(Before I begin, just to say I thought the CSAM scanning idea was lunacy from the onset - the kind of nonsense that happens when you leave engineers unsupervised by people with actual social skills.)
I am not sure what mediaanalysisd does, but many commentators have pointed out that a process by that name has been around for years - long before the whole CSAM debacle. My guess is that it searches for duplicate pictures and tries to identify categories of pictures (e.g., to create 'moments'), but it'd be nice if somebody who actually knows what this process does to comment. I'd hate to have to return to my Apple consumer boycott and 1984 signature....
Anyway, I would much prefer that Apple fixed AutoIncorrect (spelling checker) than try to categorise my pictures.
I agree the CSAM scanning idea was really a bad idea from the start but I don't see a lot of people asking why would a supposedly privacy focused company do such a thing?
Apple must have understood that what it was proposing was an official back door into every Apple product? Whether the intent was good or not this goes completely counter to the idea of security and privacy. I don't have a problem with getting rid of CSAM but you had better not put a gaping security hole on my device and actively scan it which is a huge violation of my privacy.
My guess is that since Apple completely dependant on China and CCP for their entire supply chain or let's say at least 90% of it that the Chinese government approached Apple and asked for a feature to be built into the OS so they could scan their population devices for whatever their purposes are. Apple didn't want to implement this just in China as that would be a huge PR disaster so they tried to spin the purpose of the scanning and tied it to an issue that would be hard to argue against like CSAM.
Luckily there was enough pushback from people to stop it at least for now but I bet it will be implemented at some time.
They sold us the idea that cloud storage and icloud would be safe and secure and private to get buy in and now they have our data they can change the rules any time they want. They sold us devices saying they are safe and secure and private and give us a EULA that lets them do anything.
I used to trust Apple as the last vestige of privacy but I think because of the close integration with China and CCP those days are long gone.
I wish more people would wake up to the fact that Apple has changed in very deleterious ways. They have sold out their supposed core principles to a dictatorship that produces their products better and cheaper than anywhere else but atca cost that I believe is even too high for Apple itself.
Now Apple can't reverse course. They can't move their supply chain to India or Vietnam because the talent and infrastructure is just not there and not at a scale that China can offer.
I don't see that Apple is going to be a steward for privacy anymore and their services and ads are only increasing. Apple is becoming what they used to advertise against in the 80s.
I love my Apple products but I am at an inflection point where I am asking myself do I want to continue to support a company that no longer has any semblance of my ideals or best interest at heart. That increasingly aligns itself with a Communist dictatorship and has sold out it original principles.
I know Microsoft and Google are no better but at least I know what I am getting into with them and I am not sold an idea that doesn't exist anymore.
I have always been a multi platform user and I am seriously considering slowly decreasingly my reliance on Apple products and software.
I wonder how many other people share my perspective?
