> This is completely coherent with their privacy-first strategy (...)
I think you're trying too hard to rationalize this move as pro-privacy and pro-consumer.
Apple is charging a premium for hardware based on performance claims, which they need to create relevance and demand for it.
There is zero demand for the capacity for running computationally demanding workloads beyond very niche applications, for what classifies as demanding for the consumer-grade hardware being sold for the past two decades.
If Apple offloads these workloads to the customer's own hardware, they don't have to provide this computing capacity themselves. This means no global network of data centers, no infrastructure, no staff, no customer support, no lawyer, nothing.
More importantly, Apple claims to be pro privacy but their business moves are in reality in the direction of ensuring that they are in sole control of their users' data. Call it what you want but leveraging their position to ensure they hold a monopoly over a market created over their userbase is not a pro privacy move, just like Apple's abuse of their control over the app store is not a security move.
I think you're trying too hard to rationalize this move as pro-privacy and pro-consumer.
Apple is charging a premium for hardware based on performance claims, which they need to create relevance and demand for it.
There is zero demand for the capacity for running computationally demanding workloads beyond very niche applications, for what classifies as demanding for the consumer-grade hardware being sold for the past two decades.
If Apple offloads these workloads to the customer's own hardware, they don't have to provide this computing capacity themselves. This means no global network of data centers, no infrastructure, no staff, no customer support, no lawyer, nothing.
More importantly, Apple claims to be pro privacy but their business moves are in reality in the direction of ensuring that they are in sole control of their users' data. Call it what you want but leveraging their position to ensure they hold a monopoly over a market created over their userbase is not a pro privacy move, just like Apple's abuse of their control over the app store is not a security move.