INVESTIGATES
Privacy. That’s Apple
More than just a good slogan, privacy is core to how Apple does things
WRITTEN BY CHARLOTTE HENRY
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According to Apple’s declaration in its September 2020 iPhone advert, privacy was paramount for the iPhone. With its ‘Privacy. That’s iPhone’ line, the campaign emphasized that not only that privacy is important to Apple and a key part of its headline product, but that the company wants everyone to know about it. This has now become an integral part of the company’s messaging, and it has become something of a game to count how many times Apple executives mention the topic during an event.
However, to dismiss this approach as a purely business-motivated, PR-drive exercise would be somewhat unfair. There’s a lot more going on, and Apple has put in real, practical, features to give users both increased privacy and a better understanding of how their data is used and by who.
The cynical view is that as we have all become increasingly conscious of how our data is used over the years Apple has tried gain a competitive advantage and attract new customers by doubling down on privacy. And perhaps there is some truth to this.
While the likes of Google and Facebook hoover up ever more information about their users (albeit they have different reasons for doing so and use it in quite different ways), there is no doubt that many customers have found Apple’s commitment to privacy reassuring. It may even have encouraged some to buy the company’s products and use the company’s services when they otherwise wouldn’t have, putting more people into Apple’s ecosystem and more money in the company’s coffers.