Well, the whole thing of only apologising after getting caught, and not being all that honest up front, certainly isn't better. Nor, does it seem, were the original practices.
A more interesting question is whether the response (the practical response, not the words) is better. The whole identifier nonsense doesn't seem any better; undoubtedly somewhere at Apple there is a database with a table containing both the GUID and either an IMEI or Apple ID or some other key that is unique to a customer. And "dissociating" the data from that GUID doesn't help anyway because there are sure to be backups. So a thumbs-down on that one. Nor, I would say, does it matter whether the person reviewing the data is a contractor or an employee. That's a legal distinction that really means nothing in terms of privacy. However, the ability to opt out *a priori* (rather than "deleting" the data after the fact) is a major improvement and seems superior to others.
That said, at least on macos Siri has always been opt-in, which is best of all. If you don't turn it on, none of this stuff matters.
Better? I dunno. Probably a little. Not enough to make me even think about turning the silly thing on to begin with.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
