Is Apple's privacy line bullshit?
Is Apple's privacy line bullshit?
7th Aug 2026
438 words, 3 minutes.
Only yesterday I had a grumble about Apple tricking me into upgrading my iPhone and iPad to iOS 26, despite my efforts to avoid it.
Today I find iPadOS 26 is even worse than I thought, with UI glitches and poor<br>handling of the simplest of things taken for granted for years (I’ve found<br>rotation from landscape to portrait messes up the screen paint of Messages, for<br>example).
I’m finding that many simple operations are now more steps than previously. In<br>the App Store, the list of updates would appear under your account. Now it’s<br>Account -> App Updates. Activating Home actions in CarPlay used to be one large<br>button, now it takes an extra step to focus on the small circle (I understand<br>why they’ve done this - if you have, say, a gate and a garage door, it lets<br>you choose, where previously it was just the last device accessed. But that<br>doesn’t change the fact it takes an extra – fiddly – step, like a rotation of<br>BMW’s iDrive controller, to select the actual action. This is a poor design<br>choice that’s a backwards step).
This is all friction, which is the opposite of what the Apple experience was<br>like. Even opening packaging is made joyously simple, yet complexity now exists<br>everywhere throughout their operating systems. There are no subtractions, no<br>making things simpler. They’ve just added things — or worse, where they have<br>removed something it’s to the detriment of the experience (see previous post<br>about the camera controls).
More concerning though, is something popping up that echoes back to the mess I<br>had with trying to delete RAW photos
over 2 years
ago — I have messages resurfacing<br>from as far back as 2024.
I do use Messages in iCloud, but even if a device has it set to keep one<br>year’s worth of messages, that should still only surface messages from mid 2025. There is a setting of ‘forever’, but I’ve never used that on any device.<br>This also clearly demonstrates that when we think messages are deleted, they<br>are not.
As much as this irks and frustrates me, I think it’s more out of<br>disappointment. “There is no alternative”. Apple’s hardware is so superior to<br>any other choice, across phones and computers, it just seems unnecessary that<br>the software is massively letting the experience down. The smells pointing<br>towards Apple “caring about privacy” being bullshit are doubly disappointing.
If you’re finding Apple’s products as frustrating as I am, and you’ve tried<br>alternatives that you’re happy with, I’d love to hear about your experience.<br>Drop me a line with the button below?
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