What Your iPhone Doesn’t Tell Apple

Every tech company says it can make our gadgets smarter. Now Apple says it can do that with less snooping. Is it really possible to have both? Starting Sept 16, iPhones and iPads will gain the intelligence to proactively suggest whom you want to call and what you want to read. They’ll nudge you to hit the road early for your next appointment when there’s a lot of traffic and queue up your favorite podcast for the drive. This personalization is a big new feature in iOS 9, a free update available to every Apple device as far back as the iPhone 4S. That’s the sort of intimate insight you expect from a spouse, a spy or, nowadays, an Internet company. But iOS 9 manages these tricks in a privacy-conscious manner, without hoovering up your e-mail, photos, or contacts into Apple’s vast cloud servers for mining and manipulation.

Unlike rival Google, Apple says it figures most of it out on the phone itself, far away from the prying eyes of advertisers or potential hackers. Apple, CEO Tim Cook says, “doesn’t want your data.” I love that he’s calling out the hidden trade-off to many seemingly free online services like Google and Facebook . With iOS 9, iPhones are encrypted by default and, at last, permit us to use Web ad blockers.