5 ms·

I read through the entire DMA rant that apple has here: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/06/due-to-dma-siri-ai-delayed-in-eu-for-ios-27-and-ipados-27/ https:

I read through the entire DMA rant that apple has here: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/06/due-to-dma-siri-ai-delayed-in-eu-for-ios-27-and-ipados-27/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/06/due-to-dma-siri-ai-de... This feels like it could be solved with a list of permissions that the user has to turn on when using 3rd party AI. Apple already: 1) requires developers to submit ID to publish an app on the appstore (at least I had to after ~1000 downloads to be able to publish an update) 2) has strong kernel enforced memory integrity and disallowes arbitrary code execution (unless explicitely approved for games like roblox, jitting not allowed tho has to be interpreted). 3) reviews every app update. I feel like this is nothing more than Apple being angry that they have to allow people to actually choose what AI they want on their phone. This is particulary interesting if anthropic and openai decided they want to add siri ai override to their apps allowing them to take advantage of the apple ecosystem without signing some kind of deal like they had to with Google. I assume behind closed doors Google had to make some sacrifices for them to be the model powering siri.

lxgr 5mo ago
> I feel like this is nothing more than Apple being angry that they have to allow people to actually choose what AI they want on their phone. It's really just Apple being angry about the EU's DMA endangering their golden goose (App Store revenue) and using any meaningful new functionality as a bargaining chip. They've done staggered geo launches for other features in the past many times, both before and after the DMA was passed, and in this case there's even another great reason to not want to globally launch all at once (AI inference server capacity). If they can at the same time market it as part of their ridiculous turf war against the European Commission, I guess they just have to take the opportunity.
- vrganj 5mo ago
  The thing is, Europeans are mostly annoyed with Apple over this, not the EC. It just reads like arrogant foreigners throwing a tantrum over our laws.
  - nandomrumber 4mo ago
    I struggle to believe there isn’t a significant fraction of EU citizens who are frustrated with the EU’s laws. At the very least to the extent that the whole setup limits national sovereignty. Your comment comes across as though you expect us to believe EU citizens are a homogenous whole, who happen to align with your perspective on this matter.
    - perching_aix 4mo ago
      On the contrary, it reads to me like they've simply been around, and this is the general impression they gathered. Which may still not even be true, but it makes a whole lot more sense context wise, and is pretty darn different to the conveniently malicious motivation you're proposing. And with this, now your own "royal we" is similarly rendered deceptive. > At the very least to the extent that the whole setup limits national sovereignty. That's how anything grouplike works indeed. > I struggle to believe there isn’t a significant fraction of EU citizens who are frustrated with the EU’s laws. Sounds like something that'd have polling data coverage?
      - nandomrumber 4mo ago
        [flagged]
        perching_aix 4mo ago
        [flagged]
        nandomrumber 4mo ago
        [flagged]
        dang 4mo ago
        Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Velocifyer 5mo ago
> "requires developers to submit ID to publish an app on the appstore (at least I had to after ~1000 downloads to be able to publish an update)" What is the purpose of that?
- wmf 4mo ago
  So there's someone to sue if the app misbehaves.
burnerthrow008 5mo ago
> This feels like it could be solved with a list of permissions that the user has to turn on when using 3rd party AI. Nah, that just shifts the goal posts. If they did that, developers would be whining about "scare screens", as we have already seen when Apple put app installs behind a permission prompt. They're already up in arms about the requirement from Apple (and Google) to know who is behind the apps that slurp up all your data. The DMA maximalists won't be happy until Apple releases an anonymous service to automate setting up a Kafka topic to send each iOS user's PII to whoever wants to receive it.
- ipaddr 4mo ago
  You can downloads millions of things for your computer without kyc protocols. Why are phones in a special class? Your data is being slurped by the people who sold you the phone and you are worried about the small fish.
  - matwood 4mo ago
    > Why are phones in a special class? Because we applied the learnings from computers and phones have ended up way more personal?
pastel8739 5mo ago
> Given the serious risks to users, Apple designed a solution called Trusted System Agent — an intermediary that would allow virtual assistants to safely access the same features and capabilities as Siri AI for devices in the EU. Apple also shared a plan to launch Siri AI in the EU while gradually rolling out this new solution over an 18-month period. The European Commission said no. In fact, the European Commission did not agree to any of Apple’s proposals. I'm extrapolating (there is less detail in that press release than I expected from your comment), but this sounds to be like it would be the thing that enables such a "list of permissions". I would be curious to know exactly what this agent entailed and why the EU did not approve it.
- himata4113 5mo ago
  "Trusted System Agent" imo sounds like an apple approved agent which would only be available to companies that accept apples (likely unreasonable) demands and would completely lock smaller companies out of the ecosystem.
  - dwaite 4mo ago
    My limited understanding is that it would be a local model that exists only to determine a limited set of local information necessary to answer the user's request. This request and information would then be shared with the third party. Third parties would otherwise not have access into the local semantic model based on user personal data.
    - josephg 4mo ago
      Does apple's own siri need to pass requests through their gatekeeper AI? I bet it doesn't. Personally, I'm generally happy with any answer apple comes up with so long as they're bound by the same set of restrictions as 3rd party companies. I feel like that's the only way to make sure apple won't "accidentally" hobble their competitors. (Like they did with their ridiculous 50c per app install fee for 3rd party app stores). I want Claude and OpenAI to be able to compete with Siri on an equal footing. Just like Apple maps has to compete with google maps. Competition pushes companies to make better products.
tyre 4mo ago
It’s kind of funny that the EU’s regulation here would force Apple to allow options that are worse for user privacy. Apple is the least incentivized to farm data from its users; in fact, that’s a huge selling point. They mentioned it over and over and over in the WWDC keynote today. In my opinion, Apple is doing the right thing for users. It’s not like they have a huge revenue stream here. Yes, there will be some features or usage that require iCloud plus or whatever to cover incremental cost, but I genuinely believe that they don’t want services creeping in that break their trust with users or their privacy-first reputation. Apple’s decision (users will have a less powerful product because we’re not vacuuming up their data and using it for profit) is exactly the kind of thing the EU should want. No country has appropriate data privacy guidelines for AI (yet) so opening up choice can’t provide alternatives. (To be clear, I’d be fine with Anthropic here, but am fine with this state. Maybe because I’m so used to Siri sucking that I’ve given up hope.)
- miohtama 4mo ago
  Apple ad revenue is ~10% of rev, with Google deal, and growing. New management is going to turn it less privacy focused company, because Apple needs to pursue growth.
  - maximus_01 4mo ago
    Yep and more like 25%+ of profits (given the google revenue, and most ad revenue, is close to 100% margin).
- thewebguyd 4mo ago
  > Apple is doing the right thing for users. The right thing for users would be to allow user choice, and for Apple to compete fairly. Apple allowing third party access doesn't automatically mean user data gets hoovered up by OpenAI, Anthropic, etc. It just means users now get the choice, if they want to make that choice. Users could stay with Siri/Apple if they care about what Apple is offering, or choose to accept the risks and terms of service with other third parties. The EU isn't saying "you must preinstall every competitors offering" its "you must offer the ability for others to hook into the same APIs to be able to offer their own assistant on par with the first party option." The user still remains in control by virtue of their own choice.
dwaite 4mo ago
> This feels like it could be solved with a list of permissions that the user has to turn on when using 3rd party AI. The device won't be able to ask for significantly more permissions than Apple asks for their own model for regulatory reasons, nor will it be able to convey the seriousness of granting the permission (e.g. immediately give unrestricted access to the vast majority of personal information/documents stored on the device). But Apple also architected their system to justify not having constant permission prompts for access to sensitive data. And for regulatory reasons they also can't mandate that competing models have the same architecture. The regulators and Apple (along with hopefully other AI companies) will need to work together to determine longer-term stable path forward.
- himata4113 4mo ago
  Apple could have the same kind of permission dialogues with their own models (and they actually should). Each and every (first-time) use of a feature should: 1) ask for permission explaining the scope 2) warn you about the dangers with a confirmation / nevermind option Putting this in practice: 1) Acme AI requires access to your email provider in order to execute this request. Grant / Deny 2) You're about to let Acme AI read and send emails on your behalf, this might be dangerous due to X and Y. Do you want to continue? / Nevermind. In this case: 1) Asks for access to a service 2) Asks for a specific use-case of the service 1 is access to data, you might want to give broad access to some applications and input data 2 is permission to act, but you might want to deny access to some parts such as sending email and scope to summarization
musictubes 4mo ago
Siri AI is not just a chatbot. There are deep hooks throughout the entire OS and across third party applications. Siri AI has been given wide access to the user's semantic index which will encompass just about everything on the device. Also remember that it isn't just the Apple user's privacy at stake. Any substitute will also have access to any interaction with other people. Apple is at least claiming to not keep any data people use with Siri AI, will Google, Anthropic, Open AI, etc. pinky swear they won't build a profile on me because a friend of mine chose their AI over Apple's? I will wait and see what people find out about it before passing judgement. It's quite possible that it isn't possible to have an API to use other companies' AI instead of Siri AI. Are there any equivalent API hooks on Android?

lxgr 5mo ago

> I feel like this is nothing more than Apple being angry that they have to allow people to actually choose what AI they want on their phone. It's really just Apple being angry about the EU's DMA endangering their golden goose (App Store revenue) and using any meaningful new functionality as a bargaining chip. They've done staggered geo launches for other features in the past many times, both before and after the DMA was passed, and in this case there's even another great reason to not want to globally launch all at once (AI inference server capacity). If they can at the same time market it as part of their ridiculous turf war against the European Commission, I guess they just have to take the opportunity.

vrganj 5mo ago
The thing is, Europeans are mostly annoyed with Apple over this, not the EC. It just reads like arrogant foreigners throwing a tantrum over our laws.
- nandomrumber 4mo ago
  I struggle to believe there isn’t a significant fraction of EU citizens who are frustrated with the EU’s laws. At the very least to the extent that the whole setup limits national sovereignty. Your comment comes across as though you expect us to believe EU citizens are a homogenous whole, who happen to align with your perspective on this matter.
  - perching_aix 4mo ago
    On the contrary, it reads to me like they've simply been around, and this is the general impression they gathered. Which may still not even be true, but it makes a whole lot more sense context wise, and is pretty darn different to the conveniently malicious motivation you're proposing. And with this, now your own "royal we" is similarly rendered deceptive. > At the very least to the extent that the whole setup limits national sovereignty. That's how anything grouplike works indeed. > I struggle to believe there isn’t a significant fraction of EU citizens who are frustrated with the EU’s laws. Sounds like something that'd have polling data coverage?
    - nandomrumber 4mo ago
      [flagged]
      - perching_aix 4mo ago
        [flagged]
        nandomrumber 4mo ago
        [flagged]
        dang 4mo ago
        Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Velocifyer 5mo ago

> "requires developers to submit ID to publish an app on the appstore (at least I had to after ~1000 downloads to be able to publish an update)" What is the purpose of that?

wmf 4mo ago
So there's someone to sue if the app misbehaves.

burnerthrow008 5mo ago

> This feels like it could be solved with a list of permissions that the user has to turn on when using 3rd party AI. Nah, that just shifts the goal posts. If they did that, developers would be whining about "scare screens", as we have already seen when Apple put app installs behind a permission prompt. They're already up in arms about the requirement from Apple (and Google) to know who is behind the apps that slurp up all your data. The DMA maximalists won't be happy until Apple releases an anonymous service to automate setting up a Kafka topic to send each iOS user's PII to whoever wants to receive it.

ipaddr 4mo ago
You can downloads millions of things for your computer without kyc protocols. Why are phones in a special class? Your data is being slurped by the people who sold you the phone and you are worried about the small fish.
- matwood 4mo ago
  > Why are phones in a special class? Because we applied the learnings from computers and phones have ended up way more personal?

pastel8739 5mo ago

> Given the serious risks to users, Apple designed a solution called Trusted System Agent — an intermediary that would allow virtual assistants to safely access the same features and capabilities as Siri AI for devices in the EU. Apple also shared a plan to launch Siri AI in the EU while gradually rolling out this new solution over an 18-month period. The European Commission said no. In fact, the European Commission did not agree to any of Apple’s proposals. I'm extrapolating (there is less detail in that press release than I expected from your comment), but this sounds to be like it would be the thing that enables such a "list of permissions". I would be curious to know exactly what this agent entailed and why the EU did not approve it.

himata4113 5mo ago
"Trusted System Agent" imo sounds like an apple approved agent which would only be available to companies that accept apples (likely unreasonable) demands and would completely lock smaller companies out of the ecosystem.
- dwaite 4mo ago
  My limited understanding is that it would be a local model that exists only to determine a limited set of local information necessary to answer the user's request. This request and information would then be shared with the third party. Third parties would otherwise not have access into the local semantic model based on user personal data.
  - josephg 4mo ago
    Does apple's own siri need to pass requests through their gatekeeper AI? I bet it doesn't. Personally, I'm generally happy with any answer apple comes up with so long as they're bound by the same set of restrictions as 3rd party companies. I feel like that's the only way to make sure apple won't "accidentally" hobble their competitors. (Like they did with their ridiculous 50c per app install fee for 3rd party app stores). I want Claude and OpenAI to be able to compete with Siri on an equal footing. Just like Apple maps has to compete with google maps. Competition pushes companies to make better products.

tyre 4mo ago

It’s kind of funny that the EU’s regulation here would force Apple to allow options that are worse for user privacy. Apple is the least incentivized to farm data from its users; in fact, that’s a huge selling point. They mentioned it over and over and over in the WWDC keynote today. In my opinion, Apple is doing the right thing for users. It’s not like they have a huge revenue stream here. Yes, there will be some features or usage that require iCloud plus or whatever to cover incremental cost, but I genuinely believe that they don’t want services creeping in that break their trust with users or their privacy-first reputation. Apple’s decision (users will have a less powerful product because we’re not vacuuming up their data and using it for profit) is exactly the kind of thing the EU should want. No country has appropriate data privacy guidelines for AI (yet) so opening up choice can’t provide alternatives. (To be clear, I’d be fine with Anthropic here, but am fine with this state. Maybe because I’m so used to Siri sucking that I’ve given up hope.)

miohtama 4mo ago
Apple ad revenue is ~10% of rev, with Google deal, and growing. New management is going to turn it less privacy focused company, because Apple needs to pursue growth.
- maximus_01 4mo ago
  Yep and more like 25%+ of profits (given the google revenue, and most ad revenue, is close to 100% margin).
thewebguyd 4mo ago
> Apple is doing the right thing for users. The right thing for users would be to allow user choice, and for Apple to compete fairly. Apple allowing third party access doesn't automatically mean user data gets hoovered up by OpenAI, Anthropic, etc. It just means users now get the choice, if they want to make that choice. Users could stay with Siri/Apple if they care about what Apple is offering, or choose to accept the risks and terms of service with other third parties. The EU isn't saying "you must preinstall every competitors offering" its "you must offer the ability for others to hook into the same APIs to be able to offer their own assistant on par with the first party option." The user still remains in control by virtue of their own choice.

dwaite 4mo ago

> This feels like it could be solved with a list of permissions that the user has to turn on when using 3rd party AI. The device won't be able to ask for significantly more permissions than Apple asks for their own model for regulatory reasons, nor will it be able to convey the seriousness of granting the permission (e.g. immediately give unrestricted access to the vast majority of personal information/documents stored on the device). But Apple also architected their system to justify not having constant permission prompts for access to sensitive data. And for regulatory reasons they also can't mandate that competing models have the same architecture. The regulators and Apple (along with hopefully other AI companies) will need to work together to determine longer-term stable path forward.

himata4113 4mo ago
Apple could have the same kind of permission dialogues with their own models (and they actually should). Each and every (first-time) use of a feature should: 1) ask for permission explaining the scope 2) warn you about the dangers with a confirmation / nevermind option Putting this in practice: 1) Acme AI requires access to your email provider in order to execute this request. Grant / Deny 2) You're about to let Acme AI read and send emails on your behalf, this might be dangerous due to X and Y. Do you want to continue? / Nevermind. In this case: 1) Asks for access to a service 2) Asks for a specific use-case of the service 1 is access to data, you might want to give broad access to some applications and input data 2 is permission to act, but you might want to deny access to some parts such as sending email and scope to summarization

musictubes 4mo ago

Siri AI is not just a chatbot. There are deep hooks throughout the entire OS and across third party applications. Siri AI has been given wide access to the user's semantic index which will encompass just about everything on the device. Also remember that it isn't just the Apple user's privacy at stake. Any substitute will also have access to any interaction with other people. Apple is at least claiming to not keep any data people use with Siri AI, will Google, Anthropic, Open AI, etc. pinky swear they won't build a profile on me because a friend of mine chose their AI over Apple's? I will wait and see what people find out about it before passing judgement. It's quite possible that it isn't possible to have an API to use other companies' AI instead of Siri AI. Are there any equivalent API hooks on Android?