Apple Touts On-device Intelligence and Differential Privacy at WWDC
As expected, Apple took to stage at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference to unveil a host of updates to its four software platforms watchOS, tvOS, macOS (yep, OS X is now macOS) and iOS, with new features ranging from Siri for Macs along with third-party app integration, Apple Pay on the web, ground-up redesigns for Apple Maps (with third-party app integration), Apple Music (with lyrics integration!) and Apple News, in addition to showing off Google Allo-like messaging features in iMessage (comes again with third-party app integration), Google Photos-like facial recognition and montage features in Photos, faster app launches and handwriting recognition a la Android Wear (called Scribble) in watchOS, and a lot more.
But it also made it a point to reiterate again and again its commitment to bringing in new smart features with no compromise to user privacy, stressing that all the computation that was happening was happening on your device as opposed to on the cloud (like Google). This is what Apple had to say -
Security and privacy are fundamental to the design of Apple hardware, software and services. iMessage, FaceTime and HomeKit use end-to-end encryption to protect your data by making it unreadable by Apple and others. iOS 10 uses on-device intelligence to identify the people, objects and scenes in Photos, and power QuickType suggestions. Services like Siri, Maps and News send data to Apple’s servers, but this data is not used to build user profiles.
Starting with iOS 10, Apple is using technology called Differential Privacy to help discover the usage patterns of a large number of users without compromising individual privacy. In iOS 10, this technology will help improve QuickType and emoji suggestions, Spotlight deep link suggestions and Lookup Hints in Notes.
But here's one unexpected but nice feature that Apple unsurprisingly left unannounced: The ability to remove and delete built-in system apps. Apple has published a list of apps you'll be able to delete when iOS 10 launches this fall for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. They include: Calculator, Calendar, Compass, Contacts, FaceTime, Find My Friends, Home, iBooks, iCloud Drive, iTunes Store, Mail, Maps, Music, News, Notes, Podcasts, Reminders, Stocks, Tips, Videos, Voice Memos, Watch app and Weather. This unbundling of apps from iOS can only be a good thing, and also something of a necessity if Apple wants to provide speedier updates (and quash software bugs) to individual apps rather than issuing an entire iOS system update. Hurray, finally!
But it also made it a point to reiterate again and again its commitment to bringing in new smart features with no compromise to user privacy, stressing that all the computation that was happening was happening on your device as opposed to on the cloud (like Google). This is what Apple had to say -
Security and privacy are fundamental to the design of Apple hardware, software and services. iMessage, FaceTime and HomeKit use end-to-end encryption to protect your data by making it unreadable by Apple and others. iOS 10 uses on-device intelligence to identify the people, objects and scenes in Photos, and power QuickType suggestions. Services like Siri, Maps and News send data to Apple’s servers, but this data is not used to build user profiles.
Starting with iOS 10, Apple is using technology called Differential Privacy to help discover the usage patterns of a large number of users without compromising individual privacy. In iOS 10, this technology will help improve QuickType and emoji suggestions, Spotlight deep link suggestions and Lookup Hints in Notes.
But here's one unexpected but nice feature that Apple unsurprisingly left unannounced: The ability to remove and delete built-in system apps. Apple has published a list of apps you'll be able to delete when iOS 10 launches this fall for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. They include: Calculator, Calendar, Compass, Contacts, FaceTime, Find My Friends, Home, iBooks, iCloud Drive, iTunes Store, Mail, Maps, Music, News, Notes, Podcasts, Reminders, Stocks, Tips, Videos, Voice Memos, Watch app and Weather. This unbundling of apps from iOS can only be a good thing, and also something of a necessity if Apple wants to provide speedier updates (and quash software bugs) to individual apps rather than issuing an entire iOS system update. Hurray, finally!
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