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by int_19h 443 days ago
OpenAI integration in current Apple products needs to be enabled to begin with, and then it still prompts you before sending anything to OpenAI servers, so I'd say it's in line with their practices so far.

The reason why I trust Apple a little bit more than, say, Google on something like this is that Apple is pitching their products as luxury goods - a way to be different from the hoi polloi - so they need features to plausibly differentiate along these lines. And privacy is one thing that they know Google will never be able to offer, given its business model, so it makes perfect sense for Apple to double down on that.

(Ironically, this means that Apple users benefit from Android being the dominant platform.)
1 comments
9dev 443 days ago
That is kind of proving OPs point, though: the differentiating factor isn’t actual privacy, it’s an impression of privacy that you’re sold; the warm, fuzzy feeling that you’re using a superior product because you’re special and this phone is for special people that have important data that needs to be protected, and as a manufacturer of special people devices, Apple obviously takes care of this—because you’re important, duh!

If they can get away with appearing to care about privacy instead of actually doing so, they will. That’s all it takes to look better than Google.

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kbenson 443 days ago
You don't even have to make the argument that Apple is untrustworthy. The stronger argument is that you can't know what Apple will be like in the future, or even if they will still be independent (which seems far fetched since they're so big) or a division that deals with user data won't get sold off with the data even if it's to a respectable company, because that company may eventually sell if to a slightly less respectable company, and repeat.

The risk for PII being utilized nefariously never goes away as long as it exists, so the only same stance is to not allow it to exist in others handle if at all possible. It's the same reason you don't share your banking credentials with your friends. Sure, you might trust them, but you can't know the future, so why even expose yourself to risk you don't have to?

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int_19h 443 days ago
That is true, but the catch is that reputation is very easy to lose and very hard to gain.
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