How much insight do Siri and Apple Intelligence get into apps? This question is once again concerning iPhone users. On social networks, forums, and media reports, warnings about the “Learn from this App” feature are currently spreading. It is rumored that Apple secretly introduced this switch to collect data from apps, including banking and health services. Often, these posts are followed by instructions on how to disable it in the settings.
The trigger for these warnings is the so-called “App Access for Apple Intelligence and Siri,” which Apple has indeed enabled by default. For every installed app, “Learn from this App” is turned on once Siri and/or Apple Intelligence are activated. Users need to activate Siri once, while Apple Intelligence is enabled by default (outside the EU) from iOS 18.3 and macOS 15.3 without any additional action. With iOS 18.4, Apple Intelligence is also expected to be available in the EU.
This setting, which has been in iOS for a long time, is causing a stir again. Apple documents the function inadequately. “Allow Siri to learn from your usage of ‘comdirect’ and make suggestions in other apps,” is Apple’s simple explanation of the function, for example, in the settings of the banking app Comdirect. What this exactly means remains unclear, leading to wild interpretations currently found on social networks.
The setting can be found in two different places in the settings: Under “Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri > Apps” (in older versions of the operating system, it’s “Settings > Siri & Search”) and at “Settings > Apps > [App-Name]”. If you want to disable it and have many apps installed, you will be occupied for a while, as the switch must be turned off individually for each app.
The function is not new: “Learn from this App” has been available in iOS for about 10 years. Originally, Apple marketed the related functions as “Siri Intelligence.” These include suggestions for apps that the user opens at a specific time in a specific location, which are then suggested in the search that also serves as an app launcher. The contacts presented in the sharing menu are also based on this, as are Siri’s event suggestions. According to Apple, such data is collected only locally on the device and stored encrypted. If Siri data is synchronized over iCloud, it is supposed to remain protected by end-to-end encryption.
For additional confusion, Apple now combines Siri and Apple Intelligence in the settings, apparently giving AI models the same app access. What exactly is done with this remains open for now. In the future, Siri is supposed to be able to merge personal data through Apple Intelligence, allowing the iPhone to search for a name entry in a past meeting. Third-party apps can also make data and functions accessible to Apple AI via the App Intents interface. This could ultimately result in data from apps landing on Apple’s AI servers (“Private Cloud Compute”), and the user sees none of it.
The manufacturer promises that such data is only transmitted to execute AI functions and not stored.