Why does everyone hate Microsoft for adding LLMs into Windows and spying on users, but not Apple?

As far as I know, Apple's implementation of LLMs is completely opt-in

Microsoft's thing takes a screenshot of everything on your screen and saves and indexes it. Opened up your password manager and revealed a password? Saved. Opened a porn site in a private tab in any browser aside from Edge? Saved. Opened up a private encrypted chat to try to get away from your abusive partner/parents? Saved and indexed. Logged into a portal at work showing HIPAA information? Saved and indexed.

Apple's thing is basically a better search feature of all the data you already have saved, that apps have already opted-in to sharing. It runs on device, and Apple has promised they do not send the data back to train the models. They also have some generic ChatGPT-like tool to help rewrite your documents, but that's 100% opt-in so nobody really cares about it, it's easy to just not use.

I saw a comment somewhere that said: “people have been burnt by Microsoft too many times, while Apple still has a benefit of the doubt for many people in regards to privacy”. People still have some trust in Apple, compared to MS.

Edit: Found the comment by @[email protected]

If Apple announced Recall? Apple wouldn’t announce Recall, that’s the whole point. Apple wouldn’t be so brazen and stupid to push a tool that is so obviously invasive and so poorly implemented. Apple earned its trust by not making those mistakes.

But if they did decide to say fuck it and implement something like Recall, of course people would trust them. That’s what trust means: consumers take them at their word. But if it’s as bad as Microsoft’s Recall, Apple would burn all that trust when people found out.

People don’t believe Microsoft because they have long since burned any trust and good will for most of their consumers. They have proven time and time again they don’t give a shit about users’ wants or needs, and users have felt that. So when they announce Recall, they have no earned trust. No believes them. There’s no good faith to cushion this. And it turns out everyone was right not to grant them that trust.

I'm going to copy paste a reply I left somewhere else. This was for iOS AI, I'm unsure what the implemention for macOS is. If they are scanning everything then I do not support it.

From what I saw,

MS Recall is a 24/7 AI monitor system that captures everything you look at and saves it for later. They didn't even do the bare minimum for protecting the data, it was just dumped in an unencytped folder where anyone get wholesale access to the data. All trust has been lost.

Apple is using AI as a tool to improve specific tasks/features that a user invokes. Things like assistant queries and the new calculator. They have said some promising things in regards to privacy, specificly with the use of ChatGPT - any inquiry sent to ChatGPT will ask the user permission first and obscure their IP. This shows they care enough to try, they have not lost our trust - but we remain skeptical.

If apple tries the same thing by scanning everything wholesale, then that's getting over shadowed by the promises made by the implentaion on the much more popular iOS.

Mainly because Apple explained how it works and Microsoft just said we're going to record everything you do

Apple at least talks about privacy and security. Windows just dumped that shit right on you and is planning on storing in unencrypted databases... like, I would expect there to be enough brainpower at M$ to be able to write an application and then secure it... Just use Linux and when Ubuntu and Fedora decide they want to implement those features... OpenBSD it is :D

If you're already willing to put up with all the other bullshit Apple does, I don't see why you'd care about them doing this.

It’s really simple: Microsoft is a business solutions company. Microsoft helps your boss spy on you at work. Your boss is their customer, not you.

Apple is a consumer products company. You are their customer. They market their products on privacy and security. Betraying that marketing message by spying on users is shooting themselves in the foot, so they’re incentivized not to do that.

Neither company is trustworthy. Economic incentives are the trustworthy concept here. Barring screwups, we can trust both companies to do what is profitable to them. Microsoft profits by spying on users, Apple does not (not right now anyway).

If you watch WWDC, they shared how it works. They have a private cloud that does not persist data on it, only processes it. Also, it’s audited by a third party and there is a cryptographic mechanism that will not allow your request to be accepted unless the server software has been publicly signed by the auditor. At least, this is my best understanding of it from what I remember.

Also, in the same presentation they announced that you can now lock your Apps and hide them, which will keep its data out of the OS search results. I am fairly certain this also means it’s opted out of ML/AI processing given that any LLM would rely on the same search index.

1. MS has a horrible track record on privacy or even caring about their customers; Apple, deservedly or not, has higher level of consumer's trust

2. MS brought out features too obviously ripe for abuse built in the most insecure way, lied about it and was quickly proven a liar. Apple says they built their AI in a secure way, their fans believe them and have not challenged

3. Undoubtedly, there is still a huge Apple fanbase that would tell you Apple's turds smell nice. So there's a portion of that in the mix as well

I think it's because Apple has a "fandom", whereas when's the last time you heard someone being a weird fan of Microsoft outside of Xbox? It just doesn't really exist. The people with Apple devices are often "fans" of Apple, not simply people who bought a product. I think it's that simple.

apple can get their consumers in a cult-like state it seems.

their marketing and pr is scary good.

You can look at security failures as mistakes or conspiracies.

It’s very easy to see the Microsoft failures as conspiracies the more you learn about them because Microsoft’s material interests are aligned with the failures. To steal someone’s turn of phrase: “Microsoft gives you a foot gun for free but charges for bulletproof shoes”.

It’s very easy to see apples security failure as mistakes because the more you learn about them the more you see how apples material interests arent aligned with the failures. If I had to make a similar one liner, “apple sells you designer shoes with drop rated toe boxes. They might not be bulletproof, but you also don’t have a foot gun.”

I think it all remains to be seen, Apple was very specific in their wording about privacy, probably BECAUSE they saw what happened to Microsoft. We didn’t see any live demos and I am still a bit skeptical that it will work that well.

A key difference in how Apple is doing it though, is that it only exposes necessary data as context to an LLM request. Whereas Microsoft was capturing and training on everything.

I don’t have an iPhone 14 so luckily I can’t test this day one, I will wait for reviews and security researchers to look it over.

Not true. I hate them both for this and a litany of other reasons. Holding back humanity's development and being the chief cause of e-waste are at the top of the pile.

because Windows is a piece of shit that people in here are forced to use to play video games and Apple is just kind of doing its own thing being a piece of shit

Opt-in ; Respecting Agency; Explicit Consent.

Microsoft has every intention of SHOVING this down your throat, and only corporate group policy will be exempted. They will use every nag screen, dark pattern, accidently enabling with updates, randomized installs, to make it happen. Look at what they do with edge, for an example. MS absolutely does not respect consent. #MS-MeToo

Apple for all its faults, respects people when they say No, and if they say it's opt-in, they have a track record to back that up. Apple says 'Hey look at this cool new feature you can use', and I think Horray - more choice.

Skimming all the comments, didn't see this mentioned explicitly

Because I don't use apple products and don't keep up with the news? My work laptop is Mac, but that's work's problem (I hate that thing)

Apple has always had a better PR team.

Microsoft and Apple are both privacy-disregarding monopolistic megacorporations. The difference is Microsoft is slowly degrading in competence and their PR machine is no longer able to compensate

https://youtu.be/J7al_Gpolb8

start watching at 1hr29sec for a great explanation of the vastly different approach to privacy with AI from Apple to Microsoft.

Maybe you're making an apples to oranges comparison. But anyway, nobody I know thinks Apple has good intentions with regard to their data.

I saw the Apple Intelligence presentation that reads user emails and SMS like it reads everything and categorizes which is more important to you... and people take that?

I saw the thumb and just thought, Macos for maco Monday?

Apple customers are accustomed to be ridden like ponies, the fact that they bought an apple to begin with shows they have absolutely no concerns for their own privacy or their computer's usability. The men and women of the land, so to speak.

Windows Users only put up with Windows because it's THE workstation operating system in every industry, they don't appreciate the company or the quality or any of that other hokey shit that Apple fans say to rationalize their poor decisions. We use it because we have to, not by choice.

Read this as "TACOS WILL NEVER BE THE SAME"

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

https://piped.video/watch?v=B_SqrNMPV5c&pp=ygUMTWFjIG9zIHNwaWVz

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

because its target audience thinks it is a feature?

Linux

So I’m curious . . . what reference am I missing that helps me understand what menu settings cause exactly which pieces of personal data to be shared with which Apple services? I want to RTFM, and while I appreciate people wanting to be helpful, comment replies are not themselves documentation.

(I switched from Android to ios in 2020 and haven’t really figured out details beyond turning icloud sync off for specific apps. I’d like to add more devices and learn to trust that sync method but I don’t understand where crypto is used and how the keys are handled.)

..because that would just affect apple users, and not me. I don't chose to use windows, I am forced, so I hate when they take away my choice of keeping it out of my stuff

Apple has its llm's running locally. Thats a huge win I hope that sets a standard i really hope someone make an android app thats foss that can do something simmillar.

It's a very simple answer Apple has guaranteed that your data will stay on your device and stay secure. This is generally trusted because Apple has a track record of keeping user data secure on the device or encrypted in the cloud even in ways Apple cannot access. Point is, when Apple says they are going to do this in a way that respects privacy, and they outline the technical details of how it will work, people trust that because there's a track record.

Microsoft has no such trust. They have a recent track record of being intrusive and using dark patterns to persuade users to give Microsoft their data, for example in Edge there have been new feature pop-ups that require data sharing with Microsoft and the two options are 'got it' and 'settings' so accepting requires one click and rejecting requires 4 going into the settings menu and changing a few things. Microsoft is also heavily pushing Copilot which is mostly cloud-based. Furthermore, Microsoft recently showed a system that would basically screenshot your computer at very regular intervals and store them in an insecure manner. Granted it was on the device, but the way they were going to be stored meant they could be stolen with two lines of code. And let's not forget that Windows 11 cannot be set up without a Microsoft account, so to even use your computer you have to share your email address with Microsoft. In this and many other ways they just do not act like a company that respects privacy at all, they act like the typical big tech give us everything or we will make your life difficult type company that nobody trusts.

• usually people got Microsoft license for free (by working in company, and company buy you enterprise license)
• But with apple, people usually get it by passion.