Article:
Apple Memories and Automated Memory-Making: The Networked Image Inside the iPhone Chip

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dc.creatorPereira, Gabriel
dc.date.accessioned2024-03-01T11:39:03Z
dc.date.available2024-03-01T11:39:03Z
dc.date.issued2021
dc.description.abstractIn 2016, for the first time Apple introduced what it called “advanced computer vision” to organise and curate users’ images. The key selling point for Apple Memories was that all computation would happen inside the user’s device, relying on the privacy afforded by Apple’s widely used smartphone, the iPhone. This article offers a case study of Apple Memories and its automated memory-making, focusing on three dimensions: the vision of Apple Memories; how this vision gets infrastructured through the A11 Bionic chip; and how Apple Memo- ries engages users in automated memory-making. This analysis raises important questions regarding privacy and surveillance capitalism as, even if operating on-device, Apple Memories still relies on the datafi- cation of the personal archive via the automation of image analysis (computer vision) and personalisation. Building upon Mackenzie and Munster’s (2019) notion of “platform seeing”, I argue that control over the networked image today goes beyond data brokering for behavioural analysis and advertising. Apple Memories’ framing of computer vision as an intimate, always-on and personal way of remembering is part of a wider goal of exploiting personal data to bolster user engagement, generate even more data, and ultimately accumulate infrastructural power across Apple’s “walled garden” digital ecosystem.en
dc.identifier.doi10.14361/dcs-2021-070210
dc.identifier.doihttp://dx.doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/21864
dc.identifier.urihttps://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.14361/dcs-2021-070210/html
dc.identifier.urihttps://mediarep.org/handle/doc/23223
dc.languageeng
dc.publishertranscript
dc.publisher.placeBielefeld
dc.relation.isPartOfissn:2364-2114
dc.relation.ispartofseriesDigital Culture & Society
dc.rightsCreative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 Generic
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
dc.subjectSurveillance Capitalismen
dc.subjectInfrastructureen
dc.subjectComputer Visionen
dc.subjectNetworked Imageen
dc.subjectPlatform Visionen
dc.subject.ddcddc:700
dc.subject.ddcddc:300
dc.titleApple Memories and Automated Memory-Making: The Networked Image Inside the iPhone Chipen
dc.typearticle
dc.type.statuspublishedVersion
dspace.entity.typeArticle
local.coverpage2024-03-02T02:44:16
local.source.epage228
local.source.issue2
local.source.issueTitleNetworked Images in Surveillance Capitalism
local.source.spage203
local.source.volume7

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7(2) 2021: Networked Images in Surveillance Capitalism