Apple Products
I like my iPhone. It’s a few generations old, so I don’t have the animojis (I wish I could be a talking unicorn, but I can’t justify the expense). I have a MacBook that I carry with me, and a Mac Mini on my desk at home. I also have an Ipad. Oh yes, and an Apple Watch.
The integration of these products works like the precious ring from Lord of the Rings. One account to rule them all. Just like the Tolkien adventures, this degree of power comes with a dire price.
When I’m using my laptop, I can see photos I just took from my phone. On my desktop, I can see the email I sent from my Ipad. On my iPad, I can see text messages that I received my phone. My watch announces my alerts in the unlikely event that I’m more than three feet from my phone (it also has a bothersome habit of reminding me to breathe and telling me when to stand). Finally, all this data is backed up in iCloud. This level of seamless integration is an astonishing tool but, just like atomic energy, it can blow up in your face when least expected.
In the “privacy” section of the iMessage app, it assures me that Apple cannot see any dick picks, boob shots, or dirty messages that I may send. That privilege is apparently reserved for the NSA and, should I ever decide to run for office, Wikileaks.
Apple says that the messages are only visible from the device(s) where I’m signed in on. It’s the plural in the last sentence where things start to get slightly bewildering.
I tend to forget that the level of privacy is inversely proportional to the number of devices I have connected. The more screens where my message appears, the more likely it is that someone else will see it. Add up all the above devices, and I may as well send all my private, illicit, immoral, communications straight out over Twitter.
iPads are expensive. Top of the line models cost well over one thousand dollars (I’m sure when I look back on this in a few years, that price will seem like a bargain). Just about everyone has a phone these days, but many families share an iPad. After all, it isn’t something that people carry everywhere. Why not let my son use it when he needs to look up something for school. I’m assuming that is what he is doing. Either that or he has learned to clear his browser history before giving it back to me.
I’m dating a smart, beautiful, funny woman who shares my love of Apple gadgets and dirty jokes. We text each other quite a bit. Sometimes we share funny stories. Sometimes we discuss our day. Sometimes we talk about our teenage children. Sometimes we send naughty or playful
One night, I sent her a link to my story about coconut oil: https://wgdavid.com/2018/12/18/coconut-oil-masturbation-and-a-cpap-machine/
She read the story on her iPad. We had a nice laugh over it. She shut the iPad and didn’t give it a second thought.
A few weeks later, her daughter’s friend came over and needed to work on a school paper. She thought nothing of it and started handing her the iPad. Fortunately, she had to unlock it first. She saw the coconut oil story pop up, and casually closed the window before handing her the tablet.
She then snuck away to text me about the embarrassing crisis she had just averted.
I told her I was relieved that she’d caught the oversight in time. It would have been awkward if her daughter’s friend read that story. I congratulated her for averting a catastrophe.
Slowly, a disquieting sense of dread came over me. It was a feeling much like Winston must have felt in Orwell’s 1984 when he suddenly realized big brother had been watching from the beginning. I had to ask a question, but I didn’t want to know the answer.
I said, “So…she’s on the iPad now?”
I saw the three little bouncing dots that indicate she was typing. Then the dots disappeared. Then a few seconds of silence, then more dots, followed by the words “Oh, shit.”
We laughed about the situation when we realized that, although she closed the awkward story, our guilty text messages would be flashing across the iPad screen as we typed.