I'm perplexed how anyone could believe iOS is somehow different simply because Apple doesn't need to purchase a "rootkit" from a third party like CarrierIQ.
Apple, a hardware company, is well-suited to write their own "rootkit" in-house. They no doubt have their own techniques for getting the same information that CarrierIQ gathers.
To think Apple is not interested in the same information about their customers just seems incredibly naive or like some kind of cognitive dissonance.
If anything I would imagine Apple has set the bar for how much "intelligence" can be collected on its customers and the carriers are basically playing catch up.
To think Apple is not interested in the same information about their customers just seems incredibly naive or like some kind of cognitive dissonance.
Actually I think there's definitely room for argument there. Apple may be be interested, sure - but unlike Google, they don't have an imperative to collect and sell that information. Google and Apple, for the millionth time, have different business models. Apple takes money from people who buy its devices and software. Google takes money from advertisers. Both are focused on getting the people who give them money, to give them more money. So while Apple certainly could collect and sell this information, they actually have a choice. If Google didn't collect and sell this information, someone interested in a minority-shareholder lawsuit could argue that they were leaving money on the table and doing a disservice to their shareholder.
Apple is one of the most profitable companies in the world right now, and on top of that a company whose corporate culture rejects stuff like Carrier IQ. Google is in a position where they could conceivably be sued for not implementing something like this, and is a company whose corporate culture prizes data, data, data and endless analysis.
It is 100% plausible that one of these companies would implement a Carrier IQ style of rootkit, and the other would not.
There's a very active iOS jailbreak community who should be able to confirm/deny this. They'd know by now how often iOS phones phone home, and what data they send
There is also a very active Android community, and they're just finding out so I wouldn't be so sure. From a structural perspective, it would also make more sense if any of their own statistical software lived in the iOS itself, while the nature of android (specifically the google/mfg divide) that would drive this information collecting into an app to in that ecosystem.
Apple, a hardware company, is well-suited to write their own "rootkit" in-house. They no doubt have their own techniques for getting the same information that CarrierIQ gathers.
To think Apple is not interested in the same information about their customers just seems incredibly naive or like some kind of cognitive dissonance.
If anything I would imagine Apple has set the bar for how much "intelligence" can be collected on its customers and the carriers are basically playing catch up.
I could be wrong. But that's how I see it.