It's a local model so it's essentially open weight such that you could feasibly export it somehow since it's already on the laptop somewhere. Apfel is a wrapper app like ChatGPT but using Apple Foundation Models, I assume something similar will happen with this transcription model.

https://apfel.franzai.com/

It's not open weight, but the point is to be an on device (and thus local, privacy preserving) option. The article mentions that as the caveat

> What this means if you just want good transcription

> If you are on a current iPhone or Mac, the best on-device transcription engine for English is already in the operating system, and the private option is no longer the compromise option

> It's not open weight, but the point is to be an on device (and thus local, privacy preserving) option.

How can you be sure this isn't leaking data or metadata to Apple? Can Apple really be trusted?

The article states:

> If you are on a current iPhone or Mac

Presumably if you don't trust apple you wouldn't purchase their products and even if you were for example forced to use it via work or something you wouldn't use this feature ... so it doesn't really change the calculus as presented by this article - IF you ALREADY HAVE a MODERN Mac (and trust apple) this is your best option

Test it! Does it make network requests? Unplug the internet and see if it still works!

You are being naive. An Apple device makes dozens of network requests every minute or so to Apple. It is neigh on impossible to verify what is being requested or sent. Also unplugging the Internet and verifying that something still works does not mean the app won't phone home behind your back when it can. These things are designed to fail silently.

Download use Little Snitch or

https://alternativeto.net/software/little-snitch/

https://www.g2.com/products/little-snitch/competitors/altern...

There are many alternatives for trying to find out what’s going on. If you don’t want to bother, and most people don’t, well, what else is there to say?

It is generally a good idea to know what software is phoning home, if you can pinpoint it.

If you have any software recommendations, I’d be happy to know.

It's more complex than that. LittleSnitch or other application firewalls won't help when programs like package managers legitimately need to access the Internet. And figuring what what is being sent would require decrypting the traffic. There is no easy way to figure out if Apple or some rogue app is siphoning off your home directory.

This is Hacker News. Computers are knowable, tractable things. It is trivial to know if a process is making network requests.

It's definitely not trivial to figure out what for, and what is being sent or received.

If already have current Mac or iPhone, and thereby implictly "trust Apple", then why would one need a "a local, privacy-preserving" option

If trust Apple, then no need for privacy from Apple

It is local

The appeal is that users only have to download it once across all apps that use it. Instead of convincing a user to give a couple gigs for just your one app