Jonny Evans takes a tour through iOS 9’s proactive intelligence. The proactive concept is not being marketed by Apple as an individual feature, rather as an overall approach to seeding contextual awareness throughout the iOS 9 experience.
To get a sense of this, go to the iOS 9 preview page or the iOS 9 press release and search for the term proactive. Not a product, more of an approach.
One point that stands above others, from the end of Jonny’s writeup:
So, with all this information inside of iOS 9, what about privacy? Do you really want Apple knowing where you go, who you know, where you work and what you do?
Apple wants you to keep your private lives private.
This is why (unlike competitors who want to make money from insights into your private lives) it has engineered Proactive to process its data directly on your device, rather than in the cloud. This means your life does not become some Alphabetized telephone book for surveillance, sale or sociopathic snooping.
Just so.
I wonder if ‘Alphabetized’ was intentional? 😉
If it is all on device what good is it if I have multiple devices (iPad and iPhone)? I’d much prefer for the data to sync.
They could encrypt and share Proactive info to other devices via iCloud just as they do now with Passwords (Keychain) if you turn on that feature. Assuming it does not when we’re getting info on a beta is a bit over the top.
Even if it does not, is that truly a minus since each device would be learning the use case for itself? I rarely take my iPad in the car with me, so what does it need to know about where I’m driving and when I’m leaving work or whatever? Granted, that’s me, and there are likely people out there that take their iPhone and iPad with them at all times. Still, each device would then be learning.
Hm, between what can be done with Handoff, and the fact that each device can compute the very same Proactive data itself (to the point where it has access to the same underlying information)… I am not sure some old-fashioned sync is even required on top of that.