Apple (MacRumors, Six Colors):
Apple today announced Apple Home Collection, a new lineup of smart home accessories — including indoor and outdoor cameras, thermostats, temperature sensors, and a video doorbell and door lock — designed in collaboration with LG Electronics and Schneider Electric. These new accessories are simple to set up starting with one tap with iPhone, and everything is managed through the Apple Home app — no separate app or account required. Each accessory is encrypted end-to-end in Apple Home, so only users and the people they choose can access their home data.
[…]
- LG’s Video Doorbell offers dual cameras that capture separate views of visitors and packages — allowing users to switch between the front and bottom camera views seamlessly — along with a built-in spotlight and a chime that plays through HomeView, HomePod, and HomePod mini. The front camera captures 2.5K resolution video, and the bottom camera captures full HD resolution.
- LG’s Floodlight Cam delivers powerful perimeter monitoring with adaptive dual floodlights that activate automatically when motion is detected, and low-light color night vision that preserves clarity in darker conditions so users can see more of what’s happening outside.
[…]
LG’s Smart Deadbolt Lock brings a new level of convenience to home access. Using Ultra Wideband technology, the lock can tell how close a user is and when they’re approaching the door. As a user with a home key on a compatible iPhone or Apple Watch walks up, the door unlocks automatically, with no tapping required.
[…]
Two new Smart Thermostats are available — one from LG Electronics and one from Schneider Electric — so users can choose the product that best fits their home’s broader energy ecosystem.
John Gruber:
The thing that makes this partnership awkward for Apple is that these products — doorbells, cameras, deadbolt locks — are products that require the utmost of trust. What products could possibly require more trust than a camera with footage of what’s going on in or at your home, or a lock that controls who can get in? I think that’s why Apple wants to get into this market with products that they can put their stamp of approval on. But LG, of all companies, was just exposed in a scandal for shipping “smart” TVs that literally listen to the ambient audio in the room — even in standby! — and invade your privacy by tracking what content appears on screen.
Previously:
Apple Hardware Announcement Home.app HomeKit LG Privacy Siri
Apple (video, Hacker News, MacRumors Six Colors, MacStories):
Apple today introduced Apple HomeView, designed to be central to the home and personal to everyone in it. With a stunning 7-inch Liquid Retina display, HomeView brings entertainment, connection, and smart home management together in one place, from playing music and making FaceTime calls to home monitoring and hands-free automations with voice control — all designed with privacy and security at the core. HomeView recognizes users by their faces, adapting so they can access their personal content in Messages, FaceTime, Calendar, Reminders, and Find My.
[…]
Designed to fit in any space, HomeView can be placed on a tabletop as the center of the home or wall-mounted to fit in spaces like the entryway or hallway.
I guess the best part is the price. $299 (not including wall mount) is less than the base iPad and the same as the Apple TV. But I just can’t imagine what I would use this thing for. It does not seem more appealing than an iPhone or HomePod for any tasks. I wouldn’t want to dedicate any kitchen space for it, and the cord is a problem. Why would I not just use an old iPad or iPhone, which are wireless and support apps and standalone video? Maybe it would be interesting if it could do something extra, like act as a Time Capsule.
John Gruber:
HomeView does not have FaceID. I asked about this and Apple reps said that first, your home is (reasonably!) presumed to be a safe space. But in order for users to be recognized — by voice or face — they must have a “registered [non-watch] personal device” that supports Apple Intelligence and Siri AI, that device must be present on the home’s Wi-Fi network, and it must have been recently unlocked.
Hartley Charlton:
Apple said it is “working constructively with the EU in an attempt to find a path forward,” but provided no timeline for EU availability.
Previously:
Apple A18 Apple Hardware Announcement Apple Intelligence European Union FaceTime HomeKit homeOS homeOS 27 HomeView Siri
Apple (video, Hacker News, MacRumors, Six Colors):
Apple today announced the next generation of Apple TV 4K, delivering its most immersive home theater experience yet. The new Apple TV 4K features Siri AI, an entirely new version of Siri powered by the next generation of Apple Intelligence, transforming how users search for, discover, and enjoy their favorite movies and TV shows through a full-screen Siri AI experience. With built-in far-field microphones, Apple TV 4K also lets users talk to Siri completely hands-free.
[…]
The A19 chip in the new Apple TV 4K delivers up to 50 percent faster CPU performance and up to 2x faster GPU performance than the previous generation, for greater responsiveness, faster navigation, and smoother animations. The A19 chip also includes a new, dedicated AV1 decoder, enabling more efficient, high-quality streaming while using less bandwidth.
The new Siri Remote keeps its familiar design while adding Find My support with Precision Finding and an option to play a sound on the remote — making it far easier to locate.
The price is now $299. Apple TV doesn’t get updated very often, so if you need one I guess now is the time to buy.
But I’ve really soured on this product. The software design is worse than when I bought it. I just want a basic interface like the iTunes column browser. Instead, we get all this extra stuff so that the text I care about is secondary, truncated, and obscured. It seems designed to hide the content I want to see, and which I am in the middle of watching, while constantly promoting what Apple wants me to watch. The search has always been bad and is still bad. The main thing it’s supposed to do is play video, and lately that’s been failing, too. It either won’t play at all or it’ll play for a while, and then after a commercial break it will switch to a different episode.
I’m considering just getting a $40 Fire TV Stick to see whether things are any better over there. Maybe the privacy is worse, but I have to weigh that against the product actually working. We watch TV to relax in the evening, and instead I keep getting agitated that either it didn’t work at all or we had to go through hassles like logging in again or rebooting. I would miss the screensaver, though.
Previously:
Apple A19 Apple Hardware Announcement Apple TV Find My Siri tvOS tvOS 27
Apple (video, MacRumors, MacStories, Six Colors):
Apple today announced HomePod mini 2, featuring Siri AI, gorgeous new colors, and enhanced audio experiences. Siri AI, coming to HomePod mini 2 in a future software update, is a profoundly more capable and conversational assistant with personal context understanding, broad world knowledge that powers tasks like richer music discovery, and the ability to tap into even more apps — bringing a whole new level of capability to HomePod mini.
[…]
With Sound Glow, the top of HomePod mini transforms into a visual canvas that glows and pulses in sync with the music, reacting in real time to bass and treble.
[…]
Sound Recognition gives HomePod mini users peace of mind by listening for a smoke or carbon monoxide alarm and, if one is detected, sending a notification immediately to the user’s iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch.
The price has increased from $99 to $149. Our HomePod is placed high enough that the top isn’t visible, anyway. I assume it still can’t play all my purchased music.
Previously:
Apple Hardware Announcement audioOS audioOS 27 HomeKit HomePod Siri
Toni Sagrista Selles (Hacker News):
In a dramatic turn of events, the Chromium team has reversed its Obsolete tag, and has decided to support the format in Blink (the engine behind Chrome/Chromium/Edge). Given Chrome’s position in the browser market share, I predict the format will become a de factor standard for images in the near future.
[…]
I’ve been following JPEG XL since its experimental support in Blink. What started as a promising feature was quickly axed by the team in a bizarre and ridiculous manner. First, they asked the community for feedback on the format. Then, the community responded very positively. And I don’t only mean a couple of guys in their basement. Meta, Intel, Cloudinary, Adobe, ffmpeg, libvips, Krita, and many more. After that came the infamous comment[…]
[…]
To top it off, a couple of weeks ago, the PDF Association announced their intent to adopt JPEG XL as a preferred image format in their PDF specification.
Michael Larabel (Slashdot):
JPEG-XL image support is back in the very latest Google Chrome/Chromium codebase. Back in December they merged jxl-rs as a pure Rust-based JPEG-XL image decoder from the official libjxl organization. At the end of December they did more JPEG-XL plumbing with the enums and build flags for the support.
Luca Versari et al. (via Jarek Duda):
We’re excited to announce that Chrome is shipping decoding support for the JPEG
XL (.jxl) image format starting from Chrome 155. JPEG XL is a next-generation
image format designed to meet the needs of modern web developers and
photographers. It offers 30-50% better compression than JPEG, lossless
compression, built-in HDR support, lossless JPEG transcoding, and more.
In general, we recommend trying both AVIF and JPEG XL to get the best results.
We expect that JPEG XL is most helpful for high-fidelity or lossless
compression, especially of photographic images or in cases in which fine-grained
progressive decoding is preferred.
Previously:
Google Chrome Graphics JPEG XL Mac Mac App macOS 27 Golden Gate PDF Rust Programming Language Software Rewrite Web
Meta:
If you subscribe to a Meta One plan, you can add links to a set number of posts and reels each month based on your plan:
- Meta One Advanced plan: up to 4 posts and 4 reels with links per month
- Meta One Expert plan: up to 8 posts and 8 reels with links per month
- Meta One Max plan: up to 12 posts and 12 reels with links per month
Via Nick Heer:
Instagram has never supported links of any kind in individual posts, so that is a new feature with two links per month permitted for free, and more enabled by this pricey subscription — starting at $50 USD per month for four posts per month containing external links. But links in Reels have been commonplace for years. Meta is now gating that, too; and there is more.
[…]
Meta seems to have two objectives here: to take a cut from businesses that use Meta’s services as a referral source more generally, and — more specifically — to capture some of the money made by influencers.
Requiring login, removing RSS, discouraging links. Things are not looking good for the open Web.
Previously:
Business Instagram Meta Web
Hartley Charlton:
The flagship Alexa Tablet 12 Pro starts at $499.99 with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, aiming to rival the iPad Pro at a significantly lower price point. It features a MediaTek Dimensity 8400 chip, a 12-inch display with an adaptive refresh rate of up to 120Hz and a 3:2 aspect ratio, a 6.5mm-thick aluminum body, Wi-Fi 6E, and quad Dolby Atmos speakers. Amazon claims that the device has up to 16 hours of video playback.
A $549.99 version adds a “Nanomatte” display, using precision-etched glass developed with Corning to reduce glare. Higher configurations offer up to 16GB of RAM. Unlike Apple’s nano-texture display option, which requires a 1TB or 2TB iPad Pro, Amazon’s matte finish is available with 128GB of storage.
[…]
The Alexa Tablet 11 starts at $329.99 with 8GB of RAM and 64GB of storage, offering an 11-inch 2.5K display with a 90Hz refresh rate. A 128GB version costs $379.99. The smaller Alexa Tablet 8 starts at $229.99 with an 8.7-inch display, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of storage.
Ryan Whitwam:
Amazon has dropped the Fire branding in favor of Alexa, and the new Alexa Tablets are now Google-certified Android devices.
Throughout the history of Fire Tablets, Amazon downplayed its use of Android. They ran Android apps from the company’s Appstore platform, but there was no Google integration with “Fire OS.” However, Amazon shut down its app store last year. The new Alexa Tablets run full-fledged Google-y versions of Android with the Play Store and all the apps you’d expect.
M.G. Siegler:
So the question is if these new Amazon Alexa Tablets can do what the previous Android tablets never could in tailoring software for the form-factor. I remain skeptical of that but perhaps stock Android plus some good Amazon + Alexa+ (as well as Prime Video) integration will be good enough?
[…]
The screen – namely the fact that it's a matte texture – sounds interesting[…]
Previously:
Alexa Amazon Android Google Play Store Hardware Kindle Fire
OpenAI:
Starting today, API customers globally will be able to opt in to text watermarking for select models. Text watermarking will remain off by default in the API.
Over the coming weeks, we will add an invisible watermark to eligible ChatGPT and Codex text output in the European Union.
[…]
More details about how textGrain works can be found in our technical report (opens in a new window), which will be updated with additional details in the coming weeks. We also plan to make the technology available in open source so that others can build on it.
[…]
At a target false positive rate of 1%, our detector identified watermarks in about 80% of 200-token passages, compared with about 95% of 400-token passages, for content such as psychology.
Via John Gruber (Mastodon):
OpenAI has made this available via an API so developers should be able to actually see if this adulterates text output with real-world usage.
Third, none of these companies have yet made their watermark detectors publicly accessible. I remain highly skeptical that they will work as advertised in the real world. I think this is all somewhat of a sham to claim compliance with the EU AI Act without actually providing anything that anyone can actually use in a practical way.
Previously:
Artificial Intelligence ChatGPT Codex European Union Legal OpenAI Watermark Web
Janine Liberty (Hacker News, NASA, NYT, WSJ, Slashdot):
Margaret Hamilton, a profoundly influential computer scientist best known for leading the software engineering team at MIT’s Instrumentation Lab during NASA’s Apollo program, died on Sep. 30. She was 90.
A computing pioneer who authored over 130 publications, Hamilton helped to establish software engineering as a dedicated discipline.
[…]
Moments before the Eagle module was set to land on the lunar surface, the onboard computer raised the alarm. It had detected a 1202 error: The computer was overloaded due to a fault in a hardware switch, and it was possible the system would not be able to handle the complex landing procedure.
But Hamilton and her team had engineered priority-driven software, able to shut down unnecessary background tasks in order to prioritize mission-critical tasks. Houston trusted Hamilton’s software and allowed the mission to proceed, and two men walked on the moon for the first time.
Dave DeGraw:
The following is an excerpt from a textbook called Fluency With Information Technology: Skills, Concepts, & Capabilities, 7th Edition ISBN 0-13-444872-3
At the time of publishing, the Wikipedia page for Margaret Hamilton has an important quote about the origin of the term “software engineering”. I was moved by this and wanted to add it to my /quotes page, but needed to verify the source of the quote. I was bothered that the source came from an interview given for an out-of-print textbook that as far as I can tell is unavailable to legally obtain. The interview is also not published in later editions of the book.
Fortunately, I was able to find the complete interview and I am publishing that excerpt here under fair use doctrine for educational, archival, and personal informational purposes only.
The Computer History Museum has an article and a full oral history.
Previously:
Craft History Interview Programming Rest in Peace Video
Adam Engst:
Apple has significantly improved dictation in iOS 27 by adding a few capabilities for editing text from the Voice Control system. In other words, Apple has finally done some of the things I requested in “How iOS and macOS Dictation Can Learn from Voice Control’s Dictation” (31 August 2020). Remember, dictation is what you get when you tap the microphone button on the keyboard, while Voice Control is an all-encompassing system that you turn on in Settings > Accessibility > Voice Control. The problem with leaving Voice Control on permanently is that it’s constantly listening and thus inserting text when you don’t want that, and at times I have felt that its dictation isn’t as good.
Most notably, when you’re using iOS’s regular dictation, you can now change the case of words and phrases by saying “Capitalize phrase” or “Lowercase phrase.” Incorrect capitalization of words drives me up the wall. Equally useful is the ability to fix misheard or misspoken words by saying “Replace phrase1 with phrase2.” Most other Voice Control commands aren’t available in dictation, but you can say “Select phrase” and “Undo that.”
[…]
Unfortunately, while Apple added some of Voice Control’s capabilities to dictation in iOS 27, it didn’t extend that effort to macOS 27 Golden Gate. Put simply, when you use dictation in macOS, you don’t have access to any text-editing commands.
Previously:
Accessibility Dictation iOS iOS 27 Mac macOS 27 Golden Gate Voice Control
Tower 18:
But something has changed: thanks to AI coding agents like Claude Code and Codex, even the most devoted GUI fans are now spending more and more time in the terminal. You kick off a task, the agent does its thing… and then you want to actually see what happened.
That’s where Tower shines, so we felt the path from the terminal to Tower deserved a serious upgrade. With Tower 18, the Tower Command Line Tool (gittower) is no longer just a way to open a repository — it takes you to exactly the place you want to look at.
I’ve been wanting this for 15 years or so. Thanks, AI! You still can’t open a file in Tower by dragging it onto the Dock icon. Nor can you just pass it to gittower and have it figure out which repo it belongs to. But if your working directory is already within the working copy, you can now use gittower to open the file history. I’ve written a script that finds the current file in the frontmost app (BBEdit, Xcode, or Finder) and opens it in Tower.
Previously:
AppleScript Artificial Intelligence BBEdit Finder Git Git Tower Mac Mac App macOS 27 Golden Gate Xcode
Jeff Johnson (June):
This new RSS rate limiting was perhaps foreshadowed by an r/modnews post a couple of weeks ago[…]
judy-funnie (September, via Jeff Johnson):
Because RSS is now a common surface for large-scale scraping and automated abuse, we'll stop supporting RSS feeds on November 13, 2026 while preserving moderation workflows that depend on it through supported alternatives.
[…]
To close this gap, in the next few months, we'll further limit access [to Old Reddit] for logged-in users to only those who have used Old Reddit in the last six months (which covers the vast majority of all Old Reddit users).
Ana Maria Constantin:
Public API access ends in March 2027, Reddit said in a separate post for developers. It will stop accepting new API requests on 31 October. From 12 January, it will start cutting off apps that have not registered.
Jeff Johnson:
Since I use RSS to follow Reddit, I intend to discontinue my Reddit use on November 13, unless Reddit backtracks on their user-hostile decision to drop RSS.
[…]
My biggest regret in leaving Reddit is that I‘ll have to shut down my product support subreddit.
[…]
The most ridiculous part of Reddit’s announcement was the suggestion that subreddit moderators replace RSS feeds with Discord notifications. What perversity, insanity to recommend a competing social network as the only practical way to use yours! I’m also skeptical of Reddit’s public excuse for dropping RSS: bot scraping. As I noted back in June, Reddit is already rate-limiting RSS feeds. If the current limits are insufficient, why not impose stricter limits?
John Brayton:
I am disappointed because I know that many Unread customers use Reddit’s RSS feeds to keep up with subreddits.
Sarah Perez:
Moderators have already expressed worry about how this shift would impact their workflow. When Reddit hinted earlier that it was preparing for the end of RSS on its site, many responded by complaining that Reddit would become unmanageable for them. Meanwhile, many users stressed that RSS was how they enjoyed accessing Reddit’s content.
Previously:
I overlooked the fact that Feedly uses Reddit’s API to retrieve articles from subreddits. The folks at Feedly expect this functionality to continue working after Reddit removes their feeds.
Feedly Reddit RSS Sunset Web Web API
Chance Miller:
Apple has confirmed an issue causing a “small number” of iPhone 18 Pro Max devices on AT&T to lose cellular service.
Apple released software and carrier updates to prevent the issue from affecting additional users, but the company tells 9to5Mac that devices that have already lost service will require a hardware replacement.
John Gruber:
It’s only a problem for AT&T customers. No such problems on Verizon or T-Mobile.
[…]
It’s only the 18 Pro Max, not the regular 18 Pro. The salient fact here is that the only iPhone 18 Pro models that use Qualcomm cellular modems, rather than Apple’s own C2 modem, are 18 Pro Max devices in the U.S..
[…]
I’d love to understand how a software update can prevent existing devices from being affected, but a software update cannot restore service to existing devices that have already been affected.
Joe Rossignol:
Apple and AT&T have yet to disclose the underlying cause of the issue.
Eric Schwarz (Mastodon):
It could be as simple as a power calculation geared towards devices with Apple’s C2 modems.
[…]
The other weird variable seems to be AT&T—out of the three US carriers, AT&T is the only one with a lot of the 3.45GHz 5G band in use[…] Most AT&T MVNOs like Cricket, U.S. Mobile, Gigs-based services, and H2O still use 5G NSA on AT&T and it seems they haven’t gotten the new carrier bundles on 18 Pro Maxes.
[…]
Because of those things, my working theory is that an 18 Pro Max on AT&T was connecting to 5G SA and when it was on that unique 3.45GHz band (maybe trying to hold on to spotty service?), it would basically cook its modem and there’s no fix other than replacement.
Previously:
AT&T Hardware iOS iOS 27 iPhone iPhone 18 Pro Max
Apple (Hacker News, MacRumors, Lobsters, TidBITS Talk):
Full Disk Access largely sidesteps these controls in order to allow backup apps to function properly on the Mac. Some developers are using Full Disk Access in ways that could put users at risk, exposing everything on their systems—including files, mail, messages, and even browsing history—without users’ full knowledge and understanding.
[…]
Going forward, we will introduce additional controls to ensure that users who genuinely wish to grant an app this extraordinary level of access can only do so with very explicit user action. Addressing this is critical. As AI agents become increasingly capable and autonomous, the risks associated with this level of access will grow substantially.
Guy English:
It was pretty obvious something like this would happen after the Muse accessing Messages news.
Jeff Johnson:
What we have is just one noisy, confused journalist, Jason Aten. He granted FDA to Muse but refuses to admit it, to the public or even to himself.
I see several issues with the current Full Disk Access system:
Backup apps need FDA, but so do many other types of apps. Often, they don’t need full disk access but rather they need to work around a missing or broken API. All of my apps except ToothFairy use FDA, not because I want to or because it’s easier to code, but because without it the user experience would be much worse or key features wouldn’t work at all.
There is no API for apps to see whether they have FDA or to request it from the user. It’s not like, say, accessing the user’s Contacts where macOS pops up a standard dialog and the app supplies a “reason” string to specify why it wants access. Instead, each app presents its own set of instructions for how to enable it deep in System Settings. It requires the confusing maneuver of first adding the app to the list; it doesn’t automatically show up with a slider switch next to it, like with other privacy settings. This adds an obstacle for users to get up and running with an app but doesn’t really provide additional security, just obscurity.
FDA is not granular. There’s no way for apps to request only the permissions they actually need. For example, SpamSieve wants to be able to access the user’s mail, but it doesn’t need or want to see their iMessages or browser history. This is bad for users because they may be exposing more information than they want to and bad for developers because some users will think your app isn’t worth the risks.
There is no way for the user to see what the app actually did. If it tells me that it wants FDA to access my mail but actually it mucked around with my Time Machine backup, how would I know?
Apple’s wording in System Settings is not very clear. I don’t think most users really understand what FDA is doing.
The previous items combine to create opportunities for malfeasance. It’s normalized that many apps that seem like they wouldn’t need full disk access do need FDA, so this makes it easier for apps to trick the user into granting it under false pretenses. Apple requires that apps coach the user through the process, so it’s normal that users mostly see text from the app (which might not be trustworthy) rather than standard text from Apple, as with other permissions prompts.
But the problem in the Muse case was not malfeasance. Rather, it seems that Muse asked Aten to enable FDA, but he doesn’t remember doing so or didn’t understand what he was doing. It sounds like Apple wants to make this consent more clear, which is good, but other issues would remain. As with the recent keychain story, this feels like a bandaid rather than a thoughtful solution to the real problem. The issues with FDA were clear when it was introduced 8 years ago, and many Radars were filed, but it’s been virtually unchanged since.
Apple seems to think that by making a scarier warning they can convince more users not to grant FDA—or at least perhaps deflect blame from Apple to the user if they later regret it. Maybe that solves Apple’s problem, but it doesn’t really solve the user’s problem. The user is installing Muse because it’s more capable than Siri. They probably do want it to access some protected data, e.g. so it can find information in their mail or messages. So they actually do need to give it FDA. Aside from deterrence, Apple is not actually protecting the user. And the deterrence is kind of sketchy. Rather than providing a safe way for users to choose what to share with a competing product, Apple is saying the only option is to share everything, and then discouraging that. Meanwhile, there’s no switch to turn off Apple Intelligence. It’s like they expect you to stay on eWorld and not download Netscape. I actually really liked eWorld, and the broad Internet wasn’t totally safe (though neither was eWorld), but that doesn’t seem like much of a strategy.
Jeff Johnson:
Below I’ve embedded […] a screen recording of a macOS Virtual Machine showing the first run experience of the Meta Muse app.
[…]
It’s important to note that macOS has no API for an app to request or acquire Full Disk Access. The only way for an app to receive Full Disk Access is via the Full Disk Access pane of System Settings, as shown in the video. Thus, the only thing an app can do is open the System Settings pane for the user, as also shown in the video. Once the user is in System Settings, it’s up to the user to manually grant Full Disk Access.
Without Full Disk Access, Muse cannot access the user’s Messages database. If it could, that would be a macOS zero day vulnerability.
[…]
Aten oddly writes as if the “if you give it Full Disk Access” earlier in the article were counterfactual, merely hypothetical, still insisting that he did not give Full Disk Access to Muse.
John Gruber (Mastodon):
I really worry about just how much Apple is going to lock Full Disk Access down. I use it with several apps that couldn’t function properly without it, and would be severely hampered if I needed to authorize it manually every time they do something.
Ben Lovejoy:
However, what Apple absolutely must not do is to make the mistake it made with macOS Sequoia over screen recording. Sure, this is also incredibly dangerous and very strong warnings are appropriate, but what Apple did then was to force us all to confirm these permissions on a weekly basis, as well as after every restart.
Dave Nanian:
Well, this is certainly ominous news for backup programs.
Like it’s not hard enough to turn this stuff on…
Nick Heer:
Is Apple suggesting this capability could be limited in the future to backup applications alone? I do not like that.
[…]
Because of the lack of information available at present, I do not want to get too far ahead of myself, but I am concerned that it could be a significant curtailing of application permissions. It has the potential for further self-preferencing, as Apple will surely exempt Siri from the kinds of permissions requests it requires of third-party apps, even as it is updated with additional capabilities.
[…]
Call me a naïve little baby if you want, but I do not think preserving Siri’s dominance on Apple’s devices is the company’s reason for locking down Full Disk Access. But Apple’s existing restrictions are part of the reason Siri was awful for a decade. If it had the opportunity to compete with third-party replacements, I doubt it would have languished in a miserable state for as long as it did.
John Voorhees:
[Only] a handful of apps to which I’ve granted Full Disk Access are backup apps. Others include the Finder replacement Bloom, launchers like Alfred, the wonderful selection utility PopClip, Apple’s own Pixelmator Pro, Setapp, TestFlight, Supercharge, Madden NFL 27 Arcade Edition, Hazel, and many others. It’s a diverse selection of apps covering everything from Apple’s own apps to Mac utilities that are longtime favorites of MacStories readers, and even one Apple Arcade game.
[…]
On the one hand, it seems to suggest that users will simply have to jump through additional explicit hoops to grant Full Disk Access to their agents and other apps. On the other hand, claiming that Full Disk Access was designed solely for backup apps raises red flags that could signal that the company intends to restrict the kinds of apps that can use Full Disk Access. I sure hope not.
Dan Moren:
But there are plenty of legit uses for Full Disk Access. Just looking at my MacBook Air this morning, I’ve given that permission to three apps: Terminal, BBEdit, and SuperDuper. All apps that I trust with that level of power because of their long history and because in order to do what they do best (or at all), they need that access. (Interestingly, on my Mac mini, that list also includes SpamSieve, KnockKnock, and Shortcuts—though not BBEdit, for whatever reason.)
[…]
I think there is a good argument for protecting Full Disk Access further, but there’s also only so much you can do to protect a user from themselves. Ultimately, this is a cat-and-mouse game, and while I don’t want my data purloined or misused, I also don’t want my computer locked down to the point that I can’t use it for all the things I want to do.
Ben Thompson (Hacker News):
To say that I’m nervous about what Apple’s solution will entail is a massive understatement. There is one aspect in which the Mac is the perfect agent host: Apple has, for decades, invested in a combination of scriptability, automation, and accessibility APIs (these are very often the same thing) that makes it remarkably well-suited to computer use. Then there is the fact that macOS is a certified Unix system; this means that agents — which are perfectly suited to the command line — have access to the entire universe of tooling built for Unix systems. And, of course, Mac hardware is amazing.
The problem is that for my particular use case — a headless, always-on Mac Mini that I primarily access from other computers and my phone through the ChatGPT and Claude apps — macOS is incredibly hostile. The biggest issue is GUI-only permission prompts that are invisible to software running on said computer, including agents.
[…]
This system is annoying but manageable on your primary Mac; it’s a disaster on a headless Mac running agents, for two reasons. First, agents write new programs all of the time, and in my case, those programs need access to devices on my network (SMB shares, for example, trigger a TCC warning). What I need is a permission layer for agents, not the programs they create; TCC is operating at the wrong level of abstraction.
Second, the TCC subsystem exposes its prompt in a protected space that no program can see; that means that programs silently fail and the agents don’t know why; what I have to do is remember that there is probably a permissions prompt on screen, log into the Mac Mini with screen-sharing software, and click OK.
Wade Tregaskis:
Apple’d get a long way by just renaming the privilege. How many laypeople understand what a “disk” even is? Regular people just talk vaguely about how much “memory” their computer has - if they think about it at all other than when they run out of disk space - at which point, how many just think that means they have to buy a new computer? So, how about just “Full Access to All Your Data”? Call it what it basically is.
Jason Anthony Guy:
If Apple has time (or is especially motivated), it might also add more granular options to control what data apps can access. For example, instead of today’s single toggle that grants an app access to the broadly defined “data like Mail, Messages, Safari, Home, Time Machine backups, and certain administrative settings,” it might instead allow you to enable access to specific data on a per-app basis. This would allow, for example, Muse to access Mail and Safari, but not Messages or Time Machine.
Kevin Grant:
With all the levels of entitlements and crap they added, I find it ironic that SIP is “only” implemented as “open up every damned thing to everyone” without more refined levels.
John:
I was frankly surprised when I learned FDA was for a machine, across user accounts, rather than for a single user. It seems like granting root, something the *nix community has tried to reduce and lock down for decades.
I certainly don’t trust anyone’s AI with root, and creating a weak, non-admin, user for AI experiments should be a safe path.
Jimmy Callin:
While [Gruber sees] this as a “why we can’t have nice things” moment, I see it as another case of Apple using privacy to limit competition in areas it currently lag behind.
I’d prefer to decouple trust in how my personal data is handled from trust in a particular platform or software vendor. That’s what I personally value about EU’s approach: give people rights over their information, make mishandling it a legal liability, and severely punish companies that break those rules.
Apple getting unique privileges to access sensitive data simply because they own the platform, and thus there is an implicit trust in their handling of it, feels like a brittle long-term strategy. If this works without causing anti-trust issues, it only makes Apple more dominant while locking out potentially useful software.
Previously:
Update (2026-10-06): See also: TidBITS Talk and Vitor.
Howard Oakley:
Whether or not you would ever want to unleash AI agents on your Mac, Apple does need to refine Full Disk Access as a matter of urgency. But its design and engineering cannot be rushed. Merely adding to the complexity of current Privacy settings wouldn’t help users, many of whom already find privacy protection confusing and opaque.
Sherief, FYI:
it’s clear there’s consumer demand for automated access to iMessages, and instead of offering a proper API with audit trails and fine-grained controls Apple would rather force users to FDA then cry fowl when they grant FDA.
Previously:
Apple Mail Artificial Intelligence Backup Mac macOS 27 Golden Gate Messages.app Muse Privacy Security Transparency Consent and Control (TCC)
Amazon (Hacker News, Slashdot):
The all-new 6-inch Kindle is the most pocket-sized Kindle we’ve ever made. With 16GB of storage, up to 6 weeks of battery life, and 30% faster book opening than the previous release, it is lighter and features a new seamless flush-front design. This required rethinking how the display, front light, and touch layers are assembled and bonded. We’re also introducing edge-to-edge color across the entire family. The housing is made from recycled materials with a 100% recycled cobalt battery. Starting at $149.99 and available in Ube and Graphite.
[…]
The all-new Kindle Paperwhite is thinner and lighter than the previous lineup, waterproof with an adjustable warm light for comfortable reading at any hour, and up to 12 weeks of battery life on a single charge. The Paperwhite display uses an oxide-thin film transistor backplane and is the largest Kindle Paperwhite display with the highest contrast ratio—delivering deep blacks and crisp text, and images that pop off the screen, whether you’re reading in bright sunlight or under the covers at night. The Signature Edition adds aluminum rear housing, 32 GB of storage, an auto-adjusting front light, pogo pin dock charging, and double tap to turn pages—all while remaining thinner than the previous version.
Lauren Forristal:
Kevin Keith, Amazon’s vice president of devices, said the company is using “Cap” (capacitive) touch technology and haptics to create what he describes as a “dead zone.” As a reader grips the Kindle, the device detects where a finger is resting and adjusts the touch-sensitive area accordingly.
Lauren Forristal:
Amazon announced a range of new accessories on Thursday. And one of them, a $34.99 remote called the Kindle Click, caught our eye.
The Kindle Click is a compact Bluetooth remote designed to let readers turn pages without touching their Kindle.
[…]
Amazon also announced other accessories as part of the new Kindle family, including a magnetic cover with physical page-turn buttons and a charging dock stand for the Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition and Colorsoft Signature Edition.
I still wish for the return of built-in page-turn buttons, but the new Page Turn Cover is the best news on this front in a while. Unfortunately, it adds bulk, costs $80, and doesn’t work with the base Kindle or the regular Paperwhite.
The Paperwhite Signature Edition is $249.99, and Amazon is offering me $50 off if I “Upgrade” my old Oasis by October 8. This isn’t explained very well, but it sounds like you keep the old device, and it doesn’t get bricked. There’s a separate 20% + $5 offer for a “Trade-In” where you do give up the old device. There’s a bundle with the Page Turn Cover and the Sling Bag, but there doesn’t seem to be a bundle with just the cover.
Jason Snell:
I admit that I find it somewhat shocking that even a basic e-reader costs $170 these days, but here we are.
[…]
I gotta say that I don’t love that Amazon has decided that to use page-turn buttons, you need to pay $80 and keep your Kindle in a case. But at least they’re finally offering an option. (For the record, Kobo’s Libra Colour is priced similarly to the Paperwhite Signature Edition and has buttons right on it, no case required. It’s the e-reader I use the most these days.)
Previously:
Update (2026-10-05): Tony Polanco:
It replaces standard Qi wireless charging with a pogo pin dock system[…]
I’ve been looking at various options with page-turn buttons and not really finding anything that I like compared with my dying Oasis:
- The Oasis has built-in buttons and weighs 131g. (This doesn’t count the cover; I don’t like reading with the cover attached.)
- The 2026 Paperwhite Signature is 229g without the buttons. I couldn’t find the weight for the Page Turn Cover, but it’s got to be at least 100g.
- The BOOX Palma 2 is 170g and has a weird phone shape, with the buttons on the side.
- The BOOX Go 7 is 195g. It looks OK hardwarewise (a bit wide), but I’ve read mixed stuff about the software. Its Kindle app experience may be a bit worse, but you also get access to other apps.
- The Kobo Libra Colour is 200g. I don’t want color and would prefer something narrower.
I want page-turn buttons, but probably not as much as I’d prefer a smaller size. I’m leaning towards just getting the base 2026 Kindle at 140g. It has the same size screen as the Oasis but with warmer color.
I’ve perhaps made the mistake of purchasing most of my content from Amazon. But their system does work very smoothly across all my devices, and the hardware alternatives are not as compelling as I expected.
E Ink Hardware Kindle
Howard Oakley:
In Golden Gate there are currently three sources of records of AI transactions. Those handled entirely on-device appear only to be recorded by Unified log entries, while interactions with Siri are provided in a detailed transcript in the new Siri app.
[…]
Although that transcript includes external references implying that an off-device model was used, no explicit information is given, and entries don’t make clear what information left the device, or whether that was handled by PCC or Apple’s secure implementation in Google Cloud.
Apple’s documentation refers users to the Apple Intelligence Report (AIR) available from Privacy & Security settings. When enabled, this will generate at the user’s request, a report covering the last 15 minutes or 7 days of AI interactions which “may include personal data such as messages and text you enter in intelligent writing tools.”
Glenn Fleishman:
Because of the peculiar nature of AI large language models (LLMs), Apple has to “talk” to Siri AI just like we talk to ChatGPT or Claude. But what does Apple say in these system prompts?
[…]
The report is formatted in JSON (JavaScript Object Notation), which is not meant to be read by humans. However, you can open it in a JSON reader, such as the free JSON Viewer, for a color-coded view that’s easier to examine, or cut and paste it into a text editor or word processor. Reports can get large, though, and JSON Viewer only handles files up to 10 MB. Try OK JSON if you hit that limit ($24.99 with a 7-day free trial). Neither app soft-wraps long lines, so I copy the prompts into BBEdit ($59.99, free mode available) for searching and viewing.
Howard Oakley:
I pointed out that the bulk of most AIRs are privateCloudComputeRequests, metadata for requests processed by PCC, whose main contents are attestation bundles. Those are provided in Protobuf format, and encoded using Base64, making them difficult to access.
However, Apple states that “you can parse, canonicalize, and verify attestation bundles from the Apple Intelligence Report using the pccvre attestation subcommands.” This article explains how you can do that without compromising the security of your Mac, using a Virtual Machine.
Howard Oakley:
Once you’re happy the AIR will be worth browsing, return to that setting and click on the Export Activity button. Be sure to save that AIR with the default .json extension.
[…]
Provided you’re running macOS Golden Gate, download the first beta of my new app AIRer from here: AIRer100
[…]
If there are records in that AIR, they will be listed by time and date, with the oldest at the top, in the left sidebar. Select one of them, and its useful contents will be displayed in the main part of AIRer’s window.
Previously:
AIRer Apple Intelligence Artificial Intelligence Mac Mac App macOS 27 Golden Gate Privacy Private Cloud Compute
anonymoussingh:
We maintain a macOS product whose installer uses custom InstallerSection plugin bundles to show configuration panes during install. Starting with macOS 27 beta 6, all of our plugins stopped loading in Installer.app — the panes never appear and the install fails because our preinstall step depends on data the panes collect.
HirohikoKihara (via Ric Ford):
A third-party PKG installer that ships a custom Installer Plugin no longer displays one of its selection panes. The plugin bundle appears not to be loaded, so the pane that it provides is silently skipped and the user cannot choose the intended installation option.
FE:
This is regression for all latest updates eg. 15.8, 27.7, 28.0. This bug refuse open installer plugin for security reason in spite of the plugin and installer are correctly signed, notarized and works seamlessly in previous macOS versions. Workaround is copy installer (*.pkg) to local file system (home, desktop folder).
Previously:
Bug Installer Mac macOS 15 Sequoia macOS 27 Golden Gate macOS Tahoe 26
David Bushell (Mastodon, Hacker News):
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.
[…]
And today I discovered that Apple had [in macOS 27] removed the “no” switch.
[…]
Digging through macOS 27 settings I turned off Siri (again). Of course, multiple unkillable Siri processes remain, stealing memory and writing data. For what purpose? Who knows. Note that they removed “Apple Intelligence” from this control.
[…]
All of this garbage was enabled after upgrading to macOS 27 despite me having “Apple Intelligence & Siri” turned off already. That was a rather explicit “no”, no?
Previously:
Update (2026-10-02): Coeur (via HN Reader):
Author claims the system setting “Privacy & Security > Apple Intelligence Report > Report Duration” with its 3 options [Off | 15 minutes | 7 days] sends that data to Apple with that frequency. This is wrong - this is a transparency report so that you as a user can see everything that is getting sent to Apple as a part of Apple Intelligence. Nothing additionally is getting sent to apple if you switch this away from “Off”.
To me, the main point of the post was about the missing off switch for Apple Intelligence itself. Bushell was forced into enabling a feature (and storage use) he had specifically turned off, and there is no option to block his data from being sent to Private Cloud Compute. But, yes, the first sentence I quoted from Bushell is wrong. The report feature isn’t periodically sending data to Apple; it’s reporting what was already sent. Turning it off does not add any additional privacy, except from someone snooping the report file directly on your Mac. Apple’s wording explaining the report was confusing but has improved somewhat in recent versions.
Apple Intelligence Dark Patterns Mac macOS 15 Sequoia macOS 27 Golden Gate Privacy Siri
