Microsoft quietly changed how folder backup works in the OneDrive app on Windows 11. Now, the OS enables it by default during the initial setup without asking the user for permission.
Designed to fill the 5gb immediately so you’re going to buy more cloud space immediately
When I had an iPhone, there was an annoying red dot on the settings icon “warning, you didn’t enable cloud backups for photos”, and if you enabled it become an annoying red dot “warning you ran out of iCloud space”
It’s not an Apple fanboy but imo it’s a lot more transparent on their side. There’s a switch for each and every service to use iCloud or not in the settings. Services don’t just re-enable their usage of iCloud after some random update and most importantly, they don’t just re-install apps you previously deleted. Or bloatware.
Oh no, an annoying red dot. Microsoft are straight up hoovering up users data into the cloud by automatically enabling syncing. These two things are not even close to the same.
it’s a dark pattern deliberately chosen to let people get annoyed and pay for icloud. On windows people instead will accidentally fill their onedrive account and that’s it. They won’t even know that they’re using it. It might send some scary emails like “your cloud backup is full!!!11 you gonna lose everything!!111” but those go directly in spam. Error messages in windows for regular users appear like “����� �������� �����������” - their eyes don’t have the right encoding to understand the message, so they just click OK and dismiss it. Instead, the red dot is prominent in the home screen of every iphone and bother also those that don’t read the error messages…
Wow. I genuinely can’t believe people are upvoting you for this. Like yeah, I super agree it’s a dark pattern. Stealing people’s data is WAY worse though, uploading potentially sensitive photos or documents to their cloud with no user input. But according to you that’s fine because it’s less obtrusive and annoying? Yeesh I’m glad I don’t have your priorities.
Edit: Like, have you seen most people’s home screens? They’ll have a dozen other “red dots” and it becomes part of the background. In the same way as you talk about with Windows errors. Here’s mine:
Oh noooo, a red dot on the Settings app…with all the other red dots…
For me it was annoying enough to switch to android. I really felt like I had to use iCloud, forced through my throat. I have ocd and a red dot means “I need to open this app immediately RIGHT NOW to clear it” - and then your can’t clear it until you subscribe
Yes. I completely agree that there should be. However the other poster’s claim that it makes Apple just as bad as Microsoft turning a syncing feature on without user consent is ludicrous imo. That just feels like giving them a free pass on what is, I believe, an as before unseen escalation in the erosion of user privacy by large corporations.
There’s always the option to store things locally. You want to get fancy, you can set up a NAS for remote access.
Saying “isn’t X also doing Y” implies the behaviour itself isn’t the problem, when it is. Doesn’t matter who’s using dark patterns for rent-seeking; it matters that we’ve normalized it.
Isn’t apple doing the same?
Designed to fill the 5gb immediately so you’re going to buy more cloud space immediately
When I had an iPhone, there was an annoying red dot on the settings icon “warning, you didn’t enable cloud backups for photos”, and if you enabled it become an annoying red dot “warning you ran out of iCloud space”
It’s not an Apple fanboy but imo it’s a lot more transparent on their side. There’s a switch for each and every service to use iCloud or not in the settings. Services don’t just re-enable their usage of iCloud after some random update and most importantly, they don’t just re-install apps you previously deleted. Or bloatware.
Yes, it doesn’t get re enabled but I totally hate that annoying red dot on settings if you don’t set iCloud
That red dot should disappear if you disable iCloud (yes, it is different from not setting it up… it is not good, but you can get rid of it)
Oh no, an annoying red dot. Microsoft are straight up hoovering up users data into the cloud by automatically enabling syncing. These two things are not even close to the same.
it’s a dark pattern deliberately chosen to let people get annoyed and pay for icloud. On windows people instead will accidentally fill their onedrive account and that’s it. They won’t even know that they’re using it. It might send some scary emails like “your cloud backup is full!!!11 you gonna lose everything!!111” but those go directly in spam. Error messages in windows for regular users appear like “����� �������� �����������” - their eyes don’t have the right encoding to understand the message, so they just click OK and dismiss it. Instead, the red dot is prominent in the home screen of every iphone and bother also those that don’t read the error messages…
Wow. I genuinely can’t believe people are upvoting you for this. Like yeah, I super agree it’s a dark pattern. Stealing people’s data is WAY worse though, uploading potentially sensitive photos or documents to their cloud with no user input. But according to you that’s fine because it’s less obtrusive and annoying? Yeesh I’m glad I don’t have your priorities.
Edit: Like, have you seen most people’s home screens? They’ll have a dozen other “red dots” and it becomes part of the background. In the same way as you talk about with Windows errors. Here’s mine:
Oh noooo, a red dot on the Settings app…with all the other red dots…
For me it was annoying enough to switch to android. I really felt like I had to use iCloud, forced through my throat. I have ocd and a red dot means “I need to open this app immediately RIGHT NOW to clear it” - and then your can’t clear it until you subscribe
There should be an option to say “I’ve read it and I decided against it” that makes the dot disappear.
Yes. I completely agree that there should be. However the other poster’s claim that it makes Apple just as bad as Microsoft turning a syncing feature on without user consent is ludicrous imo. That just feels like giving them a free pass on what is, I believe, an as before unseen escalation in the erosion of user privacy by large corporations.
I really like Jobs-era Apple and hate M$, but didn’t feel the urge to defend A this time.
There’s always the option to store things locally. You want to get fancy, you can set up a NAS for remote access.
Saying “isn’t X also doing Y” implies the behaviour itself isn’t the problem, when it is. Doesn’t matter who’s using dark patterns for rent-seeking; it matters that we’ve normalized it.