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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

That's not true -- on-device dictation works just fine. You can verify for yourself by turning off WiFi/Internet and dictation works identically. As long as you have a modern enough Mac that supports local dictation, of course. (Older Macs were only cloud dictation, I remember.)

The popup on my MacBook says specifically:

> When you use Dictation, your device will indicate in Keyboard Settings if your audio and transcripts are processed on your device and not sent to Apple servers. Otherwise, the things you dictate are sent to and processed on the server, but will not be stored unless you opt in to Improve Siri and Dictation.

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> your device will indicate in Keyboard Settings if your audio and transcripts are processed on your device and not sent to Apple servers

I have a reasonably recent (<2yo) MBP, which feels like it ought to be "modern enough", and in Keyboard Settings, it says "Dictation sends information like your voice input, contacts, and location to Apple to process your requests." It doesn't say anything about processing happening on my device. Yes, off-line dictation does work for me (with Wi-Fi turned off), but I'm curious under what conditions Keyboard Settings would say something about transcripts not being sent to Apple.

Exactly, so even if it does work offline, I cannot use it without agreeing to send voice data to Apple.

Not to mention that this is an absurd assurance. "Your device will indicate in Keyboard Settings?" So you're supposed to run and look at that for every voice command, to see if THIS one is being sent up?

What does this even mean?

> but will not be stored

Well, that’s impossible though. Of course it is stored as temporarily as that may be.

So the statement already has a logical failure. Possession for processing is still storage.

So the debate is then “how long do we store something until we have to call it “storage””.

And further, they may delete your voice, but the log of the thing you asked for I think is unlikely to go away.

I like Apple as at least they try and place the privacy field. But I think this wording is a bit weasely.

RAM is not storage, in the conventional dichotomy between memory and storage.

And even if it were, the meaning is obvious that it won't be stored after processing.

There's no logical failure, it's not "weasely". It's a completely straightforward legal statement. The intent is abundantly clear.

RAM is storage.

You were making best case assumptions, which is a laughable concept when it comes to a fortune 500 company.

For you. I am not getting the experience you describe which sounds similar to how I was expecting this to work as it did previously in Sonoma on an Intel machine.

The options are different for me in the settings app, and using dictation is for me right now, impossible without agreeing to a modal displaying an agreement to send audio data to Apple.

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