Apps and advertisers are coming for your lock screen

https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/5/23195827/lockscreen-content-apple-ios-16-glance

by MBCook • 4 years ago

30 50 4 years ago

EddieDante• 4 years ago

Hell no to the power of fuck you. There's no way I'm allowing apps access to my phone's lock screen. The only thing I want on my LS is my name, the time, and a little message for anybody trying to unlock my device without my consent: "Judicial warrant or GTFO!"

theandrewbailey• 4 years ago

No.

I just became a fan of LineageOS. I don't think they will, but if they do this, I'm going back to dumbphones.

BLKNSLVR2• 4 years ago

+1 for LineageOS and the overall freedom of custom ROMs. I'm developing my personal SOE and workflow for replacement phones, and any newly purchased device must be LineageOS compatible.

My daughter is in line for her first phone soon, and so she's going to be introduced to the SOE at least as her base Android experience.

gspencley3• 4 years ago

I use GrapheneOS personally. I'm not the biggest fan of smart phones. I like using an OS written by security researchers that have hardened Android code and have a lot of other security and privacy features baked in. I still don't use my phone as much as most people, but I found myself actually enjoying my phone for the first time ever when I finally swung for a Pixel and installed Graphene. It's nice to feel as in control of my hardware, software and data on my phone as much as I do on my desktops and laptops running Linux.

danpalmer• 4 years ago

I've always felt uneasy about things like this. Those who can afford it can have a phone without ads on the lockscreen, or a Kindle without "special offers" on the lock screen, or can afford not to give their purchase history to Honey for targeted advertising, and so on.

Those who can't afford it, need to provide all that data and live with a much lower level of privacy.

While it's theoretically "their choice", economically some are forced to give up this privacy.

HerrFolgreich• 4 years ago

At least with the kindle, when I bought the ad-supported version because I wanted to save money, I just reset the firmware after unboxing and strictly put the books on via USB. I have no need for the device to be online and never once have been greeted by an ad. In Germany we have "Buchpreisbindung" which pretty much disallows eBooks to be significantly cheaper than physical books, so even with no ads shown, big A still gets their fair share of revenue out of me. I guess for smart phones and similar this is not a feasible approach because they pretty much turn stupid without internet access, but at least rooting on Android puts some leverage back into consumer's hands for now.

groovybits• 4 years ago

I would argue what you just said is also a privilege that one must afford: technical knowledge, or the privilege to have access to resources that will teach it to you.

remuskaos2• 4 years ago

This is exactly what I have done too. Purchase the ad-supported version for (I think) 40 Euros less and simply never connect to the internet. That was over five years ago and I still don't regret it.

It has one more advantage: the firmware is really outdated. Normally I'd consider this a bad thing, but in case I ever want to root the device, the jail breaks are probably for one specific old version of the software, to which I'd have to upgrade. Not downgrade, if that's even possible.

usrn2• 4 years ago

The base model Pinephone is $150. It's not about price, it's about tolerance.

HKH2• 4 years ago

It's not that hard to buy a relatively cheap phone and put a ROM on it. You will forgo some conveniences, but that's the cost of privacy.

ubermonkey2• 4 years ago

Being able to curate the lockscreen myself is useful - next appointment, or weather data, or whatever. But ads? No fucking way.

Of course, realistically this will creep in at the low end almost immediately. Cheap Android handsets will have this baked in. Nicer ones will have an option to disable it.

Or we might see the Kindle model -- you can get a base model Kindle for $89, if you don't mind lockscreen ads; if you hate the idea, an ad-free version of the same device is $109.

smoldesu• 4 years ago

FWIW, this is why nobody ought to buy a phone where they can't replace the OS when the first-party manufacturer goes crazy.

ubermonkey2• 4 years ago

Or, alternately, buy from a vendor with a well-established hostility to invasive advertising and who views user privacy as a selling point.

Sure, Apple could change their behavior on all this, but it doesn't seem likely. Especially if low-end Android gets super super ad-saturated; they'll love to draw the contrast.

joshstrange4• 4 years ago

Not surprising for The Verge but they make giant leaps to go from "Carrier-installed adware" to:

Apple has echoed this idea, talking about how it sees a more feature-rich lock screen as a way to help you use your phone less.

Yes, because those are totally the same thing /s

You would have to be brain dead to think that Apple would ever ship a phone with ads like this on the lockscreen by default. Apple is opening up some APIs to allow apps to provide widgets (aka complications) for the lockscreen and more customizability but to just to "But, by opening up this space, these companies are offering apps and advertisers a chance to get even closer to you." is just bad reporting and silly.

I mean sure, the user might be install shitty apps that show ads but that would be 100% up to the user and not something pre-bundled to increase longtail revenue for Apple.

slindz5• 4 years ago

I'm not sure Apple deserves that much benefit of the doubt.

I've found myself hunting through iOS settings to hide News on that slide screen to the left.

It was definitely put there by Apple and I'm confident they were paid to put it there by those chasing advertising dollars.

joshstrange4• 4 years ago

If you are talking about the "Today" view (one screen to the left of the first home screen) then it's press and hold to delete a widget (just like for apps). I would bet a good bit of money no one paid Apple to put the news widget there, Apple probably did it attempt to get people to use their news app more and eventually pay for news+. I'm perfectly ok with all of that, especially since I deleted it immediately without issue. That said, if I was going to use a free or paid news service then Apple News+ would be high on my list for a number of reasons.

dymk2• 4 years ago

Long press -> remove

They make it incredibly easy to remove widgets

egypturnash• 4 years ago

I've never used News and have no plans to use it and yet it occasionally popped up alerts until I finally got off my ass and dug through the giant list of notifications to turn it off.

HWR_14• 4 years ago

"Hunting"? It was "settings" -> "news"

shiftpgdn• 4 years ago

Wasn't that the reason the iphone was only released on AT&T at first? The "smart phones" before iphones were riddled with adware and other carrier installed garbage.

joshstrange4• 4 years ago

Which, at the time, was nothing short of a miracle (no carrier installed garbage). If carriers could go back in time I'd bet they'd do everything in their power to collectively reject that deal because they gave up a ton of power.

MBCook• 4 years ago

Yep. AT&T (really Cingular) was desperate and needed a hit product to grow. They made a deal with the devil (from their perspective) to give up control in hopes of getting sales & users.

The successful carriers like Verizon told Apple no due to Apple’s demands. If they knew how big it would be they may have agreed but that was unknowable.

Still it was the end of the absolute lockdown carriers had on smartphone software.

lawgimenez• 4 years ago

Anybody who reads The Verge is just wasting their time. They’ve gone downhill very fast, articles are like tech tabloids.

BLKNSLVR2• 4 years ago

Interesting the resistance to this given its inevitability based on the direction of the last decade and a half.

Leela: "Didn't you have ads in the 21st century?"

Fry: "Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games..and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts, and bananas and written on the sky. But not in dreams, no siree."

Those of us pushing back are in such a minority that our voices will not be heard over those of the significant majority clamoring for their $3 savings at the checkout for giving away $300 worth of their data and an incalculable value of their privacy.

gspencley3• 4 years ago

The difference between a phone lock screen and a bus, ball game, movies etc. is that we own our phone.

Milk cartons and magazines are interesting examples. It really depends on the magazine and the subscriber, but speaking for myself the one type of magazine I still subscribe to is a trade magazine and I subscribe to it in part because of the ads. Yes I read the columns and the content is important, but because it's a trade magazine I'm actually curious about new products and the magazine is a completely opt-in way to get that information delivered to me. I can unsubscribe at any time.

Milk cartons are disposable packaging so who cares?

My phone lock screen though? I don't much like the idea that some remote server somewhere can push something in my face in a way that I can't choose to ignore it, throw it away, opt out .. and, oh yeah, it's on something I paid hundreds of dollars for.

I think that's the difference.

tartoran• 4 years ago

Not only that but milk carton ads are still static and can be easily ignored. Imagine you opened your fridge and dozens of little disposable screens started flashing at you, soapbars had a new biotech state of art disposable speakers and pestered you with ads and jingles when you use it or even when it detects any slight movement.

But for now the advertising industry’s main goal is to gobble up any remaining surface of electronic displays, idle or not

Nextgrid2• 4 years ago

You don’t own the phone. Right now you’re only able to have a phone that’s not completely user-hostile because one big company (Apple) currently uses privacy as a selling point.

In Android-land the only way to regain control mostly relies on security vulnerabilities.

You can’t really build your own either; most apps (including for government services) require either iOS or Android (with Google Play services) and neither can be licensed.

You can’t build your own clients either - copyright law has successfully been used to sue developers of third-party clients despite displaying content the user is authorized to view (and can view in the official client).

alephxyz• 4 years ago

Most people own their phone but not the software running on it

remuskaos2• 4 years ago

I think we really only own our phones if we're able to install a custom ROM like Lineage on them. Otherwise we pay to have bloat and ads shoved in our faces.

It would be ideal if all devices we buy were unlockable, but sadly that's not the case. For cable modems and smart TVs and most things that have same RF capability, "regulations" are used as an excuse to lock them down.

seltzered_• 4 years ago

Some historical notes:

- A decade ago (2012), Facebook briefly had (but didn't sell) an htc Android smartphone that had posts on the lock screen. They might've also had an option in the Facebook app to do this in the android lock screen.

- In 2014, Joe Edelman wrote http://nxhx.org/Choicemaking/ with a demo of what an iphone lock screen could look like to honor 'time well spent'

roneythomas6• 4 years ago

Also Facebook had a android launcher app called Facebook Home, that would show fb posts from your friends on your lockscreen.

rib3ye• 4 years ago

The ad-supported version of the Amazon Fire and Kindle have had ads on the lock-screen for a super long time (possibly a decade?). Even when the device is offline, ads are cached to make sure impressions are happening. Of course, clicking those CTAs goes nowhere.

mobilio• 4 years ago

I'm owner of Kindle with ads. For $20 less you getting same Kindle with non-obstructed ads.

dredmorbius• 4 years ago

Among the best ways to get less of socially corrosive activities, services, or product is high taxation.

Until the early 19th century, advertising was subjected to high taxation rates within the UK. I've come to think that returning to such a practice, with specific carve-outs for specific areas of actual social benefit, might be a very good idea.

Glance, I suspect, would have a differing opinion. That's the parasite's prerogative.

pdpi• 4 years ago

Every day we hit new lows for ads creeping all over the user experience. As an expat I use Revolut as a way to easily hold (and transact) multiple currencies, and I recently decided to kill the app's notifications. I had to stop notifications on a freaking banking app because it kept spamming me with ads, promotions, and referral drives. I can't even find a way to disable all of those and just keep the notifications for transactions. How the hell did we end up here?

Nextgrid2• 4 years ago

How the hell did we end up here?

You end up here in a market that rewards “growth & engagement” more than actual cash.

jacquesm• 4 years ago

In the long run any surface will trend to exposing advertising. You have to counter this with force if you don't want to succumb to it.

throw10920• 4 years ago

In a certain light, Glance or something like it is a totally sensible idea. You don’t need to constantly dip in and out of apps looking for news and information — you don’t even need to unlock your phone. You just trust your device to bring you something interesting every time you turn it on.

In case you don't read to the end (where the author disclaims this viewpoint), I believe that this statement is intentionally taking the viewpoint of someone who's somewhat addicted to their phone - as it's not a totally sensible idea, even if Glance was not an advertising company. Implementing this idea would make phones even more distracting and addicting than they are already.

“and once you’ve unlocked your phone, you almost forget why you’re there in the first place!”

This is a bug! Not a feature! The advertising and "engagement" strategies implemented over the years have contributed at least in part (if not wholly) to the "erosion of intent" that causes this effect. The solution is to stop encroaching on the agency of the user - not to put things on the lock screen and make it worse!

xnx• 4 years ago

Someone pointed out that the modern world is an attention economy. If I can get your attention, I can change your mind. If I can change your mind, I can take your money.

usrn2• 4 years ago

I used to be on the BSD side about software freedom but the way non-free software has been abused to go after my mind (along with the people around me) has made me a GNU zealot. All of the machines I own (including my phone) run GNU/Linux and virtually no non-free software.

IMO if you can't handle free software (and some people can't) then you should just stay away from computers for your own good; they'll use you rather than the other way around.

benrapscallion• 4 years ago

Yet another proof that the advertising industry is a cancer on humanity.

Apps and advertisers are coming for your lock screen

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