Excellent. Then Apple can provide one-click, one-time opt out for all apps, instead of consuming CPU cycles, battery life and hundreds of avoidable and unwanted user actions over the lifetime of a phone.
> It never gets sent to Apple and no other application can read it.
Malware can read it. See the list of Apple iOS Security Updates.
If Apple doesn't receive the data and the user doesn't want the data, let's avoid collecting it.
> The idea that there is this demand to fully disable it is bizarre to me.
Apple provides a setting to disable Siri. It does not function as users expect. Either remove the setting and state that users are forced to use Siri, or improve the usability.
> Users want to be able to search for apps, contacts, mail etc which is why it’s a standard feature of every operating system.
Typically an optional feature with one setting to disable it, e.g. people have long disabled Windows Indexing to improve performance and battery life. Or to use a 3rd-party search tool. Why was Siri ("AI") conflated with Spotlight (search) on iOS?
> If you have malware that can access the entire file system then reading a Siri search index is the least of your troubles.
With malware that can access the entire file system, we don't want to provide a gift-wrapped search and user behavior index that has been quietly collected by Apple. Let malware do its own CPU-intensive rummaging through each app, increasing the odds of detection.
I never use this on Android really. If I look for a mail I search within outlook. And in fact emails in outlook don't show up in the global search, I just looked.
Same with contacts in the phone app. If I look for an app I just find the icon in the list because I don't have so many.
A global search is a cool feature for people who don't know where to look but it's not something that everyone would want.
I'm the opposite, universal search for everything. Want to open an app? Pull down and search. Want to find a message someone sent me? Pull down and search. Want to search the web? Pull down and search.
> A global search is a cool feature for people who don't know where to look
Not sure these people exist in enough numbers to justify a mention, or that the feature is primarily used by or useful to these supposed users.
> It never gets sent to Apple and no other application can read it.
Malware can read it. See the list of Apple iOS Security Updates.
If Apple doesn't receive the data and the user doesn't want the data, let's avoid collecting it.