Apple is stepping on its own tail. The correct way to implement such features is to provide API to integrate any AI with their device, not only ChatGPT. And as an example, they should provide their own completely optional app for this, which could be downloaded from the App Store. This app should not be part of iOS at all. So EU regulators cannot do anything with it or it will be harder for them to figure out ways to restrict it. And users will worry less about privacy.
“anything slightly complex” is an overstatement though, it would ask for some specific LLM tasks, and the vast majority of what apple has built is not LLM or even generative. to me the most useful features are prioritising notifications for a semi-dnd mode and searching for objects in photos 🤷♀️
it all seems okay from a technical perspective but you are right that it’s not good to have to trust apple here. i would love to see a setting to prompt the user for apples cloud, in the same way that it currently prompts for chatgpt.
They did say that their servers dont store anything and they do some cloud "verification" before sending any data to it, but in my opiniom they should have a setting/prompt/indication for that apple cloud part too, especially as you might be on mobile.
The include of chatgpt with the prompt is making it confusing and making the apple cloud less talked about ....
Interoperability is only required, if you have a significant market share. Apple does not have this in the EU. iMessage specifically doesn't fall under this regulation, since hardly anyone uses it.
And since Apple plans to publish an SDK for their intelligence anyway, you can't really regulate them for being too closed.
So either that's a purely political retaliation, or their "super privacy friendly" services aren't as privacy friendly as they claim.
Apple does have a significant market share of 25-30% in Europe. Just because they avoided having to open iMessage (for now) because everyone in Europe uses WhatsApp, doesn't mean other Apple services are safe from regulation.
But I'm with you - it's more likely about (not so) privacy.