Exclusive: Apple’s Craig Federighi on WWDC’s big privacy upgrades and beyond

Today, Apple held the keynote for its first-ever online-only Worldwide Developers Conference, which runs all week. The reason Apple had to scrap the conference’s in-person element goes without saying. But despite the platform change, the fact that Apple is holding a WWDC at all this year brings much-needed normalcy to a world that currently has a dearth of it.

And it’s thanks to that platform change that, just as in past years, we now know many of the cool things Apple has in store for us when the next major iterations of its operating systems, including iOS, iPadOS, and MacOS, drop this fall. But for me, the most important of today’s announcements relate to upcoming privacy enhancements, though they were just a small part of a packed keynote. After all, while a Mac that runs on a new chip has its benefits, they pale in comparison to technological advancements that protect our human right to privacy every day.

Is that too bold of a statement? I don’t think so. At least not after getting an early look last week at some of those upcoming privacy enhancements–including one of the most empowering privacy controls any company has ever given its users. As Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, told me, Apple doesn’t give users more control over their privacy every year just to one-up its competitors. Rather, he says, “We think we’re showing the way to the industry, to the customer, that they can demand more–they should expect more–about the protection of their privacy, and that we can help move the industry into building things that better protect privacy.”Now that’s a bold statement. Federighi makes a strong case for it, and not just by detailing Apple’s upcoming privacy enhancements. During our conversation, he delved deep into the company’s history with privacy. He even looked centuries into its future, revealing what he believes will be one of the company’s most important lasting legacies.

APPLE CIRCA THE YEAR 2300

Right now, most of us are worried about what life will be like just months from now. But as the Apple executive in charge of iOS and MacOS development, Federighi needs to consider timelines that stretch beyond months or even years.

Though not yet a household name like Steve Jobs or Tim Cook, Federighi is one of Apple’s key execs. Besides his duties as software chief, his importance is also evidenced by him being one of the most frequent faces seen introducing new Apple tech at the company’s launch events (hint: he’s the funny one). He didn’t just preside over much of this year’s virtual keynote—he dominated it as a presence, far more than Cook.

But is Federighi really thinking centuries into the future? Not in terms of product development. But when it comes to Apple’s lasting legacy, the answer is a resounding yes.

“We hope to build a lot of great products that bring customers a lot of joy every year,” he says. “But in the fullness of time, in the scope of hundreds of years from now, I think the place where I hope people can look back and talk about the places where Apple made a huge contribution to humanity is in helping people see the way of taking advantage of this great technology without the false tradeoff of giving up their privacy to do it.”That’s a fantastic marketing line. And Apple has been trumpeting its privacy stance in recent years to great effect, as people finally wake up to the fact that their privacy is eroding all around them as everyone from tech giants to governments wants us to have less of it.

But is Apple’s pro-privacy stance little more than Apple giving consumers what they seem to want, like some kind of dog chasing the societal zeitgeist? Not according to Federighi. “People sometimes consider, more recently, privacy as a kind of genius marketing strategy for Apple,” he says. “Or years before, it was thought of as some bizarre fixation of ours that no one kind of got. The truth is privacy has been foundational to this company and how those of us who work here think about what we do, truly going back to the origin of the company.”

To support his point, Federighi gives the example of one of Apple’s most important products of all time. No, not the iPhone or iMac. It’s something the company released decades earlier, in 1977–the Apple II.

“When Apple was founded, the proposition was, ‘This is the personal computer. This is your own data. That set of floppy disks that you have in the shoebox next to your Apple II–that’s yours. It’s not on the mainframe. It’s not on the timesharing system–it’s your data,’” Federighi says. “And people at Apple, as the world has evolved, have continued to think of this as personal computing. And that the data that you create, the things you do with your computer–those are yours and should be under your control. You should be aware of what’s happening with your data.”

Which brings us to today’s announcements.

PRIVACY THROUGH TRANSPARENCY

To ensure that the Apple of today builds that privacy legacy of the future, the company for years has been guided by four core principles when it comes to giving users more privacy (or, as it’s known by that other “p”-word, power).

Those four principles are data minimization, in which Apple collects as little data about users as possible to deliver its services. On-device intelligence, which is a fancy way of saying that your iPhone is powerful enough to crunch the data you give it without needing to upload that data (such as your photos) to a remote server to be analyzed. Security, which naturally means that the data on your phone is kept safe from attacks. And transparency and control, a principle that’s especially apparent in WWDC’s announcements.

As Federighi notes, transparency and control mean Apple aims to give users the ability to see and control what data of theirs is being accessed by the company and third-party apps. If you’ve ever looked in the iPhone’s Settings app under the “Privacy” section and seen the lists of apps that have switches next to their names, that’s an example of this principle in action. Those switches enable users to allow or deny access to things like the iPhone’s camera, for example.

Transparency and control are at the heart of new features that will arrive with the release of iOS 14, iPadOS 14, and MacOS Big Sur later this year. A terrific example is the new “Approximate Location” privacy feature—the one I alluded to earlier as one of the most empowering privacy controls any company has ever given its users. Why? Because your location data is one of the most personal pieces of information you possess—and others want it, badly.If third parties have access to your location data, they can extrapolate all kinds of personal information about you—information you may not want them to have: things like your religion (Does she go to a church, mosque, or temple?), your health (Why is he at this cancer clinic?), and even your sexuality (This person sure seems to frequent certain types of bars).

Of course, giving apps access to our location data also provides us with a ton of benefits–everything from real-time driving directions to neighborhood restaurant recommendations to local weather forecasts.

Before Apple’s “Approximate Location” feature, you had to choose between giving apps wholesale access to your exact location, which enables all those cool features, or no location at all, which cuts you off from them. You did this by granting your precise location data to apps “always,” “just once,” or “never.” And unless you denied an app permission, it got access to your exact location for as long as you allowed.

But many apps that use location to provide services–such as weather apps and local news apps–don’t need to know your exact location. Instead, all they need is a general idea of where you are. And with iOS 14 and iPadOS 14, Apple will allow you to grant apps your approximate location only.

With this option, an app will…

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