[microtonal]

So, first they have to be regulated because Apple and Android form a duopoly. Then they want to get an exception that the other duopoly player does not get.

Of course, as usual they use their PR machine to blame the EU, whereas they really just want to abuse their platform's position to shut out competitors.

I have been a decades long Apple user, but their anti-competitive behavior, pushing ads into the OS and apps, and their treatment of developers (who made the iPhone big) is just gross.

[4fterd4rk]

EU wants people to be able to plug any model into the new Siri system that will have unlimited access to all of your messages, photos, what's on your screen, browsing history, etc.

Apple says hey so we're going to need some time to figure out if we can do that in a way that won't completely fuck over our users.

Very different than the narrative you're pushing

[microtonal]

Apple Intelligence was announced at WWDC two years ago, they had plenty of time to work on interoperability. Besides that:

access to all of your messages, photos, what's on your screen, browsing history, etc. Apple says hey so we're going to need some time to figure out if we can do that in a way that won't completely fuck over our users.

The point is that if Apple's model gets all that access, they should give others access to those APIs as well, otherwise they are giving themselves benefits over the competition. A company can do that, but not once they are considered a gatekeeper in the EU. It's up to the user to choose an LLM provider that has good privacy rules (or stick with Apple if there is no other provider). That's fair competition, a user can weigh pricing, privacy, etc. and make their own choice. Now they are stuck with Apple and have to get an iCloud+ subscription to fully use the AI features. The 18 month delay is not to figure this out, it's to entrench themselves as much as possible first.

Following your line of reasoning, if Apple had this behavior in 2010-2015, instant messaging applications outside iMessage wouldn't have the option to ask access to your contacts (privacy), no possibility to share a location in a chat (privacy), no means to show notifications (probably privacy too), etc.

It's surprising how much people are willing to do the bidding of tech oligarchs. Remember, this is the company that has spent years doing malicious compliance around the DMA and DSA, why should they be trusted this time?

[MBCook]

> The point is that if Apple's model gets all that access, they should give others access to those APIs as well, otherwise they are giving themselves benefits over the competition

Yes. They SHOULD. So how did they do that without throwing away their privacy promise or running afoul of the privacy laws?

[microtonal]

First, LLM providers providing their services to European customers are bound to European privacy laws (GDPR) as well. If third-party providers violate the GDPR, it is not Apple's problem. Just like it's not the problem of Debian if you run Claude Code and Claude Code decides to upload your whole life (even though the OS provides the APIs to read the files).

Second, they could provide users with permission toggles of what users want to share and what not. Same as iOS/Android do now for contacts, location access, etc.

[MBCook]

> it is not Apple's problem

Maybe legally. Customers won’t see it that way.

Having to prompt users the first time an AI accesses each of the many different data stores on iOS sounds like an annoying mess.