I just don't think people like having something shoved down their throats. The dedicated Copilot button on keyboards and adding Copilot shortcuts all over the OS (and automatic popups/ads) was far too far.

I think OS level integrations that are opt-in, not opt-out, may even be popular. But they have to be done carefully and tastefully.

I have the same feeling about any kind of integration. We're moving away from Google because we simply do not want to have this kind of forced relationship with products and/or services. It either fits and we'll pick it or it does not and then we don't. We won't pay for things we do not intend to use. And we don't want exposure to products that may constitute a security or a privacy risk.

The forced Workspace price hike to "get" Gemini felt like the beginning of the end.

Do you know what you'll be moving to to replace what Workspace provides (email/IdP/calendar/Chrome policy management?)

Email and document collaboration are the big ones, email is probably going to be the easier one of those two, documents much harder because we have a pretty specific workflow that is tied closely to how google docs works. But the decision has been made and I don't care if it is going to cause us to have to work a bit slower or different, this is just unacceptable.

The whole Gemini thing is just a massive embarrassment for Google I really can't follow their thinking, you'd think that after the Google '+' debacle that they would have learned their lesson not to cannibalize your old products to launch a new one.

I actually think Gemini Pro is great and I don't have a problem paying for it, but I don't want its tendrils in Drive and Gmail or anywhere else, it actively damages the product experience there. Everywhere they've tried to integrate LLMs, it generally provides an experience that's inferior to just chatting with Gemini.

The closest to useful it's been is in the GCP console, but it seems to decide at random to forget context, and it might just be Gemini Flash with minimal thinking, which tends to mean it's just repeating things it's already said.

What about office 365 that became Microsoft copilot 365 ? Talk about shoving copilot down the throat lol.

What actually _is_ copilot? Is it a set of office programs? A plugin for VS code?

Depends on who is shoving it. If Apple - people will happily eat everything, but not from Microsoft.

The funny thing is there's plenty of things I think to myself, it would be nice if AI could do this, but instead it's all top-down "this is what we think you should need"

No, I don't need you to summarize a two sentence email. How about I move emails to folders and you start to learn the patterns? Or which alert emails I want to ignore? Or who asked me something last week and I forgot to respond? Or which emails I should look at first after a vacation? Etc.

"Hi, I'm Copilot! I can do lots of things. Do you want me to make interpretive art from your TPS report? How about writing a thousand meaningless words in a style you wouldn't be caught dead using? I can also make fake pictures of your company Initech where your logo says Imglarb!"

"Can you help me reorganize my files?"

"Lol, no."

Around new years my company had to replace my windows laptop because windows update has been broken for a few months on my machine. They had a replacement windows laptop ready but I asked them to provide a MacBook instead. This is first time in my two decades of career that I specifically asked for a MacBook.

Funnily enough, there's a bug that's affecting all MacBook users in my company (does not wake after lid down overnight). Apparently the culprit is windows defender installed in the MacBooks. Corporate, you know...

So Apple Intelligence doesn't bother you?

FWIW, I clicked “skip” on a popup to set up apple intelligence and I didn’t see it again.

Of course this might change in future. And Mac OS has other popups where there is no “skip” and only “remind me later”.

Not technically under the umbrella of Apple Intelligence, but you might be surprised to find out what photoanalysisd is doing.

And if the surprise is unpleasant you can disable it by turning off memories and holidays in the settings of the photo app. Not so easy to escape Copilot on Windows.

That's not nearly comparable tho. I don't care it's watching my photo as long as it doesn't annoy me when I want to watch them. Copilot is everywhere, you got to actively avoid it like the plague it is.

That's more or less my experience with Copilot on Windows.

Even the linked blog post indicates that that is not the case. Windows has Copilot buttons on practically every built in application, a taskbar icon, and a dedicated physical keyboard key that people commonly accidentally hit (contractually required for OEMs to provide). They also actively promote Copilot in the OS (particularly Home Edition with nothing disabled e.g. "Tips," Notification Spam, Recommendations, etc).

Nobody can predict what Apple will do tomorrow, but as of today, they aren't really pushing Siri/Apple intelligence really hard particularly after initial setup. None of most of the above for example.

I have Pro Edition and for me Copilot only added two icons. One in Notepad and another one in Paint. I ignore both. There's also the Copilot app that I didn't even know I have installed.

I don't know what happens with Home Edition, but I though the pushback was mainly from Insider Preview?

You can also get rid of both of them very easily with O&O Shutup 10++ (or any of many other GUIs or scripts designed for the same purpose of decrapifying Windows). I toggled off Copilot and Onedrive and haven't seen either in all the years I've been using Windows 11.

You want to take a look at Microsoft office, my bad Microsoft copilot 365...

You can't even select a cell on notepad without a freaking copilot button pooping up every single time. Same on word, that's maddening !

You could argue that windows isn't Microsoft copilot 365, but then, why do people even use windows ? It's always because of the office, my bad, copilot 365 suite.

I enabled it and it never bothers me. Writing tools exist, but aren’t really shoved in my face. Photos an extra tool to remove stuff from images.

I don’t use it often, but occasionally use the proofread option. Other than that, it stays out of my way.

Apple Intelligence has a global off button that actually works. It's unobtrusive anyways. Copilot on the other hand...

So the issue isn't actually that it's baked into the OS, it's that you should have control over when it's used.

I'm not GP, so I can't comment on where their line is, but for me the difference between Copilot and Apple Intelligence is that I can turn off the latter and never see anything about it again. Copilot, on the other hand, is everywhere and it's almost all universally buggy garbage, even when it's disabled.

I actually trust the Apple Intelligence, when off, doesn't exfiltrate my data.

Oh yeah and even when you turn off preferences/settings/features in Windows, they mysteriously come back later in one of the unilateral forced updates, against your wishes.

Yea I respect that.

I too would not want any unprompted access to my files.

At the end of the day this issue is that we don't trust the OS and we cannot easily validate how it is designed to behave.

> So the issue isn't actually that it's baked into the OS, it's that you should have control over when it's used.

Baked into the OS implies that it's integral to its operation in a way that the two are fundamentally inseparable. Having a global off switch implies that's not true.

There are other irritating baked in aspects of the newest macos and other recent versions that are arguably less avoidable, like Tahoe's entire UI design, or the Settings app.

Apple intelligence even when activated is just not as annoying and obtrusive.

The real issue is copilot is implemented in their apps inconsistently. Very clear there’s little cross app planning. Apples solution is global and apps and hook into it or not. And if you turn it off apps done break.

I use Macs for both work and personal use and I don't really notice Apple Intelligence.

Maybe it's doing stuff that doesn't rise to my level of attention, but it isn't actively annoying me.

I don’t think I’ve ever even noticed Siri/Apple intelligence on macOS. I’ve disabled it somehow (probably at install) and have not heard about it since

Apple Intelligence is basically unseen in day to day use.

This is it. You can easily disable the whole thing with one toggle, and even when it's on it never gets in your face.

Is it incontrovertibly built in to macOS? I have an iPhone and have never enabled it or Siri, so maybe there is similar off switch for macOS.

It’s like Siri, or spell check, if you don’t use it you turn it off and it doesn’t bother you again.

Why would Apple Intelligence bother them? It's very unobtrusive and actually useful when it's visible. I literally don't notice it except when it's helpful.

Have you even tried it? I'm a Mac user for 20+ years and I'm running Tahoe. Not once have I ever thought about Apple Intelligence. I don't even notice it. I think you have to switch it on.

Yes, that's my point though. It's not about being built into the OS, it's about being controllable.

I use apple products daily and apple intelligence has never interrupted me. I don't even know what it is. So, no.

You like it you turn it On, you don’t you turn it Off

Microsoft directors want Copilot so they can make the case to executive leadership that they're aligned with that vision. It's why even in this announcement, the admission that they've maybe taken the whole AI OS thing a bit too far is phrased positively for AI with "Integrating AI where it’s most meaningful, with craft and focus", so the skim reading exec or financial journalist can read it as "good, Windows is still integrating AI"

Yea, I've replaced Windows with Ubuntu on my pc and have just ordered an M5 Macbook Air.

Sure both have their quirks, but it's just wild how much Windows goes out of its way to be annoying. From a billion startup notifications to basic UI stuff to copilot and the list goes on.

As a long time windows user I have no regrets making the switch. If it wouldn't be for the games I would not touch windows at all.

I've gone fully to Linux and all my games surprisingly run. I was ready to ditch some but I even got Blizzard stuff working which was my main concern.

Games with anti cheat unfortunately are not supported.

some are, it depends, but i'd expect to lose access to those type. if it mattered and crossplay existed for the game i'd get a console if it was gunna be a big deal...

I guess I don't play those.

I put bazitte on my desktop and left it connected to the TV. It's the most seamless linux distro I've ever used. Been using it for a year now purely with an xbox controller.

I switched to Mac around Vista and never looked back. For games, enlightenment is realizing the PC gaming tribalism is dumb and PlayStations are actually really nice. It's an appliance that plays games without giving you trouble, in a comfortable place instead of encouraging you to spend even more time at a desk.

If your interests lie entirely or mostly in the realm of AAA or AA games that are playable with a controller, then I completely agree.

However if your interests lie in indie games or games that require a keyboard and mouse interface (precision shooters, grand strategy games, RTS games, etc) then having a PC that can play games is completely necessary. (I say this as someone who runs linux btw, not a windows defender).

This is key. I work all day on my computer. Why would I want to go home and sit in front of another computer for hours.

Integrating ~Spyglass~ Internet Explorer into the OS was a dumb stunt, very costly in terms of security. This will be worse.

Or onedrive integrations and constant ‘backup your computer now’ popups which are _advertisements_ for onedrive, or Netflix, Spotify, or LinkedIn pre-installed and difficult to remove, or all of the above reinstalling during windows updates.

In fact, basically any feature added since Windows 10 is probably unwanted.

As if Apple doesn't berate you with unskippable notifications to sign up for iCloud, buy more space, etc etc?

I have been on a MacBook Pro exclusively for the past 3 years and I do not ever see anything about iCloud. I also never signed up so may be that is why?

This isn't a competition. I just want those things gone.

Comparing windows to an OS I don’t use isn’t a fair comparison unless my work machine stops being windows. I assume Apple are a slightly less variant of bad though

It only does that if your iCloud is full and even then it’s just not as annoying and show stopping.

My iCloud is full. Every once in a while my iPhone nags me to upgrade for a few days in a row and I tell it no and it goes away for 6 months or so. My Mac has never once nagged me about iCloud storage.

You know maybe OneDrive wouldn't suck as much if it was a native app and not qt.

I don’t care if it had the best UX of all apps on windows. I don’t want or need data scraping in the form of cloud storage.

Edit: but I am somewhat surprised that it’s qt and not the typical react electron bloat that Microsoft is slopping out. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.

If integrated properly, something akin to copilot generating Mac shortcuts, with close supervision, copilot could be extremely powerful on the desktop. Now that Apple has licensed Gemini, I would expect that to come soon.

Gen AI has even more power at task generation than at content generation. Imagine running Photoshop or Final Cut Pro via prompts. People seem squeamish because so far the Copilot entrypoints have been encouraging tacky text & image content generation, like Clippy. But imo that’s the weakest and most sensitive application.

V1 is often not very good, for any new application.

I don't think macOS will liberate you from OS-level integration with AI. If you really cannot tolerate built-in AI, Linux and the BSDs are your only choice.

Clawbots show there's big benefit to OS level AI. The current/old form of Copilot wasn't right, but someone will figure it out.