progressively less responsive with more ads on my homescreen over the last few years. I haven't experienced it but I hear complaints about the performance and intrusiveness of LG TVs now as well.
After cycling through my options, the Apple TV is the only one that doesn't exhibit the same behavior: It is responsive, has a good interface that looks nice, has a very nice minimal remote, and it works the same today as it did yesterday (and basically as it did 2 years ago). I'm not trying to claim allegiance to any brand, it just seems that somehow Apple is the only one not participating in enshittification, at least not to the same degree. If that changes the Apple TV will be out the door and I'll probably need to roll my own out of some sort of mini PC on an open-source platform.
And as one last note, for the time being Apple still has some credibility in terms of privacy. They have revenue streams that work for them without completely ruining their product, and it's my hope they continue with that because as far as I can tell they are the only ones left among the big players.
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