I’ve been a lifelong Windows user, but Microsoft’s crazy ploy to throw artificial intelligence into everything is starting to make me feel like I should bite the bullet and switch to a Mac.
I grew up almost exclusively on Windows computers, so I never really felt at home on macOS. And while Windows 11 has its weaknesses, overall I think Microsoft has done a decent job of maintaining and improving it since its debut in 2021.
But after attending WWDC 2024 and hearing Apple talk about AI and privacy the way I wish Microsoft would, I’m very tempted to get involved with macOS Sequoia when it debuts later this year.
Admittedly, this has a lot more to do with Microsoft’s relentless push to push “AI” into everything it sells than how much I like Apple products. I carry an iPhone because I wrote about games and the Apple App Store was the place to be if you were a mobile game developer, but otherwise I generally disagree with Apple’s design philosophy. Too often I feel like I can’t customize or control a key aspect of my device because Apple hasn’t given me the option, and I hate that feeling.
Windows Copilot and all the ways it infiltrates my PC, but I’m starting to hate it even more. I’ve been using various forms of “AI” since Microsoft launched Bing with ChatGPT in 2023, and I’ve yet to find a compelling reason to use any of them other than filling the internet with garbage.
While Microsoft keeps talking about how Copilot integration will make you more productive, all I’ve seen it do is either Bing for me stuff or random summarization or text rewriting. Oh, and it can generate images that are fun to throw in chat for a laugh, but aren’t really very useful because they clearly look like they’re AI generated.
Admittedly, it’s early days for this technology, and both companies still have plenty of time to hang on as they integrate AI into their operating systems. But as Apple is a late starter in this particular part of the AI ​​race, I can’t help but feel drawn to its privacy-first marketing for Apple Intelligence.
If my computer is going to work for me, I have to trust it
In fact, Apple is making privacy such a key pillar of its 2024 marketing that it issued a press release highlighting all the ways its new operating systems respect user privacy. Sure, it’s a press release meant to make Apple look good, but it’s the kind of announcement Microsoft hasn’t made — and likely couldn’t without a serious overhaul of its data infrastructure.
For example, when Siri gets a big change in iOS 18, it will be integrated with ChatGPT-4o and will reportedly be able to handle much more complex requests than it can now, such as being able to see into and take actions on apps on your device. meet your requirements. At WWDC, for example, we saw Apple demonstrate how you can ask the new Siri to find photos of a specific person and place, then ask Apple’s AI assistant to edit them to make them really appear.
Apple says the new Siri will always try to do all the processing work needed to fulfill your device requests, so you know your requests and images aren’t being sent anywhere or seen. However, if Siri decides it needs more computing power to fulfill your request, it can connect to Apple’s servers for additional power.
These servers are Apple Privacy Cloud Compute servers that run on Apple silicon and therefore have the same security features as your iPhone or MacBook, such as Secure Enclave and Secure Boot. Apple promises that your data on these servers will never be visible to anyone (including Apple employees) and that the data will be deleted immediately after your request is fulfilled. Apple also promised to allow “independent experts” to review the code running these Privacy Could Compute servers to verify that its claims are true.
But if it decides it needs to use ChatGPT-4o, Siri will ask for your permission to send your request and/or images/documents to ChatGPT before doing so. This is such a small step in the process, but it gives me so much peace of mind because it reminds me that I am sending my personal data to a third party server for processing.
Contrast that with Microsoft’s attitude to AI, which seems to be that you should have it seamlessly integrated with everything you do on your computer. Even if I was fine with it, I’m not at all comfortable with how little Microsoft values ​​user privacy. While the company has published a guide to how Copilot uses your data, it makes it clear that you have to pay for data security.
While the basic version of Copilot, which is freely available to Windows users, has settings that allow you to enable or disable its ability to read data from Microsoft Edge, that’s all the control you have over your privacy. To really ensure that the requests and data you send to Copilot are private and not shared with anyone, you need to pay $30 per month for a Copilot for Microsoft 365 subscription.
So if you’re a paying Microsoft customer, you’ll see a warning saying “your personal and company data is protected in this chat” when using Copilot. If you don’t see this warning, your data isn’t protected.
And frankly, I just don’t trust Microsoft to not buy my data from advertising companies or other data-driven businesses. The company is apparently very comfortable selling user data to advertisers because you can tell if you’re not in the EU or the UK and you’re using Outlook.
That’s because in select regions, Microsoft has added options for users to opt out of having their data sold to third parties, likely due to regulatory pressure. I recently asked a colleague from the UK to show me his options for disallowing Outlook from sharing data with advertisers, and he sent me an extensive list of what appears to be at least 100 or more entries.
It’s quite a list and includes such promising ad partners as A Million Ads and Bytedance, two companies I have no particular interest in sharing data with. Of course, since I live in the US, I don’t have an easy option to disable data sharing with them if I were to use Outlook.
And that’s really why I’m starting to really dislike Microsoft’s AI efforts – I feel like the company wants me to let Copilot do my work for me, but I can’t do that if I don’t trust it. I no longer believe that modern AI chatbots can do a decent job of typing text or generating images, and now I’m watching Microsoft lock its best AI tools with the greatest respect for users behind paywalls. How can I trust this company not to sell my data to advertisers for a quick buck when true data privacy costs $30 a month?
On the other hand, Apple seems to be making a strong case for integrating AI into everyday life by effectively promising that it won’t try to make money off of Apple Intelligence. Instead, Apple’s AI efforts seem to be helping make Siri the virtual assistant it’s always been promised, as well as improving features like Spotlight Search and dictation in Notes.
So while I’m still just as uncomfortable with having bots write my emails for me, I like that in macOS Sequoia I can at least ignore the feature and unlike Google Chrome it doesn’t keep prompting me to use text generation. and Gmail.
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In general, Apple’s privacy-focused approach to integrating AI into its products seems to be the best I’ve seen so far from a major tech company.
While Apple may be reacting to competitors and seeing itself behind the pack in AI, it’s actually very reassuring to me as a customer. Frankly, it’s been a little scary to see how shamelessly Microsoft has put AI into all of its products in record time, and I think the rush to market will do more harm than good in the long run.
Heck, I didn’t even get to mention the embarrassing privacy breach Microsoft suffered last month around the debut of Recall, a new feature coming exclusively to Copilot+ PCs that lets you choose to have your PC take photos of everything you do on it.
The gist of it is that Recall helps you look up something you did on your PC last week, but the problem is that Microsoft revealed it without adequate guarantees. Now the company has had to quickly backtrack and release several updates on how Recall is being redesigned to better protect your privacy, to the point that this core Copilot+ feature has been delayed and will now not be launching with Copilot+ PC on June 18th.
So even though I’ve loved Windows since I was a kid, Microsoft is making it harder and harder for me not to jump ship. I really wish Windows 12 (or whatever comes next) would do a better job of protecting user privacy and giving you control over how companies use your data, but until it does, I’ll be practicing my keyboard shortcuts and trying to get into comfort with the Sequoia.