I don't think anyone's asking for a separate version, just an option to turn the AI features off. Even totally aside from the moral points, some of us simply don't have the disk space.
it is off, Apple Intelligence and Siri AI IS NOT the name of the models. The worst they're guilty of here is confusing denominations, something hardly new to Apple
What a strange strawman. You are deciding now to substitute a different complaint than what was originally sense, because it is simply true that if you don't want to use Apple Intelligence, you don't need to.
The complaint now shifts to that you'll still have files on your system, or can't control exactly what models are stored on your computer. Apple has reasons not to give this fine control: what you have on HN is a group of people who are vehemently anti-AI, use Apple products, and still want features very specific to their control of the system.
Apple caters to the general user. If they think a setting is going to be confusing or likely to be misused, they won't implement it. People know the reality that if Apple intelligence is successful and if this feature is implemented, the general user won't know which parts of their workflow use which features. Removing the models will be advertised as a cheap hack to save storage, and people will be confused when they can't turn intelligence on again.
The fact that the core premise of the article (repeated in the title and first sentence) is about "phoning home":
> The nice thing about keeping a blog is that I can say at precisely 9:51am, Wednesday 5th February 2025, I discovered that macOS 15.3 had enabled a feature that was phoning home every 15 minutes with personal data. And that I said “no” and turned it off.
The entire basis of this complaint is not understanding the difference between "duration" and "interval". And not being able to click the link that is given to you in the settings menu or just search Apple's docs for the setting ( https://support.apple.com/en-mn/guide/mac-help/mchlfc0d4779/... )
