[nightski]

Right but it's easier to just not use Google Photos. It's harder to opt out of your phone. I realize they "said" that device scanning will only be used if iCloud is enabled (right?). But ToS changes constantly and who knows what the future holds.

[nicce]

It is only applied for photos which are going to iCloud. If they change that, then we should be really worried. Current method is only pure improvement if leave all speculation out of it.

[ribosometronome]

I am generally in agreement with you (and have made similar arguments, if you look at my post history), but the "expand in unspecified ways" is a bit ominous. Committing to only scanning photos that are being synced to the cloud (effectively, keeping parity with what everyone does, just doing it on device at the time of upload instead of in the cloud) would be really welcome here.

[hypothesis]

Will such commitment substantially change anything?

First line of their privacy policy is: “Apple is committed to your privacy.”

[1] https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/

[skybrian]

It's not at all hard to avoid using an app on your phone. I have an iPad and I use Google Photos. I've never used Apple's photo app.

This is what I meant by mixing up (and blurring the lines between) app-level and OS-level capabilities. It might not actually be mixed up technically, but it seems to be the user perception.