⌚️ More on Live Rewind and Siri Recap
If you missed it, please read my previous post about these features before continuing.
John Gruber at Daring Fireball regarding Live Rewind and Siri Recap:
Some people are objecting to the very existence of these features as privacy intrusive. I think they’re pretty reasonably thought out. There are surveillance cameras all over the place now. I was walking home from dinner here in Philadelphia a few weeks ago with a friend visiting from out of town, talking about this, and he stopped midway between the restaurant and my house and asked me to count how many cameras we were on at that spot. I think we counted seven or eight. Who knows how many we missed? I’m not saying that’s good or bad, it’s just the world today. So too it’s soon going to be with personal devices recording audio. This is inevitable. I’m glad to see Apple ship features like this early, with pretty limited scope, to provide good examples before other companies ship devices that record and save audio continuously throughout the day. I think it’s better for Apple to lead with privacy-minded versions of ambient transcripts and AI-generated conversation summaries than to follow after other products have hit the market with all-day recordings and whole-life transcripts.
Think back to Apple’s announcement of AirTags. A lot of people had a perfectly reasonable “Hey I don’t know if it’s a good idea for a product like this to even exist” initial reaction. But having Apple lead the way actually proved good. I suspect Live Rewind and Siri Recap will turn out like that.
"There are surveillance cameras all over the place now," and, "I’m not saying that’s good or bad, it’s just the world today," line of thinking is a perfect example of why Apple shouldn't be helping to further normalize having surveillance devices everywhere.
I also sincerely hope that John is wrong about ubiquitous audio recording by personal devices being inevitable. There are a lot of ubiquitous bad things that once seemed inevitable or entrenched, but have nonetheless been greatly reduced or eliminated for the public good. Leaded gasoline, ozone-depleting chemicals, and smoking come to mind. We collectively decided we didn't want to all breathe tobacco smoke everywhere we went, and I hope we all collectively agree we don't want a bunch of watches listening to what we say everywhere, too. Just because we have to put up with something bad now doesn't mean we have to put up with it in the future. The world is what we make of it.
That said, like the examples above, we may have to live with the bad for a while until we decide to eliminate it. I would like to live in a world where Apple proudly and loudly refuses to create surveillance features like Live Rewind and Siri Recap, and then have the rest of the industry follow their example, but I recognize that's probably not the world we live in.
Apple building and releasing privacy- and security-focused versions of these features—as flawed as the specific implementations are—is the safe move. I agree with John that it may result in better implementations of similar features from other companies. A tangible release people can actually use, explore, and purchase is almost always going to be more compelling and persuasive (especially to competitors) than an ideological refusal to cross a line. If Apple tried to set a good example by refusing to build these features, the rest of the industry would probably ignore them and build (or, in some cases, continue to build) surveillance features that are privacy and security nightmares.
Probably, but not certainly.
At some point there will be a catalyst for change that nudges the industry in a better direction. Apple might be influential and powerful enough to be that catalyst. Yes, being the change you want to see in the world is a risk, and I see why Apple is choosing the safe path, but I'd rather see them draw on some of their courage and take a stand.
Back to the rest of John's thoughts on Live Rewind and Siri Recap:
It’s also interesting to think about why these two features are only on Apple Watch, not iPhone. I think it’s because once an Apple Watch is on your wrist and unlocked, it remains a “trusted device” until you take the watch off. An iPhone is only a trusted device while it’s unlocked. It’s locked, and thus untrusted, while it’s in your pocket or bag, or even just sitting on a desk. I leave my iPhone unattended in our kitchen all the time. I’m often not in the room for conversations that take place in the kitchen while my iPhone is there, sitting on the counter. I shouldn’t get summaries of those conversations. And, thinking more nefariously, I shouldn’t be able to hide my iPhone on or near someone’s desk, or in a conference room, or in a car, or anywhere else, to get Siri Recap summaries of conversations where I’m not present. Making this an Apple Watch exclusive feature avoids that. Thus, I think Apple Watch can be trusted to “listen” ambiently, all the time while it’s unlocked on the wearer’s wrist, in ways that even an iPhone can’t.
That's a good callout, and something I didn't think about until now. If your iPhone could also listen that would indeed make Siri Recap far worse. Making the listening part of the puzzle exclusive to Apple Watch is another point in Apple's favor, but I still maintain that there shouldn't be a feature like this on any device in the first place.