The rule of thumb that, in exchange for having expensive seeming prices and usage restrictions on its devices, Apple was less likely to creepily surveil and store your personal behavioural data on its servers for undisclosed and unknowable reasons seems to be invalid now.
Just a few years ago we saw Apple’s “What happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone” marketing slogan. More recently though researchers have shown that, even when you disable the sharing of device analytics, the App Store and many of the other built-in iPhone apps send tracking info back to apple.
…including what you tapped on, which apps you search for, what ads you saw, and how long you looked at a given app and how you found it. The app sent details about you and your device as well, including ID numbers, what kind of phone you’re using, your screen resolution, your keyboard languages, how you’re connected to the internet…
…your list of watched stocks, the names stocks you viewed or searched for and time stamps for when you did it, as well as a record of any news articles you see in the app…
I guess if the future of Apple does end up involving showing scammy looking adverts promoting gambling wherever they can slot them in then this is the kind of thing we would expect.