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I remain skeptical until I see it in action. On the one hand, Apple has a good track record with privacy and keeping things on device. On the other, there was t

by jspann 2y ago

I remain skeptical until I see it in action. On the one hand, Apple has a good track record with privacy and keeping things on device. On the other, there was too much ambiguity around this announcement. What is the threshold for running something in the cloud? How is your personal model used across devices - does that mean it briefly moves to the cloud? How does its usage change across guest modes? Even the phrase "OpenAI won’t store requests" feels intentionally opaque. I was personally holding out for a federated learning approach where multiple Apple devices could be used to process a request but I guess the Occam's razor prevails. I'll wait and see.

themadturk 2y ago
I get the sense there's still a lot of work to be done over the next few months, and we may see some feature slippage. The betas will be where we see their words in action, and I'll be staying far away from the betas, which will be a little painful. I think ambiguity works in their favor right now. It's better to underpromise and overdeliver, instead of vice versa.
machinekob 2y ago
Same they say privacy so many times i got Facebook PTSD.
- boringg 2y ago
  I mean theres a difference between these companies on their privacy stance historical and current.
tmpz22 2y ago
They need to provide a mechanism to view the data being uploaded by you
robbyking 2y ago
> What is the threshold for running something in the cloud? To be fair, this was just the keynote -- details will be revealed in the sessions.
epolanski 2y ago
> has a good track record with privacy They repeated this so many times they've made it true.
- theshrike79 2y ago
  Do you have proof otherwise? Compared to the competition, who openly use everything about you to build a profile.
  - lern_too_spel 2y ago
    The iPhone will let you install an app only if you tell Apple about it. It will let you get your location only if you also give that location to Apple. The only way to get true privacy is to give users control, which even Google-flavored Android builds provide more of than iOS.
    - mendigou 2y ago
      After so many years, so many people still believe in this user control paradigm. Giving users control works for the slim percentage of power users. Most users will end up obliterated by scammers and other unsavory characters. Perhaps there is a way to give control to today's users (that includes my non-technical mother) and still secure them against the myriad of online threats. If anyone knows of a paper or publication that addresses this, I'd love to read it.
      - lern_too_spel 2y ago
        If you want privacy, that's the only way to get it. As Apple has demonstrated, giving the platform owner control means eroding your privacy with no recourse and still getting obliterated by scammers.
    - kaba0 2y ago
      > The iPhone will let you install an app only if you tell Apple about it That’s not 100% true, and where it is, there is a good reason, and pretty much every other store does it (being able to revoke malware)
yencabulator 2y ago
> Apple has a good track record with privacy and keeping things on device. Apple also has a long track record of "you're holding it wrong". I don't expect an amazing AI assistant out of them, I expect something that sometimes does what the user meant.
- thebruce87m 2y ago
  > Apple also has a long track record of "you're holding it wrong". And yet this was never said. Closest was this: > Just don't hold it that way. Or maybe this: > If you ever experience this on your iPhone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases.
  - yencabulator 2y ago
    It's merely the instance that gave the name to the phenomena, not the only time it happened.
    - thebruce87m 2y ago
      What phenomena?
      - hmottestad 2y ago
        When Apple published a webpage about how other phones also got reduced reception when you held them in a particular way, but then basically immediately pulled it. And then a while later they offered a free bumper case to mitigate the whole issue.
        thebruce87m 2y ago
        None of that suggests any malice. We don’t know what happened internally, other than the arial designer was eventually let go. That engineer could have been pushing the “every phone has the problem” narrative and brushing it off. At some point the pressure from customer feedback could have meant they were overruled and ordered to retest, or test under the specific conditions. The fact that Apple changed their stance from “here’s a workaround” to “here’s a free bumper” is a sign they reacted to something, and that could have been anything from the conclusion of internal testing to a PR job to keep customers happy. If they had said there was no design flaw from the start and stuck with that the whole way then I’d understand people’s reaction, but all I see is a company that said “don’t hold it that way” as a workaround then eventually issued free bumpers, thus confirming the issue. That doesn’t suggest they were blaming the user for doing something wrong. The sentiment just wasn’t there.
KaiserPro 2y ago
> Apple has a good track record with privacy and keeping things on device. I mean they have great PR, but in terms of privacy, they extract more information from you than google does.
- corps_and_code 2y ago
  Can you explain what you mean with "extract more information from you than google" here? Not saying you're wrong, I'm just curious what sources or info you're using to make that claim.
  - KaiserPro 2y ago
    on iOS Apple record: o who you message, when you message. o Your locations (find my devices) o your voice (siri) o the location of your items (airtags) o what you look at (App telemetry) o What websites you visit (Safari telemetry) o what you buy (Apple Pay) o Who your with (location services, again) o your facial biometrics (apple photos tags people with similar faces, something FAcebook got fined for) o Who emails you, who you email With these changes, you'll need to allow apple to process the contents of the messages that you send and receive. If you read their secuirity blog it has a lot of noise about E2E security, then admit that its not practical for things other than backups and messaging. they then say they will strive to make userdata ephemeral in the apple private cloud. I'm not saying that they will abuse it, I'm just saying that we should give apple the same level of scrutiny that we give people like Facebook. Infact, personally I think we should use Facebook as the shitty stick to test data use for everyone.
    - ducadveritatem 2y ago
      What do you mean by the “record”? It seems like you think this means Apple somehow has access and stores all that information in their cloud and we just have to hope/trust that they don’t decide they want to poke around in it? You should look more into their security architecture if you’re curious about stuff like this. The way Secure Enclave, E2EE (including the Advanced Data Protection feature for all iCloud data), etc. The reality is that they use a huge range of privacy enhancing approaches to minimize what data has to leave your device and how it can be used. For example the biometrics you mention are never outside the Secure Enclave in the chip on your phone and nobody except you can access them unless they have your passcode. Things like running facial recognition on your photos library is handled locally on your device with no information going up to the cloud. FindMy is also architected in a fully E2E encrypted way. You can browse their hundreds of pages of security and privacy documentation via the table of contents here to look up any specific service or functionality you want to know more about: https://support.apple.com/guide/security/welcome/web https://support.apple.com/guide/security/welcome/web

by jspann 2y ago

themadturk 2y ago

I get the sense there's still a lot of work to be done over the next few months, and we may see some feature slippage. The betas will be where we see their words in action, and I'll be staying far away from the betas, which will be a little painful. I think ambiguity works in their favor right now. It's better to underpromise and overdeliver, instead of vice versa.

machinekob 2y ago

Same they say privacy so many times i got Facebook PTSD.

boringg 2y ago
I mean theres a difference between these companies on their privacy stance historical and current.

tmpz22 2y ago

They need to provide a mechanism to view the data being uploaded by you

robbyking 2y ago

> What is the threshold for running something in the cloud? To be fair, this was just the keynote -- details will be revealed in the sessions.

epolanski 2y ago

> has a good track record with privacy They repeated this so many times they've made it true.

theshrike79 2y ago
Do you have proof otherwise? Compared to the competition, who openly use everything about you to build a profile.
- lern_too_spel 2y ago
  The iPhone will let you install an app only if you tell Apple about it. It will let you get your location only if you also give that location to Apple. The only way to get true privacy is to give users control, which even Google-flavored Android builds provide more of than iOS.
  - mendigou 2y ago
    After so many years, so many people still believe in this user control paradigm. Giving users control works for the slim percentage of power users. Most users will end up obliterated by scammers and other unsavory characters. Perhaps there is a way to give control to today's users (that includes my non-technical mother) and still secure them against the myriad of online threats. If anyone knows of a paper or publication that addresses this, I'd love to read it.
    - lern_too_spel 2y ago
      If you want privacy, that's the only way to get it. As Apple has demonstrated, giving the platform owner control means eroding your privacy with no recourse and still getting obliterated by scammers.
  - kaba0 2y ago
    > The iPhone will let you install an app only if you tell Apple about it That’s not 100% true, and where it is, there is a good reason, and pretty much every other store does it (being able to revoke malware)

yencabulator 2y ago

> Apple has a good track record with privacy and keeping things on device. Apple also has a long track record of "you're holding it wrong". I don't expect an amazing AI assistant out of them, I expect something that sometimes does what the user meant.

thebruce87m 2y ago
> Apple also has a long track record of "you're holding it wrong". And yet this was never said. Closest was this: > Just don't hold it that way. Or maybe this: > If you ever experience this on your iPhone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases.
- yencabulator 2y ago
  It's merely the instance that gave the name to the phenomena, not the only time it happened.
  - thebruce87m 2y ago
    What phenomena?
    - hmottestad 2y ago
      When Apple published a webpage about how other phones also got reduced reception when you held them in a particular way, but then basically immediately pulled it. And then a while later they offered a free bumper case to mitigate the whole issue.
      - thebruce87m 2y ago
        None of that suggests any malice. We don’t know what happened internally, other than the arial designer was eventually let go. That engineer could have been pushing the “every phone has the problem” narrative and brushing it off. At some point the pressure from customer feedback could have meant they were overruled and ordered to retest, or test under the specific conditions. The fact that Apple changed their stance from “here’s a workaround” to “here’s a free bumper” is a sign they reacted to something, and that could have been anything from the conclusion of internal testing to a PR job to keep customers happy. If they had said there was no design flaw from the start and stuck with that the whole way then I’d understand people’s reaction, but all I see is a company that said “don’t hold it that way” as a workaround then eventually issued free bumpers, thus confirming the issue. That doesn’t suggest they were blaming the user for doing something wrong. The sentiment just wasn’t there.

KaiserPro 2y ago

> Apple has a good track record with privacy and keeping things on device. I mean they have great PR, but in terms of privacy, they extract more information from you than google does.

corps_and_code 2y ago
Can you explain what you mean with "extract more information from you than google" here? Not saying you're wrong, I'm just curious what sources or info you're using to make that claim.
- KaiserPro 2y ago
  on iOS Apple record: o who you message, when you message. o Your locations (find my devices) o your voice (siri) o the location of your items (airtags) o what you look at (App telemetry) o What websites you visit (Safari telemetry) o what you buy (Apple Pay) o Who your with (location services, again) o your facial biometrics (apple photos tags people with similar faces, something FAcebook got fined for) o Who emails you, who you email With these changes, you'll need to allow apple to process the contents of the messages that you send and receive. If you read their secuirity blog it has a lot of noise about E2E security, then admit that its not practical for things other than backups and messaging. they then say they will strive to make userdata ephemeral in the apple private cloud. I'm not saying that they will abuse it, I'm just saying that we should give apple the same level of scrutiny that we give people like Facebook. Infact, personally I think we should use Facebook as the shitty stick to test data use for everyone.
  - ducadveritatem 2y ago
    What do you mean by the “record”? It seems like you think this means Apple somehow has access and stores all that information in their cloud and we just have to hope/trust that they don’t decide they want to poke around in it? You should look more into their security architecture if you’re curious about stuff like this. The way Secure Enclave, E2EE (including the Advanced Data Protection feature for all iCloud data), etc. The reality is that they use a huge range of privacy enhancing approaches to minimize what data has to leave your device and how it can be used. For example the biometrics you mention are never outside the Secure Enclave in the chip on your phone and nobody except you can access them unless they have your passcode. Things like running facial recognition on your photos library is handled locally on your device with no information going up to the cloud. FindMy is also architected in a fully E2E encrypted way. You can browse their hundreds of pages of security and privacy documentation via the table of contents here to look up any specific service or functionality you want to know more about: https://support.apple.com/guide/security/welcome/web https://support.apple.com/guide/security/welcome/web