Why is Apple selling hygiene?
Office Hours Research #Q&A #WWDC · 2 comments
by Horace Dediu
An Office Hours question asked by Greg, June 9, 2026.
Q: That long child-safety section seemed to be championing the walled garden — things Apple can do that companies whose business models depend on selling data can’t. Was that a stance against Facebook or a message for the politicians?
It’s a super important thing, but the word I’d use is hygiene. I remember this from Nokia: there are features that are pure hygiene. If you have them, most people don’t care; if you don’t, everyone complains, because it’s unusable. Safety is also like plumbing — only noticed when it fails. That’s why safety, even automotive safety, is almost never marketable. Volvo, maybe, but they’re a niche. People don’t want to hear about negative things.
So here was Apple, in front of millions, talking and implying things sabout child "abuse"— unpleasant things everyone wants to avoid. Any marketer at Apple would have been beside themselves, because that’s a forum you’d normally use to generate euphoria, not dwell on harm.
Which tells you it wasn’t really aimed at consumers. It was designed to induce a particular feeling in policymakers and authorities who’ve been pressuring Apple: we are custodians, doing our job extremely well, and we’re making it very public. That’s a strange thing to do unless there’s something happening behind the scenes.
It also fits how regulators think. Engineers work with constraints; regulators work with outcomes and don’t think about how to get there. They are happy with a good intention pursued with the wrong approach. So Apple stood up and spent fifteen laborious minutes on safety as one of the three tent poles of the keynote — uncharacteristic, dull by design, and very carefully calculated.
Editor’s Note: This was one of the questions asked by participants in Asymco’s June 2026 Office Hours live Q&A session, open to Asymco One subscribers.
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2 comments
Sacto Joe ·
Exactly. Everybody attacks Apple because deep pockets, and this is no exception. So this is a preemptive strike, disabling that attack vector. It's also a two-for, because the very next thing they talked about was personal privacy in the coming age of AI. That's yet another subject that is not being given more than lip service, but it will loom larger as time goes by.
This is how it's done when you're proactive rather than reactive. And of course, Apple's proactive stance means that they're always out in front of things - which in Europe is considered another attack vector, since it's clear that being out in front of things is monopolistic....
/s
FredHS ·
Exactly so. Apple seeks to pre-empt w.r.t. the EU regulators.
That slogan; "with great power comes responsibility" applies in several ways. Apple understands that AI has great power, whether on-device and private or cloud-based and completely public. They understand they alone are responsible for their on-device AI safety. The EU regulators who have opposed all of Apple's proposals don't understand their responsibility in the exercise of their power. Hence they wan't Apple to cede to power over our personal AI to them, the regulators. They take no responsibility for potential harm.
No worry, time is on our side. GA starts in about 6 months, just the start of decades long journey. The EU is 7% of Apple's biz. And EU customers will buy Apple devices anyway.