You prefer totally non-transparent cloud scanning that allows for ad hoc, warrantless, untraceable, personally-targeted scans from anyone who can threaten a big company?

I saw client-side scanning as much more transparent and limited. Yes, there could be abuses, but there is not a single possible abuse worse than what is already happening every day with cloud-side scanning.

I don't want any of my data scanned which is why I don't tend to store it in the cloud. If Apple rolled out client side scanning what's to prevent them from extending it to all data on the device, regardless of whether it's synced to iCloud?

Apple has made it clear that they won't move forward with client side scanning after feedback from researchers and customers. Instead, they added optional E2EE for iCloud. It's not perfect yet but significantly better than most other cloud providers.

Just proposing the idea is enough to dissuade them from using their products for anything personal. More importantly though, unlike Android it's much harder to use Apple without using cloud, and the cloud is just someone else's computer. Not your computer, not your data. There is also no freedom on iOS to install things you want without permission from Apple.

Google does cloud side scanning and owns Android. What’s to stop them from scanning your local files?

Hint: nothing technical

> You prefer totally non-transparent cloud scanning that allows for ad hoc, warrantless, untraceable, personally-targeted scans from anyone who can threaten a big company?

If the choice is between that and having my devices being used by others against me, then absolutely yes. The cloud is someone else's computer. Their machines, their rules. But it should also be "my machines, my rules".