I hate how much I love the animations on Apple’s Privacy page

Ugh, I’m making myself feel ill before I’ve even started writing. But here we go, deep breath… I love Apple’s Privacy page on its website.

And I hate that.

Let’s backtrack a bit though. We’ve covered Apple’s approach to Privacy a few times lately. The most recent was to do with the iOS clipboard story, a saga that has evolved from the iOS 14 beta, where apps are being shamed for continually snooping on users’ copied text.

Another was this piece following the launch of iOS 13 where we talked about how the company has made privacy one of its main selling points. This then, goes someway to explaining why so much effort has gone into the animations on Apple’s Privacy page.

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Here’s an example:

Honestly, I just can’t stop watching it. Sickeningly good.

I was alerted to the existence of this page by a Reddit thread, and goddamn, it’s glorious. Here’s another of my favorites:

Now, I don’t have the requisite language to really nail down what makes these animations so good, so I asked Flavio Lourenço — TNW’s motion graphics guru — instead. He told me the key is how they manage to tell a story using a maximum of four actions. The animations manage to be both smooth and flow unexpectedly, all while using simple shapes to communicate the complex ideas behind security and privacy.

You can go and check out the full page here. It’s definitely worth your time.

BONUS FACT: if you visit this page on your iPhone with Low Power mode activated, it won’t actually play the animations. That’s some damn clever stuff.

So… circling back: why do I hate that I love Apple’s Privacy page so much?

I guess my issue is that I’m enjoying what’s effectively an advert for Apple. Yes, it’s creative and slick, but at its core it’s saying “YO TRUST THIS COMPANY AND GIVE IT SOME CASH.”

I mean, damn, this piece is basically some free promotion for the company.

Still though, it’s a gorgeous bit of website design and, yeah, I might be sad with myself for liking it quite so much, but I think I can handle that.