It sounds like the students are accessing their Gmail accounts in the browser rather than in a mail client (which could be Mail, or something else like Spark).
If the Gmail accounts in question are part of Google Apps for Education, the privacy policy differs somewhat from the privacy policy for standard Gmail accounts (not that I could give you the specifics).
Here in Wisconsin, even the DMV sells records. Quite literally, people can just buy the data from the government.
Iām guessing new users arenāt sure what functionality to expect? So to them, Apple Podcasts (or Spotify) might seem like fine podcast appsā¦ but they really arenāt!
I guess thatās the whole question though. āFineā is subjective.
I know people that swear up and down that iPhones are absolute garbage, because their first three phones were Android and they donāt know where to find anything. And Iām sure the opposite is true.
I just popped into the Monterey version of the Podcast app. Looks really nice for being able to find new shows. Play features arenāt super-primo, but it definitely works.
Is it what I want? No. But could a new user easily find a podcast and listen to it? Seems easy enough to me.
I use Overcast too, and I would never intentionally switch back to Podcasts. But I also use a task manager other than Reminders, a calendar instead of the built-in default app, etc. Iām not their market. 
Does System Preferences need a lot of help? Definitely.
But Apple canāt fall into the trap that Microsoft did, where the system preferences/settings/control panels have changed every couple years for seemingly no reason.
At least the search in macOS System Preferences is useful in finding what you need. Windows? Not even close.
I know you just did iWork a few months ago, but I wouldāve loved for this fun episode to have a nice, juicy chapter lovingly dunking on Numbers.
Oh I agree, Wayne, but I wish I didnāt make it worse by sending all my junk mail to google.
The right to privacy is gone or, at any rate, our privacy is gone. Iām not terribly worried about it but the potential repercussions are rather terrifying.
So the best of my mail goes to 
Apple and while the app needs improvements, it still works.
Apple seems to haul over one app, maybe two, at a time. Theyāll get to their mail although I donāt understand why they canāt do it a little sooner.
IMO, you didnāt. Almost half the internet uses Google mail so if you donāt have a Google account itās likely you send to or receive messages from a Google user all the time.
Thatās why email privacy is a myth. A letter you stamp and mail to me is forever out of your control. Itās the same with email. It may be āsecureā in route but once it hits someoneās Inbox the recipient owns it. So why worry about it?
I donāt worry about it very much, just a little. I have a friend who refuses to get a computer.
If I write a letter and send it through the US Mail at the very least there is an expectation of privacy. And, of course, it could end up in the wrong hands but if you commit to paper you are committing. In all likelihood, it is not left out thereā¦ wherever.
There is NO expectation of privacy in an email and that is just plain wrong in my book. That is why I strongly dislike google. I have found out where I have my gmail information about myself the extent of their contempt, I mean, they are blatant about it.
Apple at least tries and has to be somewhat effective.
My #1 app that needs TLC and lots of it? Photos.
Specifically, syncāing pictures between devices. That thing that is supposed to have a picture appear on a Mac after it was taken with an iPhone a few minutes ago, but it does not show for hours. And when you then plug that iPhone in and Photos jumps to imports and spends forever to prepare your import, even if you have less than 1000 pictures on your device and only one that is new? That aspect of Photos should be an embarrassment to Apple
Does anybody else remember Apple data detectors being part of OpenDoc and Cyberdog back in System 8 days?
You can pay ā¬5 a month for a business account at Google and they change the contract. Itās only free accounts that have tracking and data mining, business accounts and educational accounts do not and are completely private. You can also disable personalised ads completely.
I canāt choose the email provider that my employer uses anyway, almost all universities use Google Education and businesses Exchange. Iāve never seen a company that uses Apple, only home users.
Who gets to decide that? Should we let Google run with the ball or should there be a standards-based consensus?
Interesting, so only the peons are exploited. I suppose I might be able to qualify for an educational account.
In an ideal world, Iād like to think there should be a standards-based consensus.
But from a practical standpoint, all that matters for most people is ādoes this website workā.
Chrome is largely the standard for desktop with almost 70% market share - and almost certainly higher if you count other browsers that use the underlying rendering engine. Safari is under 10% market share. Everything else is almost a rounding error.
On mobile Safari is a much bigger player, as every browser on iOS (around 30% market share as a platform) is using the Safari engine. Chrome is obviously still more popular, because Android is a thing.
But unless Iām really missing something, Iāve never heard of a site working in Safari but not in Chrome. That would seem to indicate that Chrome is a much more universal rendering engine. Which is one of the reasons many of the average end-users I know have switched from Safari to Chrome.
Iād look at it more of āyouāre either the customer, or youāre the productā. If youāre getting your email service for free, theyāre making money off of you somehow.
But right now Google is the 800-pound gorilla throwing its weight around and I donāt like that.
I didnāt like it when Microsoft ran roughshod over web standards committees and made themselves the universal rendering engine, and I donāt like it now when Google does it. And as you sayā¦
Iād rather not be the product for a company who needs to make money off me by tracking my web behavior and reading my email.
So I use the Safari browser made by the privacy-interested company from whom I bought my hardware. And I ignore websites that canāt be bothered to make webpages that run in anything other than Microsoft Explorer, oops, I mean Google Chrome. 
You make sense although I would imagine it is easier to exploit the peons. Google has a bad attitude, in my book.
I had an Android phone my brother was paying for me. They can get into your text messages (unless I understood wrong) and that is more than a little disconcerting. That is a private phone connecting with another private phone.
NOW I have an iPhone.
Some years ago, Caroline Kennedy wrote a terrific book entitled āThe Right to Privacyā. Although that was prior to most computer ramifications, the book is still worth reading.
I absolutely agree with you on the underlying principles. 800-pound gorillas suck, no matter whether theyāre seen to be on your side or not. Itās not good for the market.
But on the other hand, Iām a web dev - so I spend a disproportionate amount of time talking to end users. And most people care very little about principle and very much about practicality.
Personally, I use Brave and try to get the best of both worlds. I almost canāt not use a Chrome variant as my primary browser, but Iām not a fan of all the creepy stuff in vanilla Chrome.
Yup. Itās always easier to exploit one-sided relationships. If other people depend on you giving them things for free, they kind of have to take it on your terms.