8 ms·

Very Apple-ish approach to AI catch up: wrap an external tool in a privacy architecture, embed into the OS and productize the orchestration layer. It will be i

by luk212 4mo ago

Very Apple-ish approach to AI catch up: wrap an external tool in a privacy architecture, embed into the OS and productize the orchestration layer. It will be interesting to see if the Private Cloud Compute + on-device routing can make third-party model capabilities feel like a first-party system without leaking user context to the model provider. If Apple handles the Google-Apple boundary right, this will be an elegant move on their part, otherwise it will feel like Apple Intelligence with a just a privacy-polished frontend for Gemini.

al_borland 4mo ago
As someone who doesn't use Android, they showed a lot of integration into the apps, which I think is where the real magic happens, and it's not something I can do with any 3rd party chatbots today (that I'm aware of). I also don't know that I would trust the other 3rd parties with the access required to pull it off.
- xattt 4mo ago
  If anything, having Shortcuts built-in at the OS level was a very long play that’s going to pay off.
  - dep_b 4mo ago
    And Intents
aorloff 4mo ago
Oh yes Apple "wraps" their AI in a "privacy architecture" -- you can't use Carplay unless you turn it (Siri) on.
- jazzyjackson 4mo ago
  “Sorry, I don’t know where you are”
- jasonmp85 4mo ago
  How do you expect to use a nav system while driving without voice control?
  - doikor 4mo ago
    Put in the destination before start driving? CarPlay does not work at all if you have not enabled Siri. As in it won’t even connect.
    - 00kevn 4mo ago
      No sense of adventure
    - TylerE 4mo ago
      Since when? I've used Carplay for years and I've NEVER had Siri enabled. I despise voice control.
      - koolala 4mo ago
        Never enabled it or never disabled it? Do you remember disabling it?
        TylerE 4mo ago
        Never enabled it. I always explicitly skip the "Setup/Enable siri" step on every update.
      - intrikate 4mo ago
        I purchased an iPhone 15 a few months ago and ended up making this discovery myself. CarPlay would refuse to launch unless I enabled Siri. I didn't do any of the Siri setup, or anything but the app would hard refuse to launch unless I went and toggled on Siri. Maybe that's different depending on your make/model, or the specific infotainment system in your car, but in my '21 Kia Forte, Siri is a very hard requirement.
  - wuliwong 4mo ago
- ezfe 4mo ago
  Yes, but Siri can be turned off from invocation without turning off CarPlay. You can disable the side button and Hey Siri while leaving Siri "on."
  - burgreblast 4mo ago
    No disrespect for your valuable discovery but this attitude of “it’s possible, if you do these non-obvious steps” feels a lot like victim blaming in UI. If Apple (or anyone else) wanted to make a feature used, they can. For everyone else, if Siri is off CarPlay doesn’t work. And that’s by design. Not the design of “ooh if Siri is off then voice in CarPlay won’t work” (warnable), but punishment if Siri is off. Again this pattern isn’t Apple only but it’s bad everywhere.
    - ezfe 4mo ago
      It feels cynical to see this as a punishment when it's such a specific use case that does demonstrate deep integration with Siri. Maps, Messages, etc. use Siri for their interactions. I am sure that there was a meeting where they decided what to do when Siri was off and somebody decided (very possibly with ulterior motives) not to split the feature set - all or nothing. However I don't think the challenge they were faced with in this hypothetical meeting was an easy one. The alternative is you open the Messages app and you can't send messages. You open Maps and you can't get directions (unless parked). Sure, I get that they could show a screen saying "Sending messages is not available when Siri is disabled" but now you're hitting error messages while driving. Anyways, the main reason people would disable Siri is accidental activation, and Apple provides all the toggles needed to avoid that without disabling the core components needed for CarPlay.
toddmorey 4mo ago
I'm interested in how it feels to use: whether there is any context leaking, as you mentioned, if it introduces latency, and whether there are any pricing implications? I know they weighed a variety of factors, including the smaller models, but cost had to be a big concern, too... I feel like Google is the only provider giving away so much AI inference for free. This will further blur the picture about when and how consumers / employees are supposed to pay for AI services. For example, they showed consumer rather than coding tasks, but could you select five files and ask Siri to write a Python script or a small app? Will enterprises just disable Siri AI functionality, or will they be able to route it through their own AI auditing and providers?
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
AgentMasterRace 4mo ago
[flagged]
paulddraper 4mo ago
All I know is that Siri is a terrible user experience.
- Tagbert 4mo ago
  Consider that they described the development process as taking Siri down to bare metal and rebuilding on a new architecture. I don’t think our previous Siri experience will be particularly relevant.
  - antiframe 4mo ago
    They decided to use the Siri branding, so I am going to do as they tell me an associate it with my prior Siri experience. That's a brands sole purpose, to give a buyer an indication of a product before they buy it. (Or in my case, given my experience with the brand, not buy it).
  - paulddraper 4mo ago
    As long as it’s not the same folks I guess
scosman 4mo ago
> just a privacy-polished frontend for Gemini I'd use this. I'd rather have strong privacy guarantees, but this is still good.
dofm 4mo ago
Is there a meaningful Google-Apple boundary in operation? They are buying the right to distill their own Gemini models and run them in their data centres (or at least data centres they control); unless I am missing something, this isn't going to be infrastructure that Google has operational control over.
- janalsncm 4mo ago
  If Apple is running the inference from Apple iPhones and Apple data centers then Apple has operational control. Google’s influence ends the moment they hand the weights over to Apple.
  - dofm 4mo ago
    Right — I suppose I mis-phrased my first sentence a bit, because I guess it can be interpreted as me saying the boundary is blurred, when what I was trying to write is: in operation there is nothing crossing any boundary; Google are not in the picture.
  - impulser_ 4mo ago
    They are using Google Cloud. https://security.apple.com/blog/expanding-pcc/?linkId=100000425571569 https://security.apple.com/blog/expanding-pcc/?linkId=100000... "Now, we are collaborating with Google and NVIDIA to run new Apple Intelligence workloads on Google Cloud, extending our industry-leading PCC privacy commitments to third-party data centers for the first time."
    - dofm 4mo ago
      That is news — I guess not very surprising that they'd need more data centres than before. But again there is no Apple-to-Google transfer in the inference in the sense of the comment I was originally replying to (I am not suggesting you're implying otherwise, obviously) But I stand happily corrected where I said they aren't in the picture at all. That is an interesting press release because it outlines what they would have had to do with any data centre they were outsourcing to.
ActorNightly 4mo ago
I absolutely adore the historical revisionism that apple cares about privacy. Run your router through a linux laptop as a proxy so you can capture traffic, connect any apple device to your router, and see the vasts amount of data your device sends to apple. Apple DGAF about privacy, they want your data as much as anyone else, their only thing is that they should be the only ones to get it and then other people have to pay them for it, rather than your device sending the data to the 3d party directly. And if you think your data is secure, reminder that The Fappening was all done targeting apple devices.
- Cider9986 4mo ago
  Apple added e2ee and created the most complete end to end encrypted cloud ecosystem to prevent that from happening again.
  - DANmode 4mo ago
    Is that secret code for “rate-limited auth on the Find My API”?
    - DANmode 4mo ago
      I’m not breaking NDA if I never signed one/was nowhere near the company or situation, you guys can fuck yourselves lol ^_^
  - ActorNightly 4mo ago
    Do you trust them to actually implement that correctly, and also do you trust them not to share your data with others, and if so, why?
    - Cider9986 4mo ago
      I don't use it, but yes I think that it works because they have everything to lose and nothing to gain. They definitely could share whatever data they have with whoever, which is why you use e2ee. At the end of the day you are trusting Apple with pretty much everything if you use this service because they make most of your phone, the entire operating system, host the update servers, etc.
aiisascam 4mo ago
[dead]
anotherbuilder 4mo ago
[flagged]
Quothling 4mo ago
> wrap an external tool in a privacy architecture Wouldn't it be more accurate to call Apple's architecture data protection rather than privacy? As an European citizen in a post Snowden world I would be surprised if any of my data on Apple services was actually kept private from the US government, and Apple certainly wants to own a lot of data/metadata about you. Gotta have Siri listening for carplay and so on. I would aboslutely trust Apple not to sell my data as a commodity though. > If Apple handles the Google-Apple boundary right, this will be an elegant move on their part, otherwise it will feel like Apple Intelligence with a just a privacy-polished frontend for Gemini. I'd say this is spot on. At least if what Microsoft is doing with Copilot Cowork is anything to go by. Cowork is not a privacy-polished as much as it's an Enterprise compliant polish to make Opus 4.8 run "safely" in your enterprise organisation. So far Microsoft is winning the AI war in non-tech enterprise with this, especially here in the EU. If Apple manages to do this for the private market that will be great for them. I'm not personally sold on what an AI should do on my phone though. I use a lot of AI professionally, but I haven't even turned on Bixby or whatever the Samsung AI is called.
- JimDabell 4mo ago
  > Wouldn't it be more accurate to call Apple's architecture data protection rather than privacy? As an European citizen in a post Snowden world I would be surprised if any of my data on Apple services was actually kept private from the US government, and Apple certainly wants to own a lot of data/metadata about you. Your conception doesn’t seem to match PCC at all. The whole point of it is that nobody can access the data, not even the people running the servers. https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/ https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/
  - Geee 4mo ago
    There's no guarantee against data exfiltration, because the data leaks happens through tool calls, which are not made from the PCC, but from your own device. E.g. "the user asks if their Bitcoin private key is unique, let's make a web search". Combined with prompt injection attacks, it's quite easy for an attacker to craft a prompt which sends your private data through any supported tool call (web search, database search, email, app APIs, etc.). Everything is wide open for the attacker / or yourself accidentally to exfiltrate your data.
yamakasi007 4mo ago
[flagged]
deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
boxed 4mo ago
The most Apple-ish thing would be to produce a great platform, enable third parties to do something on top of it, and take a cut. I REALLY wish they'd do that with voice assistants.
dev_l1x_be 4mo ago
This is post Jobs era typical Apple.

by luk212 4mo ago

al_borland 4mo ago

As someone who doesn't use Android, they showed a lot of integration into the apps, which I think is where the real magic happens, and it's not something I can do with any 3rd party chatbots today (that I'm aware of). I also don't know that I would trust the other 3rd parties with the access required to pull it off.

xattt 4mo ago
If anything, having Shortcuts built-in at the OS level was a very long play that’s going to pay off.
- dep_b 4mo ago
  And Intents

aorloff 4mo ago

Oh yes Apple "wraps" their AI in a "privacy architecture" -- you can't use Carplay unless you turn it (Siri) on.

jazzyjackson 4mo ago
“Sorry, I don’t know where you are”
jasonmp85 4mo ago
How do you expect to use a nav system while driving without voice control?
- doikor 4mo ago
  Put in the destination before start driving? CarPlay does not work at all if you have not enabled Siri. As in it won’t even connect.
  - 00kevn 4mo ago
    No sense of adventure
  - TylerE 4mo ago
    Since when? I've used Carplay for years and I've NEVER had Siri enabled. I despise voice control.
    - koolala 4mo ago
      Never enabled it or never disabled it? Do you remember disabling it?
      - TylerE 4mo ago
        Never enabled it. I always explicitly skip the "Setup/Enable siri" step on every update.
    - intrikate 4mo ago
      I purchased an iPhone 15 a few months ago and ended up making this discovery myself. CarPlay would refuse to launch unless I enabled Siri. I didn't do any of the Siri setup, or anything but the app would hard refuse to launch unless I went and toggled on Siri. Maybe that's different depending on your make/model, or the specific infotainment system in your car, but in my '21 Kia Forte, Siri is a very hard requirement.
- wuliwong 4mo ago
ezfe 4mo ago
Yes, but Siri can be turned off from invocation without turning off CarPlay. You can disable the side button and Hey Siri while leaving Siri "on."
- burgreblast 4mo ago
  No disrespect for your valuable discovery but this attitude of “it’s possible, if you do these non-obvious steps” feels a lot like victim blaming in UI. If Apple (or anyone else) wanted to make a feature used, they can. For everyone else, if Siri is off CarPlay doesn’t work. And that’s by design. Not the design of “ooh if Siri is off then voice in CarPlay won’t work” (warnable), but punishment if Siri is off. Again this pattern isn’t Apple only but it’s bad everywhere.
  - ezfe 4mo ago
    It feels cynical to see this as a punishment when it's such a specific use case that does demonstrate deep integration with Siri. Maps, Messages, etc. use Siri for their interactions. I am sure that there was a meeting where they decided what to do when Siri was off and somebody decided (very possibly with ulterior motives) not to split the feature set - all or nothing. However I don't think the challenge they were faced with in this hypothetical meeting was an easy one. The alternative is you open the Messages app and you can't send messages. You open Maps and you can't get directions (unless parked). Sure, I get that they could show a screen saying "Sending messages is not available when Siri is disabled" but now you're hitting error messages while driving. Anyways, the main reason people would disable Siri is accidental activation, and Apple provides all the toggles needed to avoid that without disabling the core components needed for CarPlay.

toddmorey 4mo ago

I'm interested in how it feels to use: whether there is any context leaking, as you mentioned, if it introduces latency, and whether there are any pricing implications? I know they weighed a variety of factors, including the smaller models, but cost had to be a big concern, too... I feel like Google is the only provider giving away so much AI inference for free. This will further blur the picture about when and how consumers / employees are supposed to pay for AI services. For example, they showed consumer rather than coding tasks, but could you select five files and ask Siri to write a Python script or a small app? Will enterprises just disable Siri AI functionality, or will they be able to route it through their own AI auditing and providers?

deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]

AgentMasterRace 4mo ago

[flagged]

paulddraper 4mo ago

All I know is that Siri is a terrible user experience.

Tagbert 4mo ago
Consider that they described the development process as taking Siri down to bare metal and rebuilding on a new architecture. I don’t think our previous Siri experience will be particularly relevant.
- antiframe 4mo ago
  They decided to use the Siri branding, so I am going to do as they tell me an associate it with my prior Siri experience. That's a brands sole purpose, to give a buyer an indication of a product before they buy it. (Or in my case, given my experience with the brand, not buy it).
- paulddraper 4mo ago
  As long as it’s not the same folks I guess

scosman 4mo ago

> just a privacy-polished frontend for Gemini I'd use this. I'd rather have strong privacy guarantees, but this is still good.

dofm 4mo ago

Is there a meaningful Google-Apple boundary in operation? They are buying the right to distill their own Gemini models and run them in their data centres (or at least data centres they control); unless I am missing something, this isn't going to be infrastructure that Google has operational control over.

janalsncm 4mo ago
If Apple is running the inference from Apple iPhones and Apple data centers then Apple has operational control. Google’s influence ends the moment they hand the weights over to Apple.
- dofm 4mo ago
  Right — I suppose I mis-phrased my first sentence a bit, because I guess it can be interpreted as me saying the boundary is blurred, when what I was trying to write is: in operation there is nothing crossing any boundary; Google are not in the picture.
- impulser_ 4mo ago
  They are using Google Cloud. https://security.apple.com/blog/expanding-pcc/?linkId=100000425571569 https://security.apple.com/blog/expanding-pcc/?linkId=100000... "Now, we are collaborating with Google and NVIDIA to run new Apple Intelligence workloads on Google Cloud, extending our industry-leading PCC privacy commitments to third-party data centers for the first time."
  - dofm 4mo ago
    That is news — I guess not very surprising that they'd need more data centres than before. But again there is no Apple-to-Google transfer in the inference in the sense of the comment I was originally replying to (I am not suggesting you're implying otherwise, obviously) But I stand happily corrected where I said they aren't in the picture at all. That is an interesting press release because it outlines what they would have had to do with any data centre they were outsourcing to.

ActorNightly 4mo ago

I absolutely adore the historical revisionism that apple cares about privacy. Run your router through a linux laptop as a proxy so you can capture traffic, connect any apple device to your router, and see the vasts amount of data your device sends to apple. Apple DGAF about privacy, they want your data as much as anyone else, their only thing is that they should be the only ones to get it and then other people have to pay them for it, rather than your device sending the data to the 3d party directly. And if you think your data is secure, reminder that The Fappening was all done targeting apple devices.

Cider9986 4mo ago
Apple added e2ee and created the most complete end to end encrypted cloud ecosystem to prevent that from happening again.
- DANmode 4mo ago
  Is that secret code for “rate-limited auth on the Find My API”?
  - DANmode 4mo ago
    I’m not breaking NDA if I never signed one/was nowhere near the company or situation, you guys can fuck yourselves lol ^_^
- ActorNightly 4mo ago
  Do you trust them to actually implement that correctly, and also do you trust them not to share your data with others, and if so, why?
  - Cider9986 4mo ago
    I don't use it, but yes I think that it works because they have everything to lose and nothing to gain. They definitely could share whatever data they have with whoever, which is why you use e2ee. At the end of the day you are trusting Apple with pretty much everything if you use this service because they make most of your phone, the entire operating system, host the update servers, etc.

aiisascam 4mo ago

[dead]

anotherbuilder 4mo ago

[flagged]

Quothling 4mo ago

> wrap an external tool in a privacy architecture Wouldn't it be more accurate to call Apple's architecture data protection rather than privacy? As an European citizen in a post Snowden world I would be surprised if any of my data on Apple services was actually kept private from the US government, and Apple certainly wants to own a lot of data/metadata about you. Gotta have Siri listening for carplay and so on. I would aboslutely trust Apple not to sell my data as a commodity though. > If Apple handles the Google-Apple boundary right, this will be an elegant move on their part, otherwise it will feel like Apple Intelligence with a just a privacy-polished frontend for Gemini. I'd say this is spot on. At least if what Microsoft is doing with Copilot Cowork is anything to go by. Cowork is not a privacy-polished as much as it's an Enterprise compliant polish to make Opus 4.8 run "safely" in your enterprise organisation. So far Microsoft is winning the AI war in non-tech enterprise with this, especially here in the EU. If Apple manages to do this for the private market that will be great for them. I'm not personally sold on what an AI should do on my phone though. I use a lot of AI professionally, but I haven't even turned on Bixby or whatever the Samsung AI is called.

JimDabell 4mo ago
> Wouldn't it be more accurate to call Apple's architecture data protection rather than privacy? As an European citizen in a post Snowden world I would be surprised if any of my data on Apple services was actually kept private from the US government, and Apple certainly wants to own a lot of data/metadata about you. Your conception doesn’t seem to match PCC at all. The whole point of it is that nobody can access the data, not even the people running the servers. https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/ https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/
- Geee 4mo ago
  There's no guarantee against data exfiltration, because the data leaks happens through tool calls, which are not made from the PCC, but from your own device. E.g. "the user asks if their Bitcoin private key is unique, let's make a web search". Combined with prompt injection attacks, it's quite easy for an attacker to craft a prompt which sends your private data through any supported tool call (web search, database search, email, app APIs, etc.). Everything is wide open for the attacker / or yourself accidentally to exfiltrate your data.

yamakasi007 4mo ago

[flagged]

deleted 4mo ago

[deleted]

boxed 4mo ago

The most Apple-ish thing would be to produce a great platform, enable third parties to do something on top of it, and take a cut. I REALLY wish they'd do that with voice assistants.

dev_l1x_be 4mo ago

This is post Jobs era typical Apple.