Apple Forces Competitors To Play By Its Rules With A New Operating System
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Tim Cook, Apple Inc.’s chief executive officer, has turned user data privacy into both a business strategy and an ethical imperative. “If we accept as a normal and inevitable the fact that everything in our lives can be added and sold, then we lose much more than data,” Cook said during a virtual keynote at the Computers, Privacy & Data Protection Conference in January. “We lose the freedom to be human.”
From this high-minded privacy pulpit, Apple today is expected to unveil the latest version of its operating system — iOS 14.5 — including a feature that will require apps to ask users for permission before tracking data and activity. The timetable for release to the public is uncertain, but a beta version of the system is already available and Cook is likely to announce new details during the company’s annual spring event. The emphasis on privacy boosts Apple’s business as a maker of personal devices and also puts pressure on competitors: The privacy features of the new system, along with Cook’s hard-headed rhetoric, are forcing advertising-based business such as Facebook and Google to respond and adapt.