A lot better than Windows but a lot worse than Linux. Especially if you're signed in and using their services.
this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2025
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Probably a bit better than Windows but ultimately with Apple you can't know for sure. Their software is proprietary and closed source, so it cant be properly audited by a third party.
Apple can claim whatever they like about privacy, it comes down to whether you take their word for it or not. Personally, i think Apple has been caught being dishonest about their software more than most tech companies, so i take their claims with a heap of salt.
If you want something that can actually be proven to be secure, the only real option is an Open-source (and ideally FOSS) platform. Anything that can't be audited can't really be trusted.
For a laptop or desktop, Ubuntu is a safe, secure, well-audited option. Mint and Fedora are also good options for most hardware. There are good DAWs available on Linux but perhaps not the exact one your friend is used to.
I would suggest anyone new to Linux to back up or remove their ssd, and install Linux on a second or new ssd to reduce the chance of accidentally wiping your data. A new OS is like getting a new computer, and you need to save your data externally before you start the process.
Edit: I'm aware that some parts of macOS are technically open-source, but that's almost meaningless from a security perspective when critical parts of the OS aren't open. Darwin being secure doesn't make the whole OS secure when network manager is still a black box (for example)
Certainly better than windows but it will send a lot of telemetry back to Apple
You can use apps like LuLu to block network connections. Also check out the rest of their apps for similar features on locking Mac down
Apple actually has a bunch of privacy-related info outlined on their website. A lot of the analysis and logging is anonymized and/or done on device, rather than sent to the cloud.
https://www.apple.com/privacy/
There’s also this, though I’m not sure if it’s up to date:
https://www.apple.com/privacy/docs/A_Day_in_the_Life_of_Your_Data.pdf
I'd say iOS is in some cases worse than GNU/Linux in terms of compatibility.
In terms of privacy too.
Sounds like they're talking about MacOS
And since we are in the privacy community and OP's friend wants to try Linux I recommend against forcing them to switch to an inferior solution.
EDIT: oh I see what you mean, I always call them all iOS, but yeah I meant macOS
MacOS is better than windows.
Even a turd sandwich is better than Windows, but macOS is like a giant douche.
LOL. not many choices i am afraid.
You can see what they store, what’s encrypted, and who holds the keys here. If your friend can keep a password that he will never lose, he should turn on Advanced Data Protection.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/102651
Here is what they are able to provide to law enforcement: https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/law-enforcement-guidelines-us.pdf
The majority of “people” here quite obviously know nothing and yet are happy parroting armchair hearsay for back pats from their fellow inbred reactionaries.
The legit comments mention specific customizations like
- lulu
- littlesnitch
- lockdown mode
- advanced data protection
The rest are chuckle fucks.
He wants to be more privacy conscious but he’s not crazy about it
Then yeah, an older Mac would work just fine.
Also, sorry this community is so shitty right now. Anyone can comment here and there’s no quality control, so unless your questions are sufficiently technical-sounding enough to scare away the morons, or you’re asking about specific Linux distro comparisons, you will not get any nuance here, and the high quality contributions will all be buried by these lead-brained conspiracy theorists and reactionary simpletons.
If there are security experts in the fediverse, they definitely aren't in this community.
I may not be one, but I'm somewhat knowledgeable in terms of being intentional with data leakage. That's just me being a Linux user and FOSS guru at that.
Yeah many haven’t moved from R yet. And I get it. They have stuff to do IRL and the key benefit they receive contributing is exposure, so they’ll stick to publishing and maybe R and SO.
We do have some well-informed posters but there appears to be an inverse relationship between expertise and posting frequency.
apple joined prism in 2012, do people just forget about the snowden leaks or they actually don't know about them?
Just as bad. mediaanalysisd, photoanalysisd, photolibraryd, siri
A lot of Apple services are done “on device”. Without signing into an iCloud account, there’s not much that will be sent to Apple.
Offcourse
Where did the grays probe you?
I would say let your friend try Linux, first. DAWs like Ardour support vst3 plugins, so most things would be fine. If that does not work out, assist them in running DAWs under wine or proton. FL Studio works under wine, probably Ableton too.
If nothing works out, then yes, macOS is fine. Just don't login using your apple account, check privacy settings after every update. You can use apps like LittleSnitch on macOS to check which apps and services are connecting to which domains and IP and block them. This way you can get a lot of control of your privacy.