Several ideas from this blog post are factually wrong.
Additionally, I cannot confirm the more subjective ideas - and I've been running Macbooks for almost 20 years, and specifically working with Python both for hobby, for research, professionally, for cybersecurity, etc.
I have an old 2013 laptop that is the "couch machine". It still works adequately. No issues with sleep/wake. Time machine outlasted the external HDD it was running on. I am writing this on an M1 Max, which will be 5 years old this year, and I hope I get 5 more years, it's just that good.
Yeah - the sleep/wake one is crazy to me. I have had numerous mac's and windows machines over the last 20 years as well and Sleep/Wake has been perfectly consistent on the mac. In 2026 on year old hardware from Microsoft (Surface Pro) I have regular issues with waking from sleep, or more commonly, the battery will just be completely dead in the morning when it had a full charge the night before.
The python complaint I get, but it is because they ship an old python version with the OS and you have to work around that to install a different version.
Security settings can be set via the Settings app and don't require the terminal like the author stated. They can be changed via the terminal, but the golden path is just tapping a button in settings to allow the unauthorized app and typing in your password. Granted - it isn't obvious, and I only know this because over the years as notarization was added the dialogs became slowly less helpful in guiding you to the right spot, I think now in Tahoe they don't even make a mention of where you should go to allow it.
The last time my Time Machine backup was corrupt was in 2013 when I was writing to a SMB share over a PPTP VPN through a 4G connection. I don’t blame Apple for my own crappy infrastructure, corruption was bound to happen.
It's interesting how the sentiment around Apple has turned, for the first time in what feels like 20 years.
The true reason is, as the recent norwegian report quipped: We love our tech, but it betrays us - that's an abusive relationship.
Consent prompts are a band-aid for users being exploited: They are not fixing the root but covering it with legal painkillers.
But the only true remedy is actually feeling in control of and empowered by your device - a vision that Apple once at least promised, but now has less and less legitimacy of heralding.
> feeling in control of and empowered by your device - a vision that Apple once at least promised
Legitimately, when? I got started on an Apple II, I used the puck mouse without right click, I watched people buy the insanely costly hardware that was always integrated and you couldn’t service yourself. Windows was always more open than Mac - people just didn’t use Linux because it required you to know how things worked under the hood.
Just like the rest of large technology companies, and the economy as a whole, we are all being squeezed for every drop. Eventually the well will run dry, there’s already practically no more data to pull, and the apps will get shittier as revenues need to keep going up, and all the pillars of tech will fall over like a tree hollowed out by pests.
> people just didn’t use Linux because it required you to know how things worked under the hood.
This is how Windows feels to me now. The very first interaction with Windows when I buy a new computer is to do Shift+F10 and type away some magical terminal commands to get it working.
That I have to use the terminal to get Windows operational after unboxing my new device is insanity.
> We wanted to download a clip using yt_dlp (a Python program). Terminal told us, this would require dev tools (which it doesn't).
It is offering to install Apple's developer tools package which includes Python. The download is ~900MB, much of which consists of large Swift and C compiler binaries. That's pretty large if you only need Python, but in practice you probably do want the full dev tools because Python packages often compile C extensions when installed.
> Except, that non-blessed python could not access the internet because of some MacOS "security" feature.
There is no such security feature. Perhaps a TLS issue?
> Another "security" feature requires all apps on Apple computers to be notarized, even the ones I built myself. This used to have a relatively easy workaround (right click, open, accept the risk). Now it needs a terminal command.
You can also do it from System Settings. Or if you are actually building on the same machine, you can avoid the problem as described at the bottom of this page:
> On some Apple systems, this fails to show any audio devices, "for security reasons".
While the implementation is somewhat janky, there are real and valid security reasons to require consent for using the microphone.
> There is no indication anywhere that the hard drive is getting full.
Not proactive warnings (does any OS do that?), but there are plenty of ways to see how full the disk is, including the newish System Settings -> General -> Storage, which breaks down storage use and offers some ways to save space.
> There is no simple way to reset the computer to factory conditions.
System Settings -> General -> Erase All Content and Settings.
> There is no such security feature. Perhaps a TLS issue?
Definitely user error. If you install Python from the website, instead of using the developer tools or Homebrew (which requires the developer tools), you also have to run the `Install Certificates.command` which comes with it.
>I live and work in a multi-lingual environment, and regularly switch between the German and English keyboard layout. Lately, the keyboard layout no longer sticks. It resets to English when I press shift. Sometimes it does work, sometimes it doesn't.
Yeah, windows is also the king for that.
Almost every update reactivates the shortcut to change locale, even though I've removed it.
And they even added a new shortcut to change locale : Win+space.
So as I'm always juggling between mac and windows, Win+space is sometimes pressed instead of ctrl+space and then all of a sudden my keyboard is switched to another language.
Don't worry, there's a fix ! Modify all the installed language, add your keyboard layout and remove all the others. So now you can also have a an English locale with a non English keyboard layout.
> This used to have a relatively easy workaround (right click, open, accept the risk). Now it needs a terminal command.
You can also just go into System Settings, Security and hit Approve.
Personally I prefer it if the software I use has been signed using the certificate of the developer. But it would be nice if Apple if they could lower the annual cost of membership (currently $99).
I appreciate the sentiment of voting with your wallet and supporting alternatives.
Unfortunately the major vendors are in a race to the bottom and the alternatives aren’t much better. Linux might be better in some ways, but I expect there will be enough minor frustrations that on net it will be a downgrade, especially considering hardware. Some of it is just needing to learn the right way for the given system - people (perhaps rightly) tolerate needing to learn to use Linux but don’t tolerate needing to learn to use Mac. Obviously the basics should be intuitive, but power user workflows need to be learned on any system - installing yt-dlp is a power user workflow.
I see loads of essentially disinformation about Mac on here, mostly about things that could be solved by Googling (I prefer Kagi) or opening the help documentation.
I disagree. This feature protects people who do not know better. Those who do, instead of raising their blood pressure by writing rants, can simply disable this feature.
Linux may soon not be an option because of age verification laws. The New York law, currently pending, requires age verification assurance from hardware vendors, not just OS suppliers. Locked-bootloader PCs are coming in order to comply with the laws.
Consent Prompt Fatigue and overload is a serious problem. To perform the most basic task across my iPhone + watch I need to suffer half a dozen consent & pin prompts. Often at the most sensitive and difficult times: it's raining, I have gloves, I'm juggling a power tool or something dangerous. My devices continue pin prompt me every 30 seconds like I'm holding the Nuclear football.
We used to respect that credential/consent prompt fatigue resulted in worse security, then the lawyers got their way, engineers / product managers conceded, and now users are punished with useless prompting every 10 seconds.
The only way forward will be for some a-hole product managers to push back on this nonsense.
> Consent Prompt Fatigue and overload is a serious problem.
My favorite part is that sometimes, a security prompt will pop up and hijack focus - and if you happen to be typing something, hitting the space bar will click on something, and if you happen to notice that, you'll at least know that something is now broken and you gotta figure out where to fix it.
Happened to me last night as I was setting up a new macbook, and I managed to deny myself access to edit my own crontab.
exactly. These are supposed to be tools and behave predictably. It's maddening when focus is stolen and interrupted by an unexpected prompt. Often for something I already consented to.
Linux can fool you into that sense of security for a long time. But there will come a point where the facade crashes down.
Maybe it's plugging your laptop into an external projector, or getting to sleep and wake correctly without the WiFi driver segfaulting, or maybe it's trying to get HDR working, or audio routing or...
These days, the problem with Linux is more the quality of the laptop hardware, which is substantially worse than that of a Mac laptop. The Linux software itself is stable, although drivers can occasionally hiccup. Perhaps desktops are fine. Mac laptop + Linux (with good drivers) would be heaven.
Several ideas from this blog post are factually wrong.
Additionally, I cannot confirm the more subjective ideas - and I've been running Macbooks for almost 20 years, and specifically working with Python both for hobby, for research, professionally, for cybersecurity, etc.
I have an old 2013 laptop that is the "couch machine". It still works adequately. No issues with sleep/wake. Time machine outlasted the external HDD it was running on. I am writing this on an M1 Max, which will be 5 years old this year, and I hope I get 5 more years, it's just that good.
Yeah - the sleep/wake one is crazy to me. I have had numerous mac's and windows machines over the last 20 years as well and Sleep/Wake has been perfectly consistent on the mac. In 2026 on year old hardware from Microsoft (Surface Pro) I have regular issues with waking from sleep, or more commonly, the battery will just be completely dead in the morning when it had a full charge the night before.
The python complaint I get, but it is because they ship an old python version with the OS and you have to work around that to install a different version.
Security settings can be set via the Settings app and don't require the terminal like the author stated. They can be changed via the terminal, but the golden path is just tapping a button in settings to allow the unauthorized app and typing in your password. Granted - it isn't obvious, and I only know this because over the years as notarization was added the dialogs became slowly less helpful in guiding you to the right spot, I think now in Tahoe they don't even make a mention of where you should go to allow it.
The last time my Time Machine backup was corrupt was in 2013 when I was writing to a SMB share over a PPTP VPN through a 4G connection. I don’t blame Apple for my own crappy infrastructure, corruption was bound to happen.
It's interesting how the sentiment around Apple has turned, for the first time in what feels like 20 years.
The true reason is, as the recent norwegian report quipped: We love our tech, but it betrays us - that's an abusive relationship.
Consent prompts are a band-aid for users being exploited: They are not fixing the root but covering it with legal painkillers.
But the only true remedy is actually feeling in control of and empowered by your device - a vision that Apple once at least promised, but now has less and less legitimacy of heralding.
> feeling in control of and empowered by your device - a vision that Apple once at least promised
Legitimately, when? I got started on an Apple II, I used the puck mouse without right click, I watched people buy the insanely costly hardware that was always integrated and you couldn’t service yourself. Windows was always more open than Mac - people just didn’t use Linux because it required you to know how things worked under the hood.
Just like the rest of large technology companies, and the economy as a whole, we are all being squeezed for every drop. Eventually the well will run dry, there’s already practically no more data to pull, and the apps will get shittier as revenues need to keep going up, and all the pillars of tech will fall over like a tree hollowed out by pests.
> people just didn’t use Linux because it required you to know how things worked under the hood.
This is how Windows feels to me now. The very first interaction with Windows when I buy a new computer is to do Shift+F10 and type away some magical terminal commands to get it working.
That I have to use the terminal to get Windows operational after unboxing my new device is insanity.
From my notes:
> net.exe user 'username' 'password' /add
> net.exe localgroup Administrators 'username' /add
> cd oobe
> msoobe.exe && shutdown.exe -r
> There is no simple way to reset the computer to factory conditions.
This is not accurate. There is a built-in factory reset option on macOS, just like on iOS.
> We wanted to download a clip using yt_dlp (a Python program). Terminal told us, this would require dev tools (which it doesn't).
It is offering to install Apple's developer tools package which includes Python. The download is ~900MB, much of which consists of large Swift and C compiler binaries. That's pretty large if you only need Python, but in practice you probably do want the full dev tools because Python packages often compile C extensions when installed.
> Except, that non-blessed python could not access the internet because of some MacOS "security" feature.
There is no such security feature. Perhaps a TLS issue?
> Another "security" feature requires all apps on Apple computers to be notarized, even the ones I built myself. This used to have a relatively easy workaround (right click, open, accept the risk). Now it needs a terminal command.
You can also do it from System Settings. Or if you are actually building on the same machine, you can avoid the problem as described at the bottom of this page:
https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/catalina-executables.htm...
> On some Apple systems, this fails to show any audio devices, "for security reasons".
While the implementation is somewhat janky, there are real and valid security reasons to require consent for using the microphone.
> There is no indication anywhere that the hard drive is getting full.
Not proactive warnings (does any OS do that?), but there are plenty of ways to see how full the disk is, including the newish System Settings -> General -> Storage, which breaks down storage use and offers some ways to save space.
> There is no simple way to reset the computer to factory conditions.
System Settings -> General -> Erase All Content and Settings.
> There is no such security feature. Perhaps a TLS issue?
Definitely user error. If you install Python from the website, instead of using the developer tools or Homebrew (which requires the developer tools), you also have to run the `Install Certificates.command` which comes with it.
>I live and work in a multi-lingual environment, and regularly switch between the German and English keyboard layout. Lately, the keyboard layout no longer sticks. It resets to English when I press shift. Sometimes it does work, sometimes it doesn't.
Yeah, windows is also the king for that.
Almost every update reactivates the shortcut to change locale, even though I've removed it.
And they even added a new shortcut to change locale : Win+space.
So as I'm always juggling between mac and windows, Win+space is sometimes pressed instead of ctrl+space and then all of a sudden my keyboard is switched to another language.
Don't worry, there's a fix ! Modify all the installed language, add your keyboard layout and remove all the others. So now you can also have a an English locale with a non English keyboard layout.
My elderly mother was recently on the verge of tears after her devices were updated to iOS 26.
"I can't find anything anymore. Why would they do this? This is so confusing."
> This used to have a relatively easy workaround (right click, open, accept the risk). Now it needs a terminal command.
You can also just go into System Settings, Security and hit Approve.
Personally I prefer it if the software I use has been signed using the certificate of the developer. But it would be nice if Apple if they could lower the annual cost of membership (currently $99).
There is no excuse for poor software when you only have to support a tiny number of hardware variations.
They also support a large number of previous OS. If you hard reset your 2013 Mac, it'll download OSX Mountain Lion.
IDK if you're the author but yt-dlp can easily be installed with Homebrew. Manually downloading the interpreter etc is quite the rigmarole.
And installing Homebrew also installs the developer tools, which would have take care of the Python problem.
yes especially because homebrew will also setup deno for you, which is required for youtube itself.
We’re past the golden age of personal computing, the money isn’t there anymore. I’m afraid we’ll have to get used to bad software for a while.
Or, you know, use software developed by humans, for human consumption, aka community software, the stuff you generally associate with open source!
The author explicitly shows how in Apple's walled garden, even that had hurdles that have been put up, 'for security'.
I appreciate the sentiment of voting with your wallet and supporting alternatives.
Unfortunately the major vendors are in a race to the bottom and the alternatives aren’t much better. Linux might be better in some ways, but I expect there will be enough minor frustrations that on net it will be a downgrade, especially considering hardware. Some of it is just needing to learn the right way for the given system - people (perhaps rightly) tolerate needing to learn to use Linux but don’t tolerate needing to learn to use Mac. Obviously the basics should be intuitive, but power user workflows need to be learned on any system - installing yt-dlp is a power user workflow.
I see loads of essentially disinformation about Mac on here, mostly about things that could be solved by Googling (I prefer Kagi) or opening the help documentation.
Skill issue
I disagree. This feature protects people who do not know better. Those who do, instead of raising their blood pressure by writing rants, can simply disable this feature.
Linux may soon not be an option because of age verification laws. The New York law, currently pending, requires age verification assurance from hardware vendors, not just OS suppliers. Locked-bootloader PCs are coming in order to comply with the laws.
Consent Prompt Fatigue and overload is a serious problem. To perform the most basic task across my iPhone + watch I need to suffer half a dozen consent & pin prompts. Often at the most sensitive and difficult times: it's raining, I have gloves, I'm juggling a power tool or something dangerous. My devices continue pin prompt me every 30 seconds like I'm holding the Nuclear football.
We used to respect that credential/consent prompt fatigue resulted in worse security, then the lawyers got their way, engineers / product managers conceded, and now users are punished with useless prompting every 10 seconds.
The only way forward will be for some a-hole product managers to push back on this nonsense.
> Consent Prompt Fatigue and overload is a serious problem.
My favorite part is that sometimes, a security prompt will pop up and hijack focus - and if you happen to be typing something, hitting the space bar will click on something, and if you happen to notice that, you'll at least know that something is now broken and you gotta figure out where to fix it.
Happened to me last night as I was setting up a new macbook, and I managed to deny myself access to edit my own crontab.
exactly. These are supposed to be tools and behave predictably. It's maddening when focus is stolen and interrupted by an unexpected prompt. Often for something I already consented to.
[edited]
[dead]
> "Suffice it to say, I have ordered a Linx PC, which will replace the Mac."
That was a sentence uttered with the misplaced confidence of a man who had no idea his real troubles were only just beginning.
Linux can fool you into that sense of security for a long time. But there will come a point where the facade crashes down.
Maybe it's plugging your laptop into an external projector, or getting to sleep and wake correctly without the WiFi driver segfaulting, or maybe it's trying to get HDR working, or audio routing or...
These days, the problem with Linux is more the quality of the laptop hardware, which is substantially worse than that of a Mac laptop. The Linux software itself is stable, although drivers can occasionally hiccup. Perhaps desktops are fine. Mac laptop + Linux (with good drivers) would be heaven.