During Apple’s recent Glowtime event on September 10, the company unveiled new features for the iPhone 16, including a feature that resembles Recall, which sparked concerns from Microsoft about user tracking.
Apple’s Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, Greg Jozwiak, discussed a new feature called semantic search in the iPhone 16 Pro. This feature allows Siri to use semantic categories to quickly find important information for users, even when they don’t remember where it was shared. However, the details about how this semantic search works, which applications it covers, and the extent of its search capabilities were not fully disclosed during the unveiling.
Apple has emphasized that any information collected through this feature is stored on the device and not in the company’s cloud. Conversely, Microsoft faced skepticism when introducing Recall, a similar feature designed to track details across a user’s digital ecosystem of apps. Despite Microsoft’s claims that user data is securely stored on the device and not in the cloud, it has not garnered the same level of trust as Apple.
While consumers trust Apple’s approach of keeping user information securely on the device, Microsoft’s Recall feature faced resistance from users. Despite users’ concerns, Microsoft still plans to deploy Recall to Windows users in October. Additionally, Microsoft’s implementation of Recall only provides an on/off option, without allowing users to remove the feature entirely.