They don't have to make everyone type in `rsync -aBc foo bar` they just need to expose it in a way that rsync can work with it.

Then Apple themselves and developers in the ecosystem can create nice GUIs for the "typical Apple user."

Then why do we care what runs behind the GUI? that's Apple's business.

Can you imagine being the responsible engineer developing this capability and having the burden of a 2 trillion dollar company's reputation if something happens and photos of millions of people are leaked!?

This is what I mean by how people are out of touch with reality.

Any fuckups would destroy Apple forever. They're not going to listen to some armchair rsync bandit.

I agree that lots of HN is out of touch but rsync is a very robust and widely used tool.

Furthermore, i don’t see the privacy implications as it’s a client side tool so while it could fuck up downloading I don’t see how it could leak photos. If it were to break, it would just be another piece of buggy apple software of which there are many.

Jumping on to discussion here, I'm an HN user and I know somewhat tech. Maybe not as good as a FAANG engineer here, but still I can call myself above average when it comes to other regular Apple users.

Even I haven't used rsync in my life, and I can guarantee that regular users don't even know what rsync even means.

They only need a place to backup their photos, and a way to easily transfer them between services, which apple provides.