Apple slides from 2013 skewer Android as “a massive tracking device”

Enlarge / It just reads different in that typeface. (credit: Department of Justice)

“Here is [sic] the latest slides we have on privacy,” Senior Vice President of Services Eddy Cue wrote to CEO Tim Cook and then-SVP of Marketing Phil Schiller in January 2013. “Still a lot more work to do but good start.”

Those slides, newly made public as an exhibit in the Department of Justice’s ongoing antitrust trial against Google, on “The State of Privacy,” cast a dim light on Apple’s competitors, particularly Google. They quote former CEO Eric Schmidt’s notorious remarks on Google’s policy to “get right up to the creepy line but not cross it.” They unfavorably compare Apple and Google’s approaches to account data combination, voice search privacy, maps, and search. And most notably, they give over an entire slide to a summary: “Android is a massive tracking device.”

The exhibit is, as noted, redacted for public filing and abridged, so slides not pertaining to Google’s search dominance and other issues at trial are missing. Still, Apple’s presentation offers a rare glimpse into the company’s perception of Google, particularly Android, and how its own devices and services might stand apart.