Siri learns from apps: Unclear Apple settings leave users in the dark

How much insight do Siri and Apple Intelligence get into apps? This question is once again worrying iPhone users: Warnings about the "Learn from this app" function are currently being spread in social networks, forums and media reports. Apple has secretly smuggled in the switch to access data from apps – including banking and health services, according to postings. Usually followed by instructions on how to disable this in the settings.

"Learn from this app" active for all iPhone apps

The trigger for the warnings is the so-called "App access for Apple Intelligence and Siri", which Apple has in fact activated by default. This means that "Learn from this app" is switched on for every installed app as soon as Siri and/or Apple Intelligence have been activated. Users have to activate Siri once, Apple Intelligence is activated by default (outside the EU) from iOS 18.3 and macOS 15.3 without further action. Apple Intelligence will then also be available in the EU with iOS 18.4.

"Allow Siri to learn from your use of 'comdirect' and provide suggestions in other apps," is Apple's succinct explanation of the function, here for example in the settings of the Comdirect banking app. What exactly this means remains unclear – The interpretations that can currently be found on social networks are correspondingly wild.

The setting can be found in two different places in the settings: Under "Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri > Apps" (in older versions of the operating system this is called "Settings > Siri & Search") and under "Settings > Apps > [app name]". If you want to switch this off and have a lot of apps installed, it will take longer to do so, as the switch has to be moved to the left to off for each app individually.

The function is not new: "Learn from this app" has been available in iOS for around 10 years. Apple originally marketed the associated functions as "Siri Intelligence". These include suggestions for apps that the user opens at a certain time in a certain place and which are then suggested in the search function, which also serves as an app launcher. The contacts presented in the Sharing menu are also based on this, as are Siri's appointment suggestions. According to Apple, such data is only collected locally on the device and stored in encrypted form. If Siri data is synchronized via iCloud, it should remain protected by end-to-end encryption.

Data can end up on Apple's AI servers

Additional confusion is caused by the fact that Apple now combines Siri and Apple Intelligence in the settings, apparently giving the AI models the same app access. What this will actually do remains unclear for the time being. In future, Siri will be able to use Apple Intelligence to merge personal data and search the iPhone for a name entry from a previous meeting, for example. Third-party apps will also be able to make data and functions accessible to Apple AI via the App-Intents interface. This means that data from apps could ultimately also end up on Apple's AI servers ("Private Cloud Compute"), without the user seeing any of it. The manufacturer promises that such data will only be transferred to execute the AI functions and will not be stored.

(lbe)