5 ms·

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 dat

by tyre 5mo 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 5mo 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 5mo ago
  Yep and more like 25%+ of profits (given the google revenue, and most ad revenue, is close to 100% margin).
thewebguyd 5mo 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.
- onesociety2022 5mo ago
  I never understood how any regulatory body is going to decide which APIs in iOS must be made available to third-parties to hook into. So what if I'm a third-party maker of TCP/IP stack and I want Apple to offer me the ability to sell my custom TCP/IP stack to my iOS customers as a replacement for the stock TCP/IP stack that ships with iOS. Clearly no regulatory body has cared about that because it's too niche of a space? So some government official will scour the entire API surface of iOS and decide which ones Apple needs to expose to third-parties? They have already decided App Store and Payments APIs need to be made available. Now it looks like they also expect off-device foundation models need to be made available to third-parties. What about making Apple Watch specific APIs in iOS be made available to all third-party watch makers so any one can bring any smartwatch and use it just as effectively as the Apple Watch with an iPhone? What about all the AirPods specific APIs that lets Apple offer a better experience with AirPods than a generic bluetooth earbuds? What about Apple Pencil? And so on... If you go down this path, the list is endless.
  - manwe150 5mo ago
    Replacement TCP/IP stack sounds like a VPN—which iOS allows
    - onesociety2022 5mo ago
      VPN is not a replacement TCP/IP stack. I literally meant the TCP/IP stack in the XNU kernel. It might be an esoteric example but it's not that far off. DMA already forced Apple to open up browser engine layer so third-parties can now bring in their own browser engines in the EU and are not restricted to using just WebKit.
    - Barbing 5mo ago
      True. Will add, device must be supervised to use VPN always-on which is possibly sensible albeit annoying (would have to reinstall iOS and set up as new I believe).
  - jaggederest 5mo ago
rzwitserloot 5mo ago
Your premise is incorrect; if apple truly wants to do the 'right thing for its users', it would allow choice. The fact that the current crop of likely alternate choices include quite a few companies and offerings that seem far more user hostile than apple's offering doesn't change that fact (it merely raises separate concerns that there need to be more laws such as the EU's DMA, not fewer). However, even if your premise is correct, it does not matter. In the end, trying to manage such products (require massive investment, have network effects, offer significant gatekeeping and rentseeking opportunities) is extremely problematic. On one hand, the market cannot do it properly: There are tons of externalities, and, like e.g. building out rail, the absolutely gigantic barriers to entering the market means the existing players merge into a monopoly or oligopoly. On the other, the product is too complex and too dependent on continuous evolution to officially turn it into a state-controlled / state-run monopoly (the solution many countries have deployed to solve e.g. how rail, or medical insurance, or road networks, end up in a terrible state if left up to the market). So what is one to do? The current crop of mostly US led large companies seem to have gone with a 'just trust me, bro!' argument, with some 'AI is so important you cannot put up any roadblocks at all!' sprinkled in. And yet these companies time and again prove that they can't be trusted. Which is obvious and logical: Companies must conform to the law, but are otherwise amoral. Or rather, their 'moral' compass has nothing to do with human moral compasses: They must earn money for their shareholders, in whatever legal way they can find that is most efficient, paying as much attention to future company growth and health as its shareholders desire. That isn't just 'what they are incentivized to do' - that is what they are legally *required* to do. And yet you've gone with a motif of 'but apple is the one company that is doing it right so lets just trust them.. bro'. There *is* a solution: Use the fact that the state has powers of persuasion that companies simply do not have. The threat of law, and the monopoly on violence. Essentially, a state can simply tell a company: The populace have spoken and they value X (say, privacy). They value it a lot. You will deliver. At low cost. This is not a request, it is a demand. If you don't want to or can't, then we shall write laws to regulate you and then *everybody loses*. Conceptually this works, in a weird game of chicken / madman theory: If the corporation in question believes that society will regulate them into oblivion unless they comply with society's demands even if this means society incurs a great cost, then the corporation *will comply*. This has happened before. There is no actual law in the US that a movie gets a rating, and the movie industry pays for and manages the ratings of its movies entirely as an internal affair. And yet, in general, movie ratings are stellarly well run compared to what a government run institution would have done. The reason *is* that threat. The movie industry decided to police itself because it was quite clear that if they did not, the government would have, at great cost to the movie making industry (and at significant cost to society as well, in the form primarily of much worse films). For some reason that isn't entirely clear to me, CEOs of large corporations that deem themselves 'IT companies' do not understand this part. They will fight tooth and nail to fight every law, and especially in the US, perhaps due to extremely dire and long-term distrust by its populace in its own government, many of its citizens incorrectly side with its corporations on this idea, even though time and again corporations prove that they have no allegiance other than to the almighty dollar (which, to be clear, is not a complaint. That is how society has set them up. My only complaint is that e.g. you seem to have forgotten that this is how it works). Hence, given that the system works on, in essence, fear / coercion, the only right answer is to do an attitude adjustment, find a massive club, and beat a whole bunch of IT companies into absolute pulp until the remaining CEOs understand. And before you make a note about the brash, medieval nature of that comment - it is already clear that these CEOs who think they are God's Greatest Gift To This Planet, are already meekly running, tail between their legs, to kiss the pinky ring of a personalist wannabe emperor president. They are _clearly_ motivated by such fear and _clearly_ cannot be trusted to rise to the occasion and be a new form of benevolent leadership for the citizenry. I wish they were. It'd be so much easier.
hashmap 5mo ago
if for a second you believe that what apple says the regulators told them is the same thing as what the regulators told them, i have a cow farm under the titanic to sell you
- AgentOrange1234 5mo ago
  This comment casts aspersions while making zero specific claims of wrongdoing. If you have something specific to say that goes beyond the vibes of "everything and everyone is corrupt and evil," that would at least be worth hearing.
  - hashmap 5mo ago
    oh, it is worth hearing. said another way: "show me"
  - saagarjha 5mo ago
    Apple continually lies to the EU and the public about their DMA compliance efforts. Is that specific enough?
xp84 5mo ago
Apple may have a true argument that their version of “AI” is currently the least privacy-problematic, but it’s not a compelling one. First of all, it sets an awkward precedent. This special status is mostly based on vibes, and on how we know the other guys’ business models will push them towards more data collection. But doesn’t make sense to say we allow anticompetitive behavior depending on how nice to how “nice” the aspiring monopolist is to their users. Google can easily argue that if Apple gets to rule over a walled garden, zero-API ecosystem where no one else can compete, then it’s right that they can too, regardless of how privacy-respecting they are or aren’t.

by tyre 5mo ago

miohtama 5mo 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 5mo ago
Yep and more like 25%+ of profits (given the google revenue, and most ad revenue, is close to 100% margin).

thewebguyd 5mo 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.

onesociety2022 5mo ago
I never understood how any regulatory body is going to decide which APIs in iOS must be made available to third-parties to hook into. So what if I'm a third-party maker of TCP/IP stack and I want Apple to offer me the ability to sell my custom TCP/IP stack to my iOS customers as a replacement for the stock TCP/IP stack that ships with iOS. Clearly no regulatory body has cared about that because it's too niche of a space? So some government official will scour the entire API surface of iOS and decide which ones Apple needs to expose to third-parties? They have already decided App Store and Payments APIs need to be made available. Now it looks like they also expect off-device foundation models need to be made available to third-parties. What about making Apple Watch specific APIs in iOS be made available to all third-party watch makers so any one can bring any smartwatch and use it just as effectively as the Apple Watch with an iPhone? What about all the AirPods specific APIs that lets Apple offer a better experience with AirPods than a generic bluetooth earbuds? What about Apple Pencil? And so on... If you go down this path, the list is endless.
- manwe150 5mo ago
  Replacement TCP/IP stack sounds like a VPN—which iOS allows
  - onesociety2022 5mo ago
    VPN is not a replacement TCP/IP stack. I literally meant the TCP/IP stack in the XNU kernel. It might be an esoteric example but it's not that far off. DMA already forced Apple to open up browser engine layer so third-parties can now bring in their own browser engines in the EU and are not restricted to using just WebKit.
  - Barbing 5mo ago
    True. Will add, device must be supervised to use VPN always-on which is possibly sensible albeit annoying (would have to reinstall iOS and set up as new I believe).
- jaggederest 5mo ago

rzwitserloot 5mo ago

Your premise is incorrect; if apple truly wants to do the 'right thing for its users', it would allow choice. The fact that the current crop of likely alternate choices include quite a few companies and offerings that seem far more user hostile than apple's offering doesn't change that fact (it merely raises separate concerns that there need to be more laws such as the EU's DMA, not fewer). However, even if your premise is correct, it does not matter. In the end, trying to manage such products (require massive investment, have network effects, offer significant gatekeeping and rentseeking opportunities) is extremely problematic. On one hand, the market cannot do it properly: There are tons of externalities, and, like e.g. building out rail, the absolutely gigantic barriers to entering the market means the existing players merge into a monopoly or oligopoly. On the other, the product is too complex and too dependent on continuous evolution to officially turn it into a state-controlled / state-run monopoly (the solution many countries have deployed to solve e.g. how rail, or medical insurance, or road networks, end up in a terrible state if left up to the market). So what is one to do? The current crop of mostly US led large companies seem to have gone with a 'just trust me, bro!' argument, with some 'AI is so important you cannot put up any roadblocks at all!' sprinkled in. And yet these companies time and again prove that they can't be trusted. Which is obvious and logical: Companies must conform to the law, but are otherwise amoral. Or rather, their 'moral' compass has nothing to do with human moral compasses: They must earn money for their shareholders, in whatever legal way they can find that is most efficient, paying as much attention to future company growth and health as its shareholders desire. That isn't just 'what they are incentivized to do' - that is what they are legally *required* to do. And yet you've gone with a motif of 'but apple is the one company that is doing it right so lets just trust them.. bro'. There *is* a solution: Use the fact that the state has powers of persuasion that companies simply do not have. The threat of law, and the monopoly on violence. Essentially, a state can simply tell a company: The populace have spoken and they value X (say, privacy). They value it a lot. You will deliver. At low cost. This is not a request, it is a demand. If you don't want to or can't, then we shall write laws to regulate you and then *everybody loses*. Conceptually this works, in a weird game of chicken / madman theory: If the corporation in question believes that society will regulate them into oblivion unless they comply with society's demands even if this means society incurs a great cost, then the corporation *will comply*. This has happened before. There is no actual law in the US that a movie gets a rating, and the movie industry pays for and manages the ratings of its movies entirely as an internal affair. And yet, in general, movie ratings are stellarly well run compared to what a government run institution would have done. The reason *is* that threat. The movie industry decided to police itself because it was quite clear that if they did not, the government would have, at great cost to the movie making industry (and at significant cost to society as well, in the form primarily of much worse films). For some reason that isn't entirely clear to me, CEOs of large corporations that deem themselves 'IT companies' do not understand this part. They will fight tooth and nail to fight every law, and especially in the US, perhaps due to extremely dire and long-term distrust by its populace in its own government, many of its citizens incorrectly side with its corporations on this idea, even though time and again corporations prove that they have no allegiance other than to the almighty dollar (which, to be clear, is not a complaint. That is how society has set them up. My only complaint is that e.g. you seem to have forgotten that this is how it works). Hence, given that the system works on, in essence, fear / coercion, the only right answer is to do an attitude adjustment, find a massive club, and beat a whole bunch of IT companies into absolute pulp until the remaining CEOs understand. And before you make a note about the brash, medieval nature of that comment - it is already clear that these CEOs who think they are God's Greatest Gift To This Planet, are already meekly running, tail between their legs, to kiss the pinky ring of a personalist wannabe emperor president. They are _clearly_ motivated by such fear and _clearly_ cannot be trusted to rise to the occasion and be a new form of benevolent leadership for the citizenry. I wish they were. It'd be so much easier.

hashmap 5mo ago

if for a second you believe that what apple says the regulators told them is the same thing as what the regulators told them, i have a cow farm under the titanic to sell you

AgentOrange1234 5mo ago
This comment casts aspersions while making zero specific claims of wrongdoing. If you have something specific to say that goes beyond the vibes of "everything and everyone is corrupt and evil," that would at least be worth hearing.
- hashmap 5mo ago
  oh, it is worth hearing. said another way: "show me"
- saagarjha 5mo ago
  Apple continually lies to the EU and the public about their DMA compliance efforts. Is that specific enough?

xp84 5mo ago

Apple may have a true argument that their version of “AI” is currently the least privacy-problematic, but it’s not a compelling one. First of all, it sets an awkward precedent. This special status is mostly based on vibes, and on how we know the other guys’ business models will push them towards more data collection. But doesn’t make sense to say we allow anticompetitive behavior depending on how nice to how “nice” the aspiring monopolist is to their users. Google can easily argue that if Apple gets to rule over a walled garden, zero-API ecosystem where no one else can compete, then it’s right that they can too, regardless of how privacy-respecting they are or aren’t.