Apple didn't steal your data, but also kinda did

There is a strange phenomenon around Apple, and the 'fan base' that seems to preclude them from the usual pushbacks and scrutinies that other companies endure. Apple has done such a good job of building themselves up on the pedestal of righteousness and honour that they are often given free passes even for the douchiest of moves.

Whilst anyone willing to pay money to see Mr John Gruber speak is clearly a bit of a sycophant, it was quite striking to hear Apple's John Giannandrea state that "... we don't use any of our users data to train Apple Foundation Models...", only to be greeted by cheers, and a sprinkling of cringey whoops.

Whilst they may, indeed, not be pulling in their customers data from their devices, per sey, they are, however, still hoovering up content from the open web just like any other company jumping into AI. I can assure you they are not somehow, magically, avoiding stealing their customers data whilst hovering up whatever they find on the web.

Whilst they are, somewhat understandably, not directly calling Apple out in their recent post, the Macstories crew have flagged their dissatisfaction to this approach in general recently and are taking action against trying to block this on their domain.

This is an interesting topic in general, and I do appreciate there is no alternative for Apple if they want to keep up with this current topic (fad or otherwise), and I'm clearly still a big fan (for want of a better word) of Apple, but I do wish people would apply a little more critical thinking when it comes to the way they do business. Yes, Apple has done a great job on reducing waste in packaging but it's also true that this has helped them save a load of money by cutting packaging, and removing chargers and other items. Both of these can be true. Apple takes, like almost every topic these days, seem to have devolved to basic black/white thinking. I think we need to stop ignoring these grey, middle, areas.