“Recent filings with the United States Patent and Trademark Office reveal that Apple looks to be forming a social network to compete directly with Facebook,” Ophir Gottlieb writes for Capital Market Laboratories. “What’s more, Apple is firing over the bow of not just Facebook, but of a huge range of other companies including Uber, Lyft, Yelp, and many more. The implications are staggering.”
“In 2014, Tim Cook revealed that Apple handles 40 billion iMessage notifications per day. This February, Eddy Cue, the head of Apple services, revealed that Apple’s iMessage peaks at 200,000 messages a second. For reference, if that peak lasted year-round, we’re looking at 63 quadrillion messages,” Gottlieb writes. “Of all the successes Apple can point to, why would they hype their message rates?”
“We did some digging on recent Apple applications to the USPTO, and what we found was shocking,” Gottlieb writes. “Apple is automatically forming social networks. Apple is not only tracking where people eat and shop, they are targeting ride sharing as well – social networks automatically created around where people tend to travel. This is a direct threat to Uber and its $68 billion valuation.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Of course, all of this would be opt-in. The user would determine the level of tracking and participation.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Yojimbo007” for the heads up.]
Their report is trying to sell yet another report witin it because of some big mystery Apple patent. You could check out our full report on this Mystery patent right here in full: http://bit.ly/1KkZKAO
Cheers
Apple is gathering data on customer locations and interests because (among other reasons) it needs to know where to deploy its automated car force. Apple will ultimately disrupt Uber’s $68 billion valuation with a driverless taxi fleet.
If Apple is adopting Google-Like policues such as tracking my behaviour the I am done with Apple and I will return to the cave…:)
They are fighting your fight to privacy as we speak. Are you living under a rock or something?
You need to undertsand the difference between tracking anonymised people’s behaviour compared to detailed tracking of individuals.
Apple is interested in observing that 1,000 people are doing something, where that is and when. Apple doesn’t know or care who those people are. Apple are interested in what crowds are doing in order to improve services. Google wants to know exactly what you and everybody else are doing at all times and to extract the maximum value by monetising the data that it gathers on each individual.
As long as they don’t do what Facebook and Twitter have done and collude with governments and SJWs to censor or shadowban conservatives. I’m not holding my breath though, Apple is an ideologically hard left company.
Paranoid Android….
Perhaps you’d enjoy sharing some of yojimbo007’s andropause medicine. Neither of you make much sense lately.
Who wouldn’t give their eye teeth for a little preview of the projects Apple is considering for 5 and 10 years from now. Anyone who things they are relying just on the iPhone is an idiot or an analyst, or both.
The difference is that Apple knows there is an iPhone in that location but they don’t know it is yours. Google and others actually know it is you. I like Apple’s method better.
Doesn’t your carrier know it’s yours?
I have the very odd distinction of being the very last person ever to post on Apple’s disastrous AOL-fueled eWorld — something about “tumbleweeds slowly rolling over the dust of Main Street”.
Four thoughts about an Apple-branded social network:
– There is no one-size-fits-all SN site.
– People migrate from one SN site to another.
– Does Apple really want to face off against an outfit that (inflatedly) claims 1 billion members, 90% of whom are running Windows hardware?
– Apple might as well try is create a search service intended to bring down Google
Take note, this is just Ophir Gottlieb’s opinion of what the patent is about. He’s another analyst who thinks he has a greater ability to predict the future than all the other analysts out there. (Of course, they all think that about each other.) I wouldn’t make too much of his speculation at this time.
“63 quadrillion messages”
Just think of all the money that Verizon and AT&T is no longer making, kind of brings a smile to my face. 🙂
Funny thing is, if they hadn’t been so greedy (10¢ inbound + 10¢ outbound) and just charged 1¢ outbound, they’d probably still have something going for an SMS revenue stream. Now they have squat.
Apple has proven time and time again that they can’t handle online services – MobileMe, iTunes Ping, iWork, and the current mess that is Photos sharing. I have also noticed a decline in the core software – Contacts, address book, Messages, and don’t get me started on Music (seriously WTF?). I’m still a fanboy and love the hardware, but I am not optimistic about yet another social network – especially from Apple.
You are welcome MDN ….
200.000 per second is 17.28 billion per day.
In 2014 we had 40 billion per day.
Are these numbers correct?
You are correct. The original post was however high by a factor of 10k Should have been 6.3T(rillion). 6.3E12 Yah, for the non eng ppl, 63 x 10 to the 12 power. Simple math: 200,000 msgs/sec x 60sec/min x 60min/hr x 24hr/day x 365day/yr = 6,300,000,000,000 msgs/yr
I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, but if he were using the British numbering system, he’d be off by a serious amount more because a quadrillion in their system is 1 with 24 zeroes. [1E24 for you engs.] See: http://www.quadrillion.com/number.shtm Enjoy! : )