Also, the assistants are not recording, they're analyzing sound wave for the trigger word. This isn't recording, it's been explained countless times already.
This whole conversation is about taking it to next level.
I think as soon as the original capability launched the game was over. People don't understand technical distinctions like that and they've already accepted it.
I am talking about the recording that lasts. Recording people's voice without their consent, on your behalf, and transcribing the text for your later use. It's not volatile 2s analyzed by the DSP, it's an actual record of conversation.
This is not the same recording.
But yes, I see your point, too, maybe back then we got used to it at an even less intrusive level. So it progresses, slowly, but surely, like a frog in a pot.
This is about remote control. People who think Apple/Google/Microsoft will just pass on the reigns of that remote control are dangerously naïve.
Apple has locked down whole classes of third-party utilities for its mobile system and Google is copying them as we speak. We are slowing progress at great cost by letting them lock-in and rent seek.
The commenter may have sounded unhinged but the thesis is sound.
If you don’t trust Apple, you’re on your own - you can probably recreate all this on a FOSS stack, but you’re gonna have to do it repeatedly for everything, and you’re on the hook for explaining it to everyone you know so they can use it, too. It’s not that you _can’t_ do it yourself, it’s just a whole lot harder than if you accept the bargain and trust Apple.
Whether or not you want to do that is up to you, but I don’t think anyone’s in the dark on what the bargain is.
I’m honestly surprised in the age of vibe-coding we haven’t seen someone try to build out a direct “open walled garden”.
AI could solve the basic coverage on every operating system and screen shape, while the various p2p technologies have gotten really good and when combined with mDNS and maybe an encrypted byo-cloud-storage (eg drive, Dropbox, etc APIs) for async data synching. The nerd side is build a data sync layer, then a variety of apps and products can be built on top of it.
It doesn’t necessarily need to work as well as Apple, nor as rich features, it just needs to support enough devices well enough to allow heterogeneous-platform households or friends to share what they need.
(They are on watchlist for Apple Maps & other ads…)
And you’re absolutely right - as soon as they break the value proposition, the value of their package and the price people are willing to pay for it drops in half and they’ve all the sudden gotta compete with Google and Samsung and Huaiwei and the rest of that jungle, and that market sucks.
The massive issue in all of this is digital identity.
Everyone is a citizen of a private corporation without any rights or access points to their digital identity.
Humans rely on our digital identity (email accounts, iCloud, google, etc) for nearly everything.
In many ways, it's like the equivalent of using our license or other ID in physical spaces.
Except, humans are relying on digital identities provided as digital citizens of corporations (Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc), whereby they do no have teh same recourse that official access points of data do.
If at any given time, the majority of the identity providers are generally or ultimately not on the side of the identity holders (human) wrt to their inalienable rights.
There's no easy answer for this. Convenience has been used as a massive tradeoff for security for 10-15 years to the point that most people don't know better, or that there were and can be better options.
Downplaying the fact that the single change of a few sentences could change for worse the promises any corporation makes (it's not entitled to serve the user's needs first, after all).
Security and Privacy in Apple certainly seem to be better, but are not the best they could be.
Privacy and security, especially where it comes to protecting people from increasing threats online including AI bots, is not going to come from corporations alone, they haven't been able to build or roll them out while they learn at the expense of people.
There's no answer being pointed to, only that Apple being the only vendor with some promises isn't very good at all.
Otherwise you don't really own your hardware.
LLMs will be able to secure (and insecure) more and more hardware as time goes on.
There’s some resilience, there.
The new ability to add one's own passes to Apple Wallet is nice though. Long overdue.
And yet, won't let me control my Nest Thermostat
(I'm not saying this is exclusively Apple's fault: the lack of Nest interop is Google's fault, but Apple isn't making it easy for third-parties to build Apple-Google bridges either)
(They support Matter protocol)
But I have, for example, a couple of Brilliant smart wall panels (one gang sized little panels with lighting and other controls) that I have to duplicate because despite the Brilliant being able to expose devices as a bridge to HomeKit I can’t say “Run this Scene” because Apple doesn’t allow external integrations to do so.
The systemic "lack of alternatives" is steering you, you confuse "not knowing alternatives" with the actual absence of alternatives and ignore possible further implications entirely.
The pattern is systemic capture, keeping you sedated about it is part of the scheme.
So if everyone else has a feature that lets you use your voice all the time as an input device, you are seen behind the times if you don't offer it. But at the same time if you want to offer protection for that feature, not being able to access it outside the device is the only acceptable answer.
Consumers who are more discerning, privacy conscious and technologically literate would be best. But without that being an option, having one major company still even pretend to care about privacy is at least refreshing
This is the same as with the Meta glasses and that's where I believe said Overton window is being expanded to. I am not one for conspiracy theories but it's not hard to notice the sudden appearance of these devices and their "this is cool" and the implied "what is even your problem" gaslighting advertising.
"for each desired change, make the change easy, then make the easy change"