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You ever notice how Apple never really lets the user say "no" to their nudges?
It's always "maybe later" and never "no seriously, I don't want this, go away"
I’ve noticed that most companies do that, not just Apple.
Apple claims to be the privacy king. They deserve scrutiny.
And Sync Immediately's only affirmative option is "For Today", so I get to set a daily reminder to remind the setting that I do in fact want it to be ON.
I have this one notification asking me if I want to enable the Personal focus when I’m at home. I don’t want my iPhone to care if I’m at home or not, so the past two years whenever it pops up I click Later.
It will probably never stop asking.
It will. Once you accidentally mis-click once and then suddeny there is no way to back out of it.
I think this should be called the ratchet theory of consent because it only tightens.
I beat you to it by a couple of years :)
https://jacquesmattheij.com/dark-patterns-the-ratchet/
Haha! Great minds think alike. (Although they do also say that fools seldom differ...)
Google Play Store has a notification to enable notifications. You didn't read that wrong. It shows a badge and everything. I said no for years except that last time. Now I can't find how to turn it off again.
This hostile behavior has unfortunately grown over the years. Notice how often you cannot really unsubscribe from newsletters, because clicking the small link in the email will only unsubscribe you from 1 of 25 "topics" or whatever and they will gladly re-define the "topics" every 6 months and re-enable them all.
i see this virtually everywhere, and worked at several places where PMs proactively changed text banners to not equate to "no"
severe industry brainrot
Feature: Apple does not phone home. Enable this feature?
Would you like to enable the feature where you opt out of disabling telemetry?
I don't have a solution, but on this topic I let Fable write a browser extension I called "Nee, krijg de tering". It's "No, fuck off" in English, but the Dutch feels more visceral for me. It's really rough, but it tries to find these "Maybe later", "No, thank you" etc. buttons and replace the No button.. I guess it's kind of self-explanatory. Does not really do anything, but it is cathartic (and also messes with a lot of UIs to the point where unfortunately the blocklist of domains this should not be used on is growing a lot :'( ).
I feel this pattern is really abusive. Like I am offering to slap you in the face, giving you two answer options: Yes and "Maybe later/no, thank you". As though you have any obligation to be forced to answer this question again at some late time, or to be very polite while you refuse to be slapped in the face. The correct answer is obviously "No, fuck off".
I get the annoyance at "ask me later", but "maybe later" is helpful - there's no way to trigger dialogs by yourself, so this is a promise that even if you say "no" in the dialog, you can still go into settings to change your mind. Gives me less anxiety about the choice.
How about a choice: both "no, maybe later" and "no, never"
A much better way would be “Yes” and “No” with a small message of “you can change this later in the Settings”.
Or have three buttons: “Yes”, “No”, “Remind me Later”. Apple does stuff like that in other parts of the OS, like when asking for app permissions, so they clearly know how to do it.
Yes! The most consentless (don't underline this in red firefox!) technology that I can think of certainly.
edit: also install and use Linux
I see non-consensual more often, tbf.
This is barking at the wrong tree. If you value things like your privacy or the ability to strictly control what runs on your computer then perhaps it would be a good idea to not run a proprietary operating system that's primarily designed not to provide you with the best user experience possible but to slowly extract more and more value out of you?
You must be talking about someone other than Apple. Apple has been falling into value extraction lately (which I hope Ternus will change), but their operating systems very much have never been designed for that from the outset. Rather the opposite. Apple is the only company that comprehensively documents platform security and privacy. I can't think of anyone else who doesn't just say "trust me bro". Maybe GrapheneOS. Nobody actually proves they are who they say they are better than Apple does.
Apple is also one of the only companies to focus on user experience above all else (nearly, anyway). Again, I can't think of a single other example (maybe Framework comes close), but while Apple has incredible technology, they have always been fairly measured with it to attain just the user experience they want. IMO, that's what earned Mac a reputation for having poor performance, and iPhone a reputation for having low memory, because Apple gave them the specs they needed to run well and have a terrific UX, not necessarily the specs to push the frontier of what you can run at home.
Apple has been learning that frontier is important, though, and they've been leaning more into it lately. Part of why Apple Silicon has been such an incredible shock to the industry.
The author is complaining that his OS doesn't let him say "no". This would never happen with an OS which actually respects you. Of course, it's not Apple's fault, it never is -- it's those "AI bros"! It's incredibly ironic that the author writes "I’ve chosen not to kowtow to billionaires", yet he kowtowing to a company with a market cap of 5 trillion USD.
You wrote as if the entire operating system was designed from the start to extract value from you. That's what I'm disputing. I'm not trying to say removing a disablement option that literally already existed has the user's best interest in mind. Just that it's not a sign of some core fundamental disrespect that the company has. We've already seen that Apple's been getting swept up by generative AI bullshit, like with the iPhone 16 marketing, and it is entirely fair to hold them accountable for all the shit they're doing, but it's entirely possible that this is just a ripple, and they're going to get themselves under control again.
Technically correct then, he's kowtowing to trillionaires.
"good dog, here's a cookie"
You're repeating fruit factory propaganda as if it is gospel, the marketing department can be proud of their handiwork. In reality they're one of the most profit-maximisation centred companies out there in computing land, they don't really care all that much about what their users want and do their best to make it as hard as possible to escape from their "ecosystem". They fell into "value extraction" a long time ago and I don't see them stopping in any way as long as they have loyal apologists like you seem to be. Why would they? The money keeps rolling in, the congregation keeps on buying fruit phones and related paraphernalia, they'd be mad to stop from a business perspective.
Desktops maybe, but on mobile, Apple has always outclassed most Windows laptops that ordinary people might buy - alone because the full-aluminium case allows for far more heat input until saturation kicks in.
I see the dangers of AI and agree that many companies don’t value our privacy and do what’s best for them and not us, but…
…this is an emotional dogmatic post. „All of this garbage“ clearly shows that the author is stuck in the past. The banners on the website confirm this. It’s the figurative fanatic complaining about those black steam devils and their tracks that nobody needs and that destroy nature. Yeah, steam trains were noisy and created smoke, but the age of horses was over. No emotional outburst would have stopped that, and won’t stop AI now.
The unconditional and emotional rejection of AI undermines the actual valid point he is trying to make.
He's not talking about AI in general. He's talking about a device he owns.
Agree. Anyone should be allowed to disable generative AI features on their device, especially a general computing device such as Mac. It's not some hysterical outburst about the industry to be upset when you can't do that, especially when the option used to exist but was removed.
If something can't be stopped, does that mean it's good? Reading accounts of the industrial revolution, huge swathes of nature in the north of England were destroyed. This article is an argument that it should be different, and is mostly focused on consent, not whether AI should exist or not (although the author's position on that is pretty clear too).
As a side note, I would argue you're being just as "emotional" (which I don't necessarily see as a bad thing despite your aspersions) by calling it "fanatic".
I feel the same way. I'm not completely against the technology, but please let me say "no" and remove the models and kill the processes.
Is it normal that I am enraged by this new process…is there a MacBook version of Graphene or something we can use if things keep boiling this way?
Asahi Linux. It'll take some years to reach the latest devices, but the effort is is helping the whole of the Linux ecosystem on Apple silicon.
It feels like consent is being undermined in so many places. The anti-Meta Glasses ad with a photo of Jeffrey Epstein and the strap line "Glasses for people who don't do consent" hits the nail on the head for me. It's a profoundly inhuman stance in the name of profits.
The answer is simple: Regulation to grant users the right to refuse during installation/setup of a system. This must also include updates. This feel like a repeat of the EU browser choice rule!
If you want to own your computer, linux is where it's at. Windows is rusty iron chains and MacOS's are gold-plated silver pretending to be gold, but they're still chains.
Maybe Little Snitch can be helpful in this sort of case ? Consent or not, it must be possible to kill the phone home line.
So... Apple should develop a separate version of their system, that doesn't include AI anywhere? Because Siri AI is not the only part of the system that uses the onboard models. The moral panic is just ridiculous at this point
I never really understood the craze for the overpriced Apple products. After many years of using PCs with Linux and Windows, I got forced to use a MacBook Pro as the company laptop and I found it hard to use. The OS is so limiting, Finder so crappy, oh my. There are some advantages, like the hardware is good, but on the other hand there are countless tiny issues where "Apple knows better" such as tying mouse scroll direction to the trackpad direction which is awkward for me. And now this what you're describing. So no, thanks, I'll stick to ThinkPad.
Not trying to start flamewars, but more and more I wonder how much are people willing to put up with such practices. On linux for 15+ years and everytime I try to use mac or win, it is an ordeal. And ads. F*cking ads in a system someone has purchased. And spying. Really user hostile environment. No, thank you.
What's more interesting is his "No AI" policy
https://dbushell.com/ai/