Apple ruthlessly mocks Microsoft over delayed Recall feature that will screenshot everything on your PC

The revelation forced Microsoft to make a number of changes to Recall.

“Even before making Recall available to customers, we have heard a clear signal that we can make it easier for people to choose to enable Recall on their Copilot+ PC and improve privacy and security safeguards,” admitted Pavan Davuluri, Corporate Vice President of Windows and Devices, in a new blog post.

“Our team is driven by a relentless desire to empower people through the transformative potential of AI and we see great utility in Recall and the problem it can solve. We also know for people to get the full value out of experiences like Recall, they have to trust it. That’s why we are launching Recall in preview on Copilot+ PCs – to give customers a choice to engage with the feature early, or not, and to give us an opportunity to learn from the types of real world scenarios customers and the Windows community finds most useful.”

To mitigate concerns around Recall, Microsoft has promised:

• Disable Recall by default — you’ll now have to manually switch on the functionality during the set-up process of your Copilot+ PC. This will “give people a clearer choice to opt-in to saving snapshots using Recall,” Pavan Davuluri explains
• Before making any changes to Recall, you’ll need to enrol with Windows Hello using a fingerprint scanner, PIN, or facial recognition on your PC. Not only that but “proof of presence is also required to view your timeline and search in Recall,” Microsoft says.
• Addressing concerns flagged by Kevin Beaumont’s explosive blog post, “just in time” decryption will unlock your database of screenshots when your identity is checked with Windows Hello, “so Recall snapshots will only be decrypted and accessible when the user authenticates”.
• The entire search index database will now be encrypted to keep users’ data safe

By default, Recall will stop taking snapshots when you’re using a private browsing mode in your web browser, like Incognito Mode in Google Chrome.

Microsoft has admitted that it needs more time to implement and test all of these tweaks to Recall, so it will not be shipping Recall with the first range of Copilot+ PCs this week. There’s no revised launch date, but given how controversial the functionality has proven to be… it could be some time before Microsoft is confident enough to roll out Recall to millions of PC owners worldwide.

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“We are adjusting the release model for Recall to leverage the expertise of the Windows Insider community to ensure the experience meets our high standards for quality and security,” Microsoft confirmed the delay in an update to a company blog post.

“When Recall (preview) becomes available in the Windows Insider Program, we will publish a blog post with details on how to get the preview.”

With the introduction of Copilot+ PCs, there will be two distinct types of Windows 11 devices — those with cutting-edge AI features and those with the standard bundle of features available on desktop PC, tablets and laptops that don’t meet the Copilot+ PC certification. The latter is the version of Windows 11 that will be available to Windows 10 users who take advantage of the free upgrade.

Windows 10 will lose support next year, cutting out millions of users from critical bug fixes and new features — unless they pay an annual fee to Microsoft.