Apple’s Siri and Google’s Now on Tap ask for your privacy in exchange for a smarter smartphone

APPLE and Google are going head-to-head to offer a smarter phone with improvements to Siri and Google Now on Tap. But it could cost you some of your privacy.

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AS Apple and Google fight it out to create the smartest smartphone assistant, one of the biggest differences in their battle plans comes down to a simple question: how much privacy are people willing to surrender to make their smartphone smarter?

At San Francisco events less than a fortnight apart, Google and Apple both spruiked new features for their digital assistants.

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First, at Google I/O, it was Google Now On Tap, with a demonstration how the digital assistant could tap into apps on the phone.

Smarter software ... Google Now director Aparna Chennapragada announces 'Now On Tap" during the 2015 Google I/O conference. Picture: Getty

If you’re sending a text message inviting a friend to dinner, for example, Google Now On Tap will offer restaurant ratings and opening hours for the places mentioned in your message.

Discuss a movie in an email, and you can tap on its title to find out more about it. Now will even proactively suggest services based on your location, bringing up Uber when you’re at an airport, for example.

Second, Apple used its Worldwide Developer Conference to show off a smarter Siri.

Like Google’s product, the improved Siri can search for information within apps or scan email when an unidentified call comes in to suggest, from the phone number, who may be calling.

Displaying Siri’s new features, Apple software engineering senior vice-president Craig Federighi took a dig at Google, saying Apple would not share people’s information, asking “Why would you do that?”

New features ... Apple software engineering senior vice-president Craig Federighi speaks about iOS 9 during Apple WWDC. Picture: Getty

Jackdaw Research chief analyst Jan Dawson says Google “is arguably the leader in machine learning and artificial intelligence (but) Apple is showing that it’s perfectly capable of innovating in these areas too”.

“Both companies are gathering data about you, your preferences, what you’re interested in. All that kind of stuff,” Dawson says.

“The big difference is that Apple is collecting that on the device and keeping it on the device and never sharing it with anyone else.

“Whereas Google has always taken that data, put it in its cloud, processed it and built a profile of you over time … so they can sell you targeted advertising.”

Kantar Worldpanel research chief Carolina Milanesi says “we were expecting Siri to get smarter but there was some scepticism that Apple will ever be able to match Google because of how they feel about privacy”.

Knowledge base ... Google Now on Tap can tap into many data sources to bring users information proactively.

“What you heard several times is Apple mention that if your device is smart that doesn’t mean that Apple needs to know everything that you do and think and go through in order for the device to deliver the experience.

“Consumers, especially the more savvy consumers, will appreciate that,” she says.

While Google has the edge on making its digital assistant smarter, Dawson says Apple is smart in turning privacy into a marketing tool.

“I think people do care a great deal about privacy and I think people get really scared when there are big news stories about that. Apple is wise to focus on that,” he says.

“The risk is that they overplay their hand a little bit. There are 900 million people using Gmail today. It’s not that they don’t care about privacy, it’s that they are willing to make certain trade-offs. And that’s the key here. Apple can’t act like everybody wants to pay for everything.

“They are willing to pay for certain things but they are willing to take (things) free in exchange for something else.”

Rod Chester travelled to San Francisco as a guest of Apple.