Finally! This is so annoying for Spotify users. Every time the system starts up, and Spotify is configured to start at startup, but you haven't interacted with the window yet, then press the physical play button on the keyboard—instead of starting playback as you'd expect, the system starts Apple Music. It drives me mad.
Another frustrating behavior form Apple is:
* My macbook will leave bluetooth on while it's closed and asleep.
* My BT headphones will connect to my phone and laptop if they're both on me. (It supports 2 simultanous connections)
* If I play music or podcasts I can pause through the headphones
* If I try to play it again it the "Play" action goes the macbook. (Which is effectively off so nothing happens)
* I now cant play anything on my phone. Hitting play on the app will fail.
* If I open the macbook now it will open Apple Music
* Otherwise I can hit the play/pause on my headphones then hit play on my phone it will work again.
What a bizarre useless behaviour. Why not just turn bluetooth OFF when my laptop is asleep. (It will also remain connected to wifi hotspot prevent my phone from auto-disabling wifi hotspot which has caught me a few times)
Fix this with bluesnooze: https://github.com/odlp/bluesnooze
As a MBP user (for dev because the hardware is so good), it annoys me to no end that macOS comes up short in so many basic ways that requires patching with so many third party tools to make it not annoying. Even basic window tiling is just terrible and requires a third party add-on to make it functional.
Agreed, the Amethyst team is doing saintly work over there.
Man I really tried to like Amethyst, but I just...hated it. BetterSnapTool works well for me.
I used Magnet before Big Sur, but have actually since switched to using Stage Manager. With multiple screens, I find that I seldom need more than two active apps simultaneously, and it actually helps me manage my focus better.
Yeah, I thought so too, but I find the exact configuration of which windows I want open and how big I want each one does change a lot.
It really depends on the size and resolution of your screens and use case. If you're using wide, high resolution screens, I really want to be able to place multiple windows in different arrangements on one screen for app development.
I find myself constantly shuffling windows around on my setup.
I loved BetterSnapTool, but I'm glad my workflow has simplified to the point where allowing my windows to be subjected to the tyranny of a dynamic tiling window manager actually made sense, and now I feel more at home than ever!
Every Apple user has this complaint at some point with some feature, and either buckles and just accepts the Apple way or, very very rarely, will go to the effort of installing something to deal with it.
Apple's foundational ethos is that they pick a single implementation and run with it, only making it configurable if held at gunpoint.
As a long term apple customer I would be happy to throw away out of the window every single device and their entire walled ecosystem in face of a decent alternative.
Unfortunately (or thankfully, depends on standpoint) the benefits outweigh nuisances.
I feel the same way. When I look at my aging Apple computer(s) I think about all the annoying OS choices that they made that are difficult or impossible to configure away or work around, and I tell myself, "That's it. My next computer will not be Apple!" But, then I look and see the shit that every other manufacturer offers and I can't believe how bad it all is. The hardware is mostly cheap, cheesy, flimsy, plastic garbage, and the software choices are 1. Windows which is so intrusive and user-hostile that I consider it malware and 2. Linux which has been perpetually "will be ready for prime time about 2 years from now." The last time I upgraded Debian on my home lab server, it failed and I had to boot in single user mode to carefully fix it so it would even boot.
Fortunately, Apple's hardware almost always 2X+ outlasts its software support, so I won't have to make an actual buying decision for many years.
When my friends ask why I choose macbook air & iphone my explanation is that they simply "suck less".
Pretty sad when that's the best way to choose.
Which if I'm honest I'm almost always fine with, as long as the way they ran with is polished as hell.
It's when the way they obviously want you to do things is flakey and doesn't work that it becomes super annoying.
That is a frustrating experience for audio. However, I do enjoy tapping my external BT keyboard / trackpad to wake my MacBook while it’s in clamshell mode connected to my monitor.
If only there was a way for the OS to distinguish input devices from output devices...
They would have to have categories for Bluetooth devices such as human interface devices like keyboards (let's call them "HID"s) and audio devices. I dunno, seems like a lot of hard-to-implement monkey business.
Linux definitely does this. What different DEs do with it is sometimes suspect. But BT keyboard definitely wakes my GNOME environment, while it does not stay connected to my headphones.
I can't say with 100% certainty, but I'm highly confident that GP is mocking Apple's implementation. HID has been a standard for a long time and is already widely available on every platform.
Oh, I am absolutely 100% mocking Apple's implementation. I have a house full of Apple gear, but that doesn't prevent me from shaking my head from time to time when I come across boneheaded stuff like this.
I wish I could turn this off. I keep bumping the mouse and waking my desktop which then takes a while to suspend again. But for some reason it’s not configurable.
Like the categories they use to show a headphone, keyboard or mouse icon next to a device in the Bluetooth menu?
yes, but with some method for programmatically reading the icon so they can know what type it is
Machine learning would make that task fairly trivial. Much like the TV show Silicon Valley, but instead of "not hotdog", "not headphone" and then treat it like a keyboard.
Thieves in San Francisco take advantage of the first one to check if there are goods in cars.
Honestly I doubt they bother with that when they can just randomly smash open 10 cars to check them in the time it would take to do a Bluetooth scan.
The "time" it would take to do a Bluetooth scan? What are you talking about? There are free apps that will instantly show Bluetooth signal when walking past.
There is no way to work out which car it’s coming from without a bunch of sophisticated hardware and effort.
Have you seen how these people work? They drive up, stop next to a car, tap the window with a window breaker, pull the chair down to look in the boot, grab anything they find, then drive off.
In and out within a minute. No time to be dicking around with Bluetooth scanners to see if there are MacBooks around.
You are very incorrect, but there's no point in going back and forth on this given how far off we are on claims.
Suffice it to say I have talked, personally, to enough bippers to understand that there are 'spotters' and 'bippers', and which one uses the cell-phone based Bluetooth scanner (which requires no 'hardware' or 'effort' to figure out the source of a BLE signal.)
Whoa how do we know about this?
This behavior is extremely frustrating. I have a pair that only supports one device, and on the occasion that I connect them to my MacBook and forget to unpair or turn off Bluetooth afterward, they will permanently be usurped by Apple Music -- computer awake or asleep -- and my phone never stands a chance.
I actually think Apple is the reason why newer headphones are starting to support two devices. Apple makes a decision for themselves and it forces entire industries to move that direction. As someone who hates the Apple approach (please give me the Woz machine: more ports, more open, more hackable, more mine), it is painful to watch. Yes I'm still bitter about headphone jacks :-D
What if you have a personal MacBook *and* a professional MacBook? Well they occupy the two available seats from the “multi-point” system of the Bose QuietComfort 45 and my issue is not solved.
Indeed, that's a good point. And increasingly is the case for people.
Exactly. Thank you. Apple please fix this. I buy 300$ headphones and >2000$ laptop and can’t listen to music.
Out of interest, what is the model of headphones? Asking as I’ve not seen this with Beats, Apple or Sony.
I have the Bose QuiteComfort and the latest M2 Macbook Pro.
Huh I’m glad I have AirPods, they work perfectly in this scenario. One of those Apple ecosystem things I guess.
I've gotten in the habit of explicitly disconnecting my headphones from all but the device I'm actually using, typically my phone. I haven't had these kinds of problems since, but what I gain in control, I lose in flexibility. Typical Apple.
Hello, I also hate that bluetooth stays on while my mac is sleeping, a few years ago I found this utility to fix it: https://github.com/odlp/bluesnooze/, my only issue with it is that if I sleep and wake the laptop in quick succession sometimes bluetooth stays off, but I can live with that.
What does Apple gain by leaving off the setting to choose whether or not to open Apple Music? Surely their pro audio users don't want it popping up just because they connected headphones.
"Choice is scary for users" is the guiding principle of the Apple software ecosystem.
Choice is scary for Apple's Services Revenue.
Apple believes they own every device, and feel wronged whenever users spend money without Apple taking a cut.
This is plainly true considering how hard Apple fought to suppress alternatives to the "App Store". I don't know why your comment was downvoted.
Probably because there is significantly more nuance to be had than the blanket statements would indicate.
Could you tell us what nuance you have in mind?
There are literally thousands upon thousands of comments debating both topics ("owning" an apple device & app store stuff) on HN alone. Let alone everywhere else from reddit to governments.
If it was so simply one-sided, there wouldn't be such lively debate.
I don't think we need to rehash those thousands of comments to agree that the debate can't be settled in a single blanket statement?
I don't really have the same impression that you have had when it comes to discussions about Apple's approach to HN.
This linked comment (which I randomly found on HN's search) summarises what I've seen here:
"The way these discussions usually go is that a bunch of Apple users complain about the restrictions, a bunch of Apple users say they like them, and a few Android users like myself remind the complainers that there are, in fact, other options that don't involve forcing Apple to take away the rules that most iOS users appreciate having."
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39574040
I do recall a few users opposing allowing alternative app stores (which is the debate that is freshest in my mind) because they prefer to stick to Apple's, and the common rejoinder from the community that nothing is being taken away from those who prefer to stick to Apple's store but that other users who want something different have more choice.
I'm still curious about what additional nuance you have in mind, since I honestly can't remember seeing it.
You cannot summarize thousands of comments (there's nearly 4000 comments between [1] and [2] alone) in sentence or two and pretend like it is representative of the entire debate and everyone's opinion.
Even so, your quote and further commentary proves there is more nuance to be had -- some Apple users are complaining, some Apple users are defending, others are suggesting compromise! The nuance can be found when you examine how those separate groups of people came to their opposing opinions. To say there is no nuance, yet give an example of a more nuanced argument is almost funny.
While I have absolutely no interest in debating it, the example that first came to my mind regarding the "Apple thinks they own every device" comment was the nuanced debate around security, especially in relation to the target market of the devices.
Thanks; I didn't see that debate on security and I can see it being a valid point, especially with the burden of a technically-inclined person having to fix others' (family/friends) devices.
I was trying to point to the opinion of the majority that I've seen and what I have seen from most of the community when security is mentioned is that Apple needs stronger security from a technical standpoint rather than controlling what and what is allowed on users' devices. I think both opinions hold validity, and you may be right that there is more nuance.
I've used to excuse such behaviors, saying that Apple has better integration between their products, cares about UI design more than anybody else, or that such integrations are new and don't have proper APIs yet.
However, years have passed, and Apple has been systematically giving preferential treatment to their apps and services, while dragging their feet on APIs for 3rd parties.
They keep using genuinely useful aspects of the App Store as a shield for anti-competitive abuse and petty rules (only in Apple's imagination allowing apps to mention other platforms is the same thing as allowing malware).
They've been spreading FUD and presenting false dichotomies that it's either exactly Apple's way, or chaos and malware. Instead of creating safe and efficient APIs for 3rd party browser engines, they chose not to have competition for Safari instead. Instead of creating APIs for easy centralized subscription management, they conveniently kept it exclusive to their own subscriptions, with pricing that can only be sustained in a duopoly.
Apple had plenty of time, and lots of chances to ease off their worst anti-competitive behaviors to keep regulators away, but instead they've doubled down on owning the platform and their users, and are now throwing tamper tantrums and malicious compliance.
I appreciate the more thoughtful comment! I agree with some of it, and disagree with some of it -- which isn't possible when you try and boil it down into a one-liner.
I don't think you need to infer that Apple believes they own every device.
You don't need to infer anything, really. You just need to observe that every corporation will engage in rent-seeking behavior whenever they're in a position to get away with it.
Apple is far from the first mobile device maker to try to make it difficult or impossible to install software through alternative channels. That practice has been in place since before the invention of the smartphone. Google likely would have done the same thing with Android, had it not been far more profitable for them to take a different tactic. Heck, in the USA, back in the analog landline phone era, the Bell system famously did functionally the same thing until regulators stepped in.
On that note, I'm annoyed that Apple does it, but I'm even more annoyed that, in the USA, we are absolutely toothless about regulation because we can't shake the pollyannaish belief that we should be able to expect corporations to play nice purely out of the goodness of their nonexistent hearts.
Google likely would have done the same thing with Android, had it not been far more profitable for them to take a different tactic.
I don't think that's fair. You have to consider the culture at Google and pre-Google Android. It might be the case, but at the time it felt like a very natural way for them to go.
On that note, I'm annoyed that Apple does it, but I'm even more annoyed that, in the USA, we are absolutely toothless about regulation because we can't shake the pollyannaish belief that we should be able to expect corporations to play nice purely out of the goodness of their nonexistent hearts.
Agreed, though I think this is a cultural problem more than a regulatory problem. We humans are suckers for good marketing, as Apple has masterfully demonstrated over the years. Some of their real life PR/marketing lines are indistinguishable from parody, yet people's faith and trust in Apple is at or near a religious level of devotion. They love the products and they desperately want to believe in the goodness of the creator.
Unless/until we figure out how to pull the curtain back so people see through the spin, they will stay powerful. Once we do that, the regulation will follow naturally.
Probably umpteen thousands of customer support queries about why Music now isn't starting when they connect their headphones after someone toggled it and forgot (or someone else toggled it and didn't tell them or an MDM profile toggled it or...)
A quick review shows that Apple doesn't mind lots of questions if they don't bother answering them.
How to keep a Mac Mini from going to deep sleep so it can be used as a little server? Answer: install Linux.
To keep a McBook from falling asleep when you close the lid, you need to buy and use a dummy HDMI connector that makes it believe it is connected to an external display.
There's the built-in command line tool to prevent sleep, run "caffeinate -d"
It's funny how everyone acts like this stuff works, but then I try to log in and it's asleep. If it were easy, there wouldn't be a thousand ways to do it that are all incapable, it would just be a setting.
Or one of the dozen “prevent deep sleep” apps…
Jesus, that's such a feeble, dull, uninspired way to make product decisions. I'm squirming from second-hand embarrassment just thinking that some developer has to live this nightmare.
Jesus, that's such a feeble, dull, uninspired way to make product decisions.
At Apple scale, though, it's probably necessary.
Less "engagement" in the Music app. Sure, most of that engagement is fake to begin with but why would a project manager intentionally ever admit to that?
Same reason ads remain in inconvenient places that are highly prone to accidental clicks even though it would be better for everyone involved if accidental clicks were reduced.
Same reason ads remain in inconvenient places that are highly prone to accidental clicks
Not under a PPC model
Edit: I'm saying that there is incentive to do this under a PPC model. Its just just "bumping false engagement"
Huh? My working assumption is “all clicks are click fraud” and whenever you see an advertising supported site where the content jiggles aloud (Anandtech) it is no accident that you were trying to click on a link and the ad moved to be right under your finger at the last moment.
First time users saying “oh I guess this what I should use”
Good point, I'm not sure I've meet anyone leave Apple's Walled Prison.
Pro audio users aren't using the play button on the keyboard (the space bar is the industry standard to toggle playback), nor using bluetooth headphones (way too much latency to do anything meaningful)
superfocused utilities to provide inexplicably missing functionality in macOS are a time honored tradition, but this may be the absolute peak of that genre of app
My nomination for that would go to AltTab.
AltTab and Rectangle bring productivity on macOS up to an acceptable level. I assume anyone using macOS without them is in a constant state of frustration.
Someone gifted me a MacBook a few years ago, I was floored at the usability nightmare the OOTB MacOS experience is. Especially after being inundated with nonstop articles about how superior Macs are by every single tech reporter/blogger my entire childhood. I assumed MacOS was the pinnacle of OS UX, a very big letdown to learn it was far behind Windows in countless ways.
i mean, as a long-time user who's experienced a ton of ups and downs in the the macOS world, defected to linux briefly, and returned... it is still the best OOTB experience of any computer i've ever owned.
the windows experience of 2024 is very similar to the experience of buying a gateway 2000 in the 90s to me. there's tons of bloatware, ads all over the OS, you're constantly being prompted to buy Onedrive and Office (what the hell?) a lot of the Things i've gotten used to on macOS that windows doesn't have, I miss a lot (consistent shortcut keys across apps fro all vendors, the speed and reliability of spotlight as an app launcher/switcher, the ease of previewing files in the OS without launching separate applications, the fact that for all intents and purposes you're in a *nixlike environment and have basically the full suite of tools available to you first class.) every time I go back to my windows 11 desktop after an upgrade I'm baffled by some other weird addition to the OS that I didn't ask for and don't want. In a way, I kind of appreciate that macOS tends to evolve slowly and doesn't do a lot of experimentation. When there's multiple valid ways of solving a problem, they'll leave it to utilities to provide those options. I kinda am okay with that. I used to think apple was extremely opinionated but it seems more and more like their philosophy with macOS is "leave it to the users to solve this problem." i'd also argue there's a ton of windows features missing, which extremely confusingly i have to add manually by installing powertoys (which means microsoft actively builds the solutions to these problems and then just chooses to distribute them in this bizarre, out-of-band way? it makes no sense.)
I won't deny there's a bunch of obvious stuff that i cannot understand - window snapping being a key thing, they've gone all in on their weird full-screen approach, which I don't vibe with. The fact that I need to buy an app (bartender) to hide icons in my menu bar in the year 2024 is pretty bonkers to me, and I cannot understand what motivates the complete lack of management tools for this, especially given how out of control it can get on a company-managed machine. finder is in need of a lot of love across the board. i'm also baffled by some of the stuff they choose to include - mission control is one of the single most confusing features they've ever added to the OS and i still have zero understanding of what the intent behind it was.
i guess all this to say i feel like having a lot of experience with macOS, i much prefer opening a clean mac to opening a clean windows machine (linux obviously is its own can of worms where it can't really be evaluated by these standards) and i can't at all agree that UX-wise it's a letdown.
and i can't at all agree that UX-wise it's a letdown.
...even when we're in a thread, discussing the lack of toggle-setting for an annoying default?
MacOS deserves some credit; Apple hasn't whittled away it's features too far yet, and the UI is still fairly nice from an outward-facing perspective. They focus well on keyboard-shortcuts and do a generally good job focusing on getting the basic windowing and desktop presentation right.
Really though, if you give me the choice between a Windows machine and a Mac I'm rapidly approaching the point I'd only take the Windows machine. Using MacOS, for development purposes in 2024, is a nightmare. Docker doesn't work; Homebrew is hanging on by a thread and acts different on different architectures; the Mac default coreutils play musical-chairs when they're outdated; basic APIs and cross-platform frameworks (eg. OpenGL) were forcibly removed in favor of insular non-replacements. Unless you're an absolute apologist for proprietary software solutions it's just so hard to say MacOS is a particularly great user experience today. For christsake, you type git into the terminal and get a modal asking you to download the 5gb developer toolkit - it's absurd.
Part of the problem with setting good defaults is that you're also expected to provide meaningful alternatives. That's the thing about "default" options - they implicitly suggest the existence of another possible option. Apple seems to ignore this, and the only interpretation I take away looking at their devices today is that Apple is chronically afraid of their users discovering that they don't need Apple or Apple services to enjoy their Apple hardware.
I mean I feel like my experience is completely contradictory to yours, and while I can't necessarily understand why, if I was having the experiences you were having I would also be frustrated.
I use docker daily in development - I have little to no issue with it, it's basically transparent and I have zero complaints about its performance or behavior. Perhaps I'm not doing things as complex or unique as you are? I don't really know. I have had no problems with Docker whatsoever, bar the initial migration onto the M-series chips that was clunky and awkward for several months (I was pretty much exclusively on linux, personally, until deep in this process.) Since then it's been A-OK for me. Homebrew, similarly, has just been transparent for me - I had a clunky initial 12-months-or-so and at this point I simply don't notice that I'm on a different architecture any longer. I had a lot of complaints early in the migration to apple silicon, at this point problems at least for my use case are solved.
As for the system-level APIs, yeah - I can't speak to that. I do web development primarily professionally, and then I spend a substantial amount less time mucking around locally, mostly on stuff that runs in the terminal or as a service. I do not have experience with (nor do I use) OpenGL or other whatever other basic APIs that you're referring to - I haven't really had an issue with that (other than Apple's extremely half-hearted migration into SwiftUI which feels hacky and half-finished.)
I absolutely agree that every time I type git for the first time I'm startled by remembering that I have to download the command line dev utils to get rolling with that, I wouldn't necessarily say that I agree this is indicative of a larger problem? The machine doesn't ship with git by default but you absolutely can install git outside the command line utils path if you want to (to the best of my understanding,) that's just the default behavior to unblock you in the event you just want to Get It Done.
My personal experience right now really doesn't reflect yours, and transparently I'm not sure why. I've never felt like apple's pushed any of its specific services on me aggressively, but I've also not used a machine where I didn't have some small subscription to iCloud on my account (I use it for some backups, moving stuff between my phone and laptops) and so it's entirely possible I've just never seen that portion of the experience - I may just be blind there. I just genuinely haven't felt that railroaded by the OS. I've never been using chrome and had a popup at the OS level ask me if I want to try safari, for example. I've never opened my laptop and found that suddenly there's some weird LLM-powered assistant on my taskbar that I cannot remove without a registry change. I've never installed a system update and been taken through an onboarding flow that tried to upsell me into an iWork (or whatever it's called these days) subscription and buying more space in iCloud. The stuff I really rely on (like spotlight) consistently works, and works well. I just don't find the experience as miserable as you're describing. Maybe I just am a person who is perfectly comfortable with apple's defaults and that is my blind spot, not sure.
Maybe I just am a person who is perfectly comfortable with apple's defaults and that is my blind spot, not sure.
This is likely the answer, if you don’t pay for office365 but do pay for iCloud you’re never gonna see the iCloud ads. I pay for both so I don’t see ads for either but there are enough reports by others (on both platforms) that I believe they exist.
I knew I should have clarified when I made my comment, I don’t mean the OOTBE of a fresh install, I mean the utilities and functions that come prebaked into the OS versus the functionality that must be added with 3rd party utilities and scripts.
Regardless, I’m curious what you mean by bloatwear when comparing macOS to windows.
Both ship with apps I don’t want or use, both push me to buy their proprietary cloud services using intrusive notification ads. Both try to lock me into using their homegrown browser vs one of my own choosing.
I don’t use those tools and am not in a state of constant frustration.
I use the Amethyst tiling window manager and multiple desktops.
Command backtick cycles windows by app. Long-press green window dot while holding option for window sizing control.
Not frustrated, hust rtfm.
The only extra thing needed is a Windows-style Taskbar such as the one I recently published :) https://lawand.io/taskbar
I bought Rectangle Pro because I liked Rectangle. The Pro came with the added benefit of assigning multiple custom window sizes easily without tinkering with the obscure Keys mapping.
Having never heard of AltTab, I looked it up. I'm still not sure what it does that Cmd+Tab doesn't do.
There is no way to map Cmd+Tab to Alt+Tab in MacOS. Which makes for an extremely frustrating experience in muscle memory when alternating between your work Mac and your personal Linux/Windows machines. This was the biggest grievance to me.
But the Cmd+Tab behavior is also incapable of switching between multiple open windows of the same program. So if you have two Firefox Windows open, you can't switch between them with Cmd+Tab.
Cmd+Tab also has the annoying behavior of listing programs that are "running" but do not have any open windows. I still can't for the life of me figure out how this would be useful to someone.
Oh god that last one drives me up the wall. It entirely defeats the purpose of using a keyboard shortcut to switch applications if you have to move the mouse to open a window anyway. It's beyond me why MacOS wouldn't automatically restore the most recently minimised window, the way literally every other DE does.
It's quite configurable, allowing different key combinations for different window arrangement functions, but the most useful one is that it allows you to bring a single window from another application to the top without rearranging the rest of the stack. This is useful if you are switching back and forth between windows from two different apps each of which has several other windows open, for example a browser and a text editor.
As opposed to what?
Linux barely has functioning wifi, bluetooth, audio, and video, and Windows also has countless utilities to decrapify the OS. It's not specific to Mac just a different flavor.
How long has it been since you used a Linux distro? Fedora has had all those things functioning out of the box for many, many years (at least 10+ for wifi, audio, video, 5+ for bluetooth), as has plenty of other distros. And if you think you have to decrapify your linux install, then you're probably using the wrong distro for you. There are plenty (most) that don't crapify.
i don't agree with most of the above comment but they did specifically call out windows as the OS that needs the crap extracted
Agreed. I see a lot of people upset at Apple coming up short on many basic things, but I was a Windows user for decades and found that to increasingly be the case with Windows as well. I wonder if people simply have higher expectations from Apple because of its "polished" presentation. Windows is known to be less polished but (used to) be more easily customizable and less of a walled garden (imo all that's changing now so there's really no reason to use Windows any more). People are cool with Windows being less polished because its understood that you're supposed to make it your own.
After ClassicStartMenu and a number of other important utilities being flagged by Windows Defender or simply not working anymore and after start bar advertisements and un-overrideable keyboard shortcuts to open the Windows Store I didn't see what Windows had left to offer besides legacy compatibility
I wrote one of those! https://github.com/bakkot/MenuBarVolume
I still cannot imagine why Apple decided that you shouldn't have a visible volume indicator in the menu bar when you have headphones connected. I mean, really?
I remember my Macbook 2019 Pro for its bad hardware: horrendous touchbar and terrible ports (no HDMI, no magnetic charging, no USB-A..)
But the software wasn't polished either: You can't use it in closed ("clamshell") mode, because it shuts down and you can't configure it. You need a 3rd party software to keep it on.
But you also can't keep it closed because then you can't reach the fingerprint sensor. You see: iPhones can't use fingerprint recognition because they don't have fingerprint sensors, iPhones use facial recognition. But Macs do have fingerprint sensors, but can not use facial recognition (for example using an IR camera like Windows Hello)
It's amazing how MacOS lacks features that everyone knows Windows has supported since XP days. ("When you close the lid > Power down / Keep running")
Lest anyone be misled: I assume the comment means that you can’t leave it in clamshell mode without an external monitor. I almost never open mine.
There are three alternatives for the fingerprint sensor issue:
- Apple Watch can replace most uses for it
- One of Apple’s external keyboards has a fingerprint sensor
- You can always just use your password
One of Apple’s external keyboards has a fingerprint sensor
Which only works on the M1 and higher models, not the 2019 Intel MacBooks.
Good point.
I also didn't realize (or remember) the power requirement for clamshell operation; my laptop is being charged by the monitors it's plugged into.
The “late 2019” intel MacBooks were some of the worst computers ever built:
- I had two screens fail,
- The battery swelled.
- It did not sit flat on my desk.
- It warped a pine desk that I used during the pandemic.
- At any time after a few months of using it, no fewer than 6 keys would drop or duplicate keystrokes.
- It got under 2 hours battery life, when new.
- under heavy use, it got about 4 while plugged into the provided charger.
- If you charged it using a port on the left side, it’d throttle the CPU to 10% normal speed.
- Kernel panics on resume.
- They had random monitor incompatibility issues with the LG monitors Apple sold at the time.
- My colleagues also had the exact same model, and mine was better than average.
- no escape key
- the touchbar was over sensitive, so pressing backspace would send a ghost keystroke that launched siri a few times a day.
However, you could run them in clamshell mode with the monitor plugged in. It worked out of the box.
(Edit: I might have the model year wrong. I used it for a long time before the pandemic. It was the last one before they brought the escape key back.)
It did not sit flat on my desk.
Because the battery was swollen?
- The battery swelled.
Ah, of course.
That could also explain many of the other issues, such as poor battery life, slow charging, CPU throttling, etc.
In general though, I have had a terrible experience with Apple's QA as well. I've had 4 Macbooks over the years and they all had multiple (usually different) things that really sucked and drove me insane.
The battery swelling happened after the other issues (like not sitting flat on the desk).
Also, my sample size is dozens of these laptops. My experience was typical.
I used one of those for work until last year, don't know what you call typical but it did last for 4 years without major problems so maybe that was atypical. It made a noise like a hairdryer when starting Teams (but then, even my new M3 doesn't like Teams). Also, the spacebar did sometimes trigger twice but not often enough to make a fuss about. First MacBook Pro I've used that didn't need replacing something during warranty ;).
The battery swelling happened after the other issues (like not sitting flat on the desk).
I had 2 x86 MacBooks that had issues with batteries swelling. Not sitting flat on the desk is simply the first symptom of the problem. Once it swells up a bit more the keyboard starts to show problems.
I think the main issue with those machines was thermal management. That Intel chip got too hot and that affected the battery as well. I used mine quite intensively and they regularly ran hot even with the fans running full speed.
Something went wrong with the 2019 models, because almost every time I hear someone complain about an intel MacBook it's a 2019 model.
I am still using my 2018 15" MacBook Pro, and it works great. About six months ago I brought it in to Apple because the keyboard backlight quit working. Turns out the battery swelled and damaged things. So they replaced everything, top case (with keyboard and trackpad), logic board, LCD display, and battery. I still have AppleCare so this was all done free of charge. Prior to that I had zero issues with the laptop in the 6 years I owned it.
Now my M1 Air has had a logic board failure, and the LCD cracked all within two years.
Which only works on the M1 and higher models, not the 2019 Intel MacBooks.
What? Oh man did I waste a lot of time trying to get that setup on my 2019 Intel Macbook.
You mean you ordered the product advertised as "Magic Keyboard with Touch ID for Mac models with Apple silicon" and expected it to work?
Why do people pretend people buy Apple products for its features. They are the best company of all time at Marketing.
Can we just admit they are really good at mind control and humans are predictable?
Maybe it hurts the egos of fans who spent $2000 on a mid CPU with 8GB ram, but the only people who benefit from this open secret are Apple stock holders.
Must you show up in every Apple/macOS discussion to offer your tediously boring Apple hate?
Apple hate? No, low quality, big price hate.
Check out my profile yo. No one is spared.
Apple hasn’t had “mid CPU”s in laptops for years now. People buy them because they are hands down the best portable machines on the market.
That's just the mind control. If you actually compare, they are not.
Given that you mentioned the 3rd party software, you probably know this, but I think even the 2019 MacBook Pro supported working with the laptop closed--but it requires the laptop to be charging, otherwise it will just go to sleep.
I, too, downloaded the 3rd party app ("Amphetamine"?) to allow it to stay on when closed and unplugged. As far as I can tell, it doesn't work at all.
Circa 2019(?), Amphetamine worked for me.
No idea about currently.
There is a builtin cli tool “caffeinate”. Prefixed to a command it will keep the machine awake until the command exits, on its own it will keep the machine awake indefinitely.
I've been using macOS full time for about four years. Prior to that I had been running some flavor of Linux for about a decade.
I moved to macOS exclusively because I had had extremely bad luck with Asus hardware [1] and I wanted to guarantee that my next laptop had minimally-decent build quality, and I was working for Apple at the time so I had a considerable discount on Macbooks.
I still really like my laptop (it's about four years old and the hardware is still ship-shape), but I've grown really frustrated with macOS. It's not horrible, it's still Unix so I still have a decent command line and access to good dev tools, but I feel like I'm constantly trying to work around the direction that Apple is pushing. I can't tell you how many times I've accidentally launched Apple Music, and as apps like this show, I'm clearly not alone.
Part of the issue isn't even that it's the default behavior exactly, it's that it includes all this crap I don't want. I don't want Apple Maps and Apple Music and all the other tiny little apps that depend on Apple services pre-installed. I wish there were a "minimal" macOS, that gave you a desktop and a terminal and a few other basic utilities [2], and that's basically it. It can't launch Apple Music if Apple Music isn't installed.
Once the community fixes up the Linux support on the T2 Macbooks, I'm moving over to NixOS minimal full time.
[1] I swore a blood oath to never buy an Asus product again; the laptop literally started to fall apart after only about a year of usage, and it was almost never transported anywhere (it lives right next to my bed). The plastic holding things together started to delaminate and I had to do a ton of surgery on it in the form of Gorilla Glue and clamps. Never again.
[2] Disk manager, for example.
My asus zephyrus was unfixable too. Luckily I had an overpriced warranty for it. Not sure what laptop to try next for game dev, I actually went back to a desktop afterwards
I don't do game dev, but FWIW those $400-$800 mini gaming PCs on Amazon are surprisingly decent, with extremely low power consumption, and many of which have eGPU support if necessary. I've become extremely conscious about power usage in the last few months and so I've been replacing my servers with them.
I started using one as a home theater PC about a week ago, and even the internal GPU has been pretty solid. I was able to do 4k video editing with Lightworks Pro with no trouble; I had trouble getting Stable Diffusion working but that was more of a software-support-on-NixOS thing than "crappy hardware" thing.
I don't play a ton of new games but I did PS3 and Xbox 360 emulation on there and for the most part the frame rate was pretty stable, and I've read that a lot of people are having decent luck with even relatively modern games like Elden Ring.
I recently found that my Razer Chroma X could not fit a modern 40-series GPU.
I'm not sure I can recommend eGPU's for gamedev for this reason (among, many others).
Yeah fair, I've never actually used an eGPU so it's tough for me to directly endorse them. I know people who have had pretty good luck with them but I don't really know many game devs so I don't know how well they would actually work with that.
The only thing I do that gives serious use to the GPU is hobbyist video editing, and I don't do that terribly often anymore. I do sometimes run Stable Diffusion, but that's mostly as a goof to generate funny pictures of Keanu Reeves. For that stuff, I think even a relatively cheap GPU does the job well enough.
1/10 failure rate of Razer Blade 18's in the last 18 months.
That said: getting them seems to be horribly hard, so I might regret telling you this.
[1] I swore a blood oath to never buy an Asus product again; the laptop literally started to fall apart after only about a year of usage, and it was almost never transported anywhere (it lives right next to my bed). The plastic holding things together started to delaminate and I had to do a ton of surgery on it in the form of Gorilla Glue and clamps. Never again.
I know this is tangential but I've had to swear off high end laptops in general because of stuff like this, and I've seen it with many different brands - they'll jam a bunch of high end hardware into the literal cheapest, most badly designed case ever, and inevitably that is what causes the issues, not the actual hardware (with the exception of MSI boards, which always seem to have some inherent hardware issue).
Never again.
I think that, for reasons that are various but ultimately just different flavors of the same reason, this seems to be the case for high end anything.
My 14 year old Kia Soul isn't in the shop nearly as often as any of the much younger midrange and high-end cars my friends typically drive. My $75 bottom-of-the-line Seiko 5 wristwatch doesn't need nearly as much maintenance as my old boss's Rolex or my dad's Breitling. (And a $5 quartz watch would require still less maintenance and keep better time too.) Our fancy Breville toaster oven seems to be reflowing the solder in its own circuit boards, and my parents' fancy Bosch laundry machines need to be replaced every 5 years, while our cheapo unit works fine and is older than some of my colleagues at work.
I'm guessing it's just that trying to pack more fancy features into a product means there's more to break. Or, e.g., if you've got a higher-end laptop then it might have higher-performance parts that generate more heat and degrade the plastic more quickly. Or they might have tried to distinguish themselves by using materials that aren't typically used for a reason. Stainless steel cars, anyone?
I agree with everything, but I would like to introduce another variable: economies of scale.
There are more-or-less objectively correct ways to do a lot of things reliably, to a point where they’re kind of boring. Since they are somewhat objective, most companies use them as the default and the prices can get lower and lower because they’re making more and more.
When a company purposefully tries the differentiate themselves, that inherently means that they cannot benefit from the same economies of scale, which in turn means higher prices have to be baked in. Sometimes that’s fine, I think Apple generally makes solid products for example, but a lot of the time this differentiation is just “different for the sake of being different”.
midrange and high-end cars my friends typically drive
I take it they don't drive Lexuses.
Yeah, this was one of those "Republic of Gamers" laptops, which on paper was pretty decent with a nice AMD processor and GPU, but the actual build quality was garbage.
I had this idea that I was going to have "one computer to rule them all", so something I could edit video on and play games and all that fun stuff. Since then I've come to realize that I would much rather just have some dedicated hardware (e.g. a dedicated mini desktop with a decent GPU) for intensive stuff and keep my laptop a bit more utilitarian, and primarily focus on something with decent battery life and solid Linux driver support.
I'm a little disappointed at how bad the 2019-era Macbooks are with Linux, and it's a little frustrating that the Macbook Linux for the M[1|2|3] is substantially nicer and easier to set up than something with an Intel CPU and an AMD GPU. As it stands, I managed to get NixOS installed on my Macbook and it's almost fine, but suspend doesn't work at all, and the audio quality from the speakers is awful, which is a dealbreaker for me right now.
I'm hoping that once Apple stops providing updates to Intel Macs, there will be a huge push to fix the kernel on the T2 hardware.
We're blood brothers my friend. Never again on Asus (though I do have a traitorous exception for mother boards, though I'm trying to change). I also refuse HP stuff for the same reason. Could be so good, but brittle easily broken parts end up wiping out all the quality stuff.
Definitely take a look at Framework laptops (https://frame.work). Unless they lose their way, I don't plan to buy anything else. I've also had great luck with Lenovo T* line (my T580 was one of my favorites of all time). Dell makes some gorgeous stuff as well (though I go with the business line of XPS, I forget what they're called at the moment, maybe Precision?). If you're going with Dell, Ubuntu or a derivative works a little better. I've had friction in the past with Fedora and Arch on Dell because it takes 6 to 9 months for all the drivers to make it upstream to the kernel, so if the model is new within 6 to 9 months you're stuck relying on Dell's build.
Yeah, I have a friend that bought a Framework laptop and he's said a lot of good things about it. My Macbook was expensive enough to where I'm hoping to get another couple years out of it, which I actually think will work out great, because that'll give a bit of time to further increase Linux compatibility on the Frameworks.
I sort of refuse to use any Linux other than NixOS at this point, so I might have to wait a little longer to get everything, but I think I'm ok with that.
I like my framework laptop, and while my particular main board seems to have issues, their support seems good.
I started getting weird boot issues recently, and after doing some heavy diagnosis, they are sending me a replacement mainboard, I'll replace it, and send my broken one back.
Granted it is within warranty, and it was a week of back and forth with their support.
But it is miles above dell consumer support, that I had to send my laptop off multiple times (going without for months) and then they don't even fix it.
Seconding Framework - mine's not very old, so I can't speak to longevity, but their mission is aligned with my values and I've been pretty happy with it so far.
Now I need one to prevent automatic clipboard sharing via handoff without turning off handoff completely.
Believe it or not Apple, some people use multiple machines for different purposes and automatically passing my clipboard between them is an annoyance at best. I'm happy with it just being shared while I explicitly remote from one machine to another.
Oh yes! That would be awesome! I often happen to erase something I copied on one device by copying something on another one... would be much better to have an AirDrop like feature where you can send a text to another device instead of automatic
The fact that macOS doesn't have a built in history for the clipboard is the problem there imo. I use pasteBot and I think macOS is broken without it (which of course means iOS is broken and cannot be fixed by a third party).
It can. In the EU. AltStore -> Clip. No jailbreak, clipboard manager.
The blog post about it seems to imply you have to do an extra swipe down to put it in the clipboard manager for every copy...
I use JumpCut. I still don't want my stuff on one machine erased via the other unless i specifically connect them via vnc.
I think you just need to disable Universal Clipboard?
IIRC there is a flag in MacOS settings to toggle it. It’s always been disabled by default for me.
I went back to Synergy from Symless. Handoff has some very annoying glitches when sharing mouse and keyboard. And Synergy is completely configurable. Not to mention that it is a one-time purchase.
A one time purchase, but they update it quite frequently, and each time we are required to open browser, log into Synergy account, find the download page, get the .dmg, install… to remove the UI nag - on each computer using Synergy. Please PLEASE make an auto-updater :) I think I had to do this twice in one week recently on three computers, with a strong password I had to write on a post-it
Can’t speak for others but the reason I use Universal Control is because it’s the only option that doesn’t perform badly without a hardwired connection, thanks to its use of an ad-hoc wireless network to send mouse movements and keystrokes whereas Synergy, ShareMouse, etc make a round trip through the router adding a bunch of variable latency, which IMO is worse than Universal Control’s glitches.
Maybe turning it off and using Paste app instead is worth exploring.
Turning what off? Handoff? But I like the feature where my text messages and voice phone calls can be done on all my devices.
I just want to turn off the clipboard.
What’s the technical reason for the launch? Lots of people report Music launching when they connect a headset, but it doesn’t happen to me with my Mac and headset. Do some headsets (like many cars…) issue a ‘play’ command to the device after connection?
Not trying to argue that Apple shouldn’t provide a way to stop this - just curious about why it happens at all.
My phone immediately starts playing some song in Apple Music that I haven't listened to in literal years every time it connects to my car's BT.
I went through and did whatever it is that's supposed to stop this...but, it doesn't work. So, I sit there listening to 4 seconds of Beck while cursing each and every day.
Apparently people work around this with an AAAAAAlbum containing 8 hours of silence.
might be scary if you're driving at night on a dark windy road and volume is high when the 8 hours is up....
FWIW, it’s the car that’s issuing the play command. I don’t understand why cars do this. Doesn’t make it less annoying than it being the phone’s ‘fault’ of course.
I did manage to stop this by making a shortcut that pauses media after a Bluetooth or CarPlay connection to my car. Sometimes get a second or two of whatever’s playing, but other than that it works.
I do think it’s something specific to some models of Bluetooth headphones. AirPods don’t do it, and while it’s been a while since I’ve used my Sony XM4’s with a Mac I don’t recall them doing it either.
All I can figure is some send a “play” command automatically when they connect, and some don’t.
From my personal experience, macOS will default to Apple Music even when there is a Spotify song on pause or a YouTube video open.
They’re using “default to” as an effective nudge mechanism towards their moat.
Yeah, I think some headsets issue Play when connecting. I had a frustrating moment yesterday on a Macbook:
- I was connected to a video call with Bluetooth headphones.
- It turns out the headphones were also connected to my phone at the same time, because it started ringing via the headphones and I couldn't hear anything on the video call.
- I rejected the call.
- The headphones attempted to resume what I was doing by sending the Play command to the Macbook.
- iTunes then opened covering up my video call window.
- I tried to close with CMD+W, iTunes didn't let me because I wasn't logged in and apparently the login window isn't allowed to be closed by itself.
- I manage to close the iTunes window and try to remember what I was saying on the call.
This was all due to terrible decisions by both Apple and Sennheiser imo.
Yeah wow what a great operating system that needs a whole other program to keep a particular one from launching. I'm totally going to recommend MacOS to my mother, aunt, uncle, cousin, cybernetic dog and everyone else for the great user experience of being forced to do what apple HQ wants
Will you be recommending Linux instead? Or Win 11, with ads galore? My question is only half joking, I‘m not aware of a good low maintenance alternative.
I installed XFCE desktop on Manjaro (I believe) on my grandma's computer that I bought second-hand a couple years ago for about $60 (i5 6th gen, 8 GB RAM, 120 GB SSD). There have been zero issues. Windows was a nightmare because it was constantly breaking or needing an update and Macs would be wasted money in this case. The usage is pretty light: downloading and sharing photos from a camera, YouTube, email, news, some light spreadsheet accounting, and that's about it. Neither of my grandparents are tech-savvy (my grandpa still uses a feature) and yet they both learned all, that they need, in the afternoon I installed the computer. Zero regrets going for XFCE (or anything that can be stripped down just to the features they need) and buying a cheap computer. Going Windows → Manjaro/XFCE reduced tech support calls to me from 1–2× a month to once per year.
Similar experience for me with my mom. I set her up with a desktop machine running Pop_OS! with automatic updates. I did some minor hackery to get Windows' FreeCell working on it because she cares a lot about that.
I installed tailscale for remote support, but haven't had cause to use it.
In general it's working fantastically.
The only issue is that the USB WiFi adapter drops out rather frequently. So my one hardware concession will be to replace it with one known to be more reliable under Linux. [0]
[0] I know sometimes this can be fixed by choosing a more appropriate driver and/or Bluetooth device settings, but it's not something on which I want to spend a lot of time or headspace.
For most people, reliable WiFi is more important than Apple Music not opening when you hit the play button.
It's GNU/Linux.
And Copilot/Windows.
I set my mom up with chromeOS and haven't looked back
My Gentoo GNU/Linux system is lower maintenance than this. If I don't want an app to launch I simply remove it and it's gone forever. It's a super-basic system that only does what I want and is therefore really easy to maintain.
When XP finally got killed, I set my dad up on Ubuntu LTS with MATE and he ran that way for many years with no issues. Occasionally hardware would fail (like the soundcard) which I would replace with a USB option. All in all though it was great for him. A couple years ago Ubuntu started demanding a "Pro" account/license (which shouldn't have been needed, it was the most recent LTS at the time) and making updates a pain for him, so I switched him to Gnome on Fedora (same setup I use) and it took a few minutes of orientation, but now he absolutely loves it. Absolutely I would recommend Linux instead.
Ah, helpful. I've had to stop using my Bluetooth headphones with the laptop because you can't stop Music from launching. Infuriating that macOS doesn't have a toggle for that behaviour (but I can understand why.)
I'm sorry, I feel like I'm missing something here. I have an M1 Macbook Pro running Sonoma 14.1.1 (I need to update...), I have a nice pair of Sony Bluetooth headphones. I turn my headphones on and off multiple times a day, they connect to my Mac, Apple Music doesn't launch. What are you all complaining about?
Edit: Just tried connecting my 3M Worktunes, and they didn't launch anything either.
Yeah I can't reproduce this with my AirPods Pro either. Simply connecting does nothing. I would assume something is causing a stray input as if you'd pressed the button on your headphones, which can launch Music.
I've definitely seen it launch as I put my AirPods Pro into their case (but not consistently), so maybe it is something with the pressure-sensitive stalks. Thanks, I hadn't considered that possibility.
I’m beginning to think the same. Can’t reproduce with Apple (including Beats) or Sony. Would be interesting to know which headphones do exhibit this behaviour. This seems to me to be a headphone manufacturer SNAFU.
There are some Bluetooth audio devices that send the play command when connected. I had a car that did this. It was absolutely infuriating.
Now I want this for my phone
When I plug it into the car, it automatically starts playing the same song on Apple Music
I want it to start playing Spotify instead, but that can’t be configured
Either I turn off CarPlay altogether, or I let it do what it wants
I vaguely remember reading about this issue in the past, it’s actually down to the way the software running in the cars radio is using a backwards compatible “iPod” integration. It effectively (against Apple’s recommendations) sends a “play music” signal as soon as you connect your device.
Well behaved radios don’t send that signal immediately, and instead wait for you to hit play on your device, or on your cars radio/stalk.
Nothing to do with Apple, but I recently bought an old car. It has a radio. Whenever I turn on the engine, it switches on. Actually, no, it doesn't switch on, because I found that behaviour so annoying that I just unplugged the whole thing from the power. It's a fancy sat-nav touchscreen radio that can show a reversing camera, has loads of settings menus, but doesn't have an option to stop it being stupid. What gives? Who in the industry thought that this was what people really wanted?
That sounds like a bug. Mine autoplays tidal, overcast or nothing, depending on what I was listening to last.
I even trained siri to use tidal by saying “play artist on tidal” a few times. (Siri is completely useless for this use case, but it does not open apple music.)
Reminds me of this gem: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32163667
When I plug it into the car, it automatically starts playing the same song on Apple Music
My car (maybe most?) helpfully sends a "play" command when my phone connects via Bluetooth. iOS devices play what was last playing, or pass the event to your music app if you've played something else in the meantime.
The fix in my case was a Shorcuts automation that gets triggered when the phone connects to your car. I set the volume to max and tell my favorite podcasts app to "Play".
If I just wanted an app to always be considered the "last played" app, I'd do something like add a one second delay and then pause. If I used Spotify, I'd also delete Apple Music.
launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.rcd.plist
unfortunately this disables the media keys completely -- the point of the linked software is it still allows it for media players intended -- such as spotify; and blocks the apple media player from hihacking
I have just remapped everything with Hammerspoon. You shouldn’t need to do this but it works…
Can you remap the entire keyboard so it's actually an ISO layout? I've been using Ukelele for this, but it's not optimal so I'm going to switch. Was considering Karabiner Elements, but i like Lua so maybe Hammerspoon is better?
It should be possible, but it will take some lines.
Maybe helpful:
https://github.com/hetima/hammerspoon-foundation_remapping/t...
https://github.com/RobotCharlie/key-remapping-hammerspoon/bl...
https://github.com/Hammerspoon/hammerspoon/discussions/3246
About macOS in general if you use hidutil
https://hidutil-generator.netlify.app/
https://rakhesh.com/mac/using-hidutil-to-map-macos-keyboard-...
it's shocking apple gets a pass on this. Not only for anti-trust reasons (it's giving Internet Explorer), but also that this is starting to remind me of all of the junk/bad settings packaged on Windows PCs eons ago.
Honestly, in some ways, a clean windows install feels like it less junk on it than a fresh Mac install. Maybe soon people will be building custom MacOS install media like folks did in the XP days, to trim the fat and make the default settings non-insane.
Another example of this is Pages, which INSISTS on being the default CSV viewer, no matter how much I check the "use this application in the future box." My only alternative is to uninstall it completely.
a clean windows install feels like it less junk on it than a fresh Mac install.
If you have the choice between windows and mac, go with Fedora.
I imagine you arent trying to run any specific software, so go with something that is 10/10 in quality rather than a 6/10 user experience, 10/10 profit maximization.
I specify Fedora because Debian-family linux sends people back to Windows.
anti-trust reasons
Desktop computing is a dying platform, so it doesn't really matter.
To your last example: checking the “Always Open With” box in the right click > Open With menu only changes the default application for that one file. To change the default for all files of that type, you have to open the info panel with command+i, and under “Open With” click “Change All…” (Or, I use the command-line tool duti.)
I just found out I can't remove the Music app from my own computer (Mac)...
You can disable all boot security and system integrity protection on a Mac and edit the filesystem however you would like.
You tried nothing and all out of ideas?
So how do I prevent iTunes starting anytime I want to quickly listen to a music file. Its super annoying since it takes a while, pop ups, and i have to right click to close it. Preview doesn't work for some reason in my system. And i just want to play the track for a couple seconds to know what it is, then move on to the next one to find what I'm looking for. Itynes takes like a minute. And I hate it when apps ignore the x button from closing them.
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/choose-an-app-to-op...
Look at the “Permanently change the app used to open all files of a particular type” section.
Or just never open them if it fits your workflow - use Quick Look: select the file, press space, play.
Thank you so much, both ways worked.
Every time I switch off my bluetooth Plantronics headset Apple music starts. Why? Because Apple.
Another clear sign Apple doesn't really care about it's users, it really cares about the bottom line, and getting people to sign up for their services.
To be fair, this could be the headset. Neither iOS nor macOS does this with my bluetooth headset.
macOS IO is broken in other ways for me though. It doesn‘t wake up my external monitor after waking from sleep (lid closed, powered, external keyboard).
I have my lid open with my externals, I never seen my monitor alone fail to wake, but sometimes all displays refuse to turn on, even the laptop built in. Doesn't happen every time, but maybe 1/10 tries
Been using this for years. It is great.
I discovered noTunes a few months back and it is one of the best installs of all time. It also goes to show how product/developer thinking not always aligns with how users want to use the product. And then, I start thinking why would a developer build such an annoying thing... unless marketing forced them to.
So glad to discover this, thanks!
You‘re welcome. The pain is real
Please do Xcode next!
wouldn't $(sudo mv /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/MacOS/Xcode /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/MacOS/Xcode.nope) do that, while leaving the actually important SDK bits intact? I hypothesize `sudo chmod a-x` may work, too, but I don't actually know how much the .app bundles care about unix perms
That really don't happen to me. Now if it could rip out dictation support that would be wonderful. It happens multiple times a day that macOS pops up "Would you like to enable dictation"... No, I would like to never ever talk to my computer.
maybe you can disable that key combination with karabiner elements or soemthing?
Can we get an iPhone version? I have the same exact problem.
If you download the free Apple Configurator 2 app, you can create a provisioning profile that disables Apple Music, too. It takes only a moment to install it on the local system, no MDM required.
Oh yes, one of my favourites
I had this app for ages but never set it up correctly.
Protip: install via brew, change defaults to open spotify instead and hide icon. Instructions here:
Awesome. Is there also an app that prevents Mail from launching?
For me, this works for the "play/pause" button on the keyboard but not if you have your Airpods double-tap or squeeze gesture to also do "play/pause" - that also launches Apple Music! Has anyone else reproduced this?
Will it also permanently delete that silly U2 album that keeps coming up too?
Ah, this is a nice find! I've used Santa[1] to accomplish this with a silent block, which always felt like overkill when I was using it for solely that purpose.
This is the kind of abuse of power that I wish antitrust regulators would focus on.
Apple, Inc owns an operating system and a music app, and leverages its control of the OS to secure an unearned advantage for its music app over its rivals.
Apple is not the only perp here, every single large tech company abuses platform power for competitive advantage in unrelated industries.
The need for such an app is beyond stupid on Apple's side, and I'm saying this as an Apple Music user.
I am an Apple Music user and I have Sennheiser headset that connects both to my iPhone and Mac. Great, no problem up to here.
However, when I, say, browse Instagram on my phone, after closing it on my phone, Apple Music opens and starts playing.
Every. Single. Time.
I don't want a software that prevents Apple Music launch, I don't want to delete Apple Music (even if it was possible) as I sometimes DO use Apple Music on my Mac, I just don't want to to open and start playing the topmost song in my library on my Mac every single time after any inline media on Instagram stops playing on my iPhone.
This bug has been present for many macOS and iOS versions for many years, and Apple does nothing about it.
After reading it again, I think "beyond stupid" is an understatement.
Unbelievable.
I need one of these for the news app next.
This could be a useful alternative:
Reminds me of the last six months before I switched from JPEG to WebP on my web sites. I still had a 2013 Mac Mini that didn’t support WebP in Safari because Apple hadn’t built WebP into the system libraries and they chose not to support my machine. That was enough reason for me to not make the switch (any economic benefit is diminished if you have to keep two copies of each image.)
I felt so infantilized because something that is just a userspace thing is locked to the OS.
To their credit, Apple did eventually enable WebP for those mac’s but I hate being dependent like that and having to develop software for people who are likewise dependent.
iPhones are even worse. You play a sound in any app, like a short clip in instagram or Safari, and then press play again you get Apple Music.
This has been broken since the very first iPhone.
They just need to add a stack of 2 entries to fix this for 99% of usages.
at least on iOS you can permanently delete the music app (permanently meaning system updates won't restore it)
I actually want the app though. Some music is not on Spotify that I have from iTunes music store back in the day. If you can believe it, several Black Sabbath albums aren't on Spotify.
This phenomenon is what is causing me to seriously contemplate returning to my own music collection. It's getting crazy
Ditto. And my Spotify library shows cracks more and more. I am a playlist curator by heart, did that with my 100GB MP3/FLAC Music collection for 20 years before switching to Spotify, but now and then you get an empty artist/track name entry and can't even see what song it was, due to the Song rights being lost.
Same. I've come to highly detest the empty artist/track name. Sometimes it's easy to figure out (such as a "discography" or "greatest hits" playlist where one album or some major-hit single disappears), but more and more often it's been pieces of a playlist I loved that is more and more wiped out. One of my favorite playlists has almost 30% of the songs as empty D-:
I was all the way on iTunes for its entire existence until several years ago. I just can't take its continuous nonsensical UI changes.
Now I recommend Plex. I use Prism player on my iPhone and I download my whole library from my MBP host. It's perfect.
Well.. to be fair, those records aren't on any system anymore. It's a lawyer problem.
Wait, you can do that? Will that fix the play pause issue ? Thank you, this is wonderful. I never thought it was an Music app issue. I always it's just iOS pip being broken.
I had never experienced what the gp was experiencing and I can only guess it’s because I’ve had apple music uninstalled ever since they allowed that.
do you remember about when that was?
I want to say 5 years ago, my car is a 2018 and I know the U2 autoplay thing was an issue when I bought it, but I feel like within a year a new OS came out that allowed deleting default apps and that solved the U2 issue. And I guess saved me from experiencing the gp’s issue.
You can, but you may lose the ability to reliably play anything on your car over lightning. At least I do.
(I also have to have downloaded music... thankfully I got that U2 album ages ago, ha.)
Yes, I had that issue too (years ago, when they first allowed deleting the Music app). I think it might not be a problem in newer cars, but my car radio only had iPod support, not iPhone, and it seemingly needed at least one song in the music library for the connectivity to work at all.
I actually bought this 10 minute long silent song on iTunes at the time, so my phone wouldn’t automatically play Weezer’s “Across the Sea” every time I connected my phone to the car: https://music.apple.com/us/album/a-a-a-a-a-very-good-song-si...
I've never used anything other than bluetooth (in my ancient f150) so that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
That doesn’t help me as I use Apple Music to listen to music that isn’t on Spotify.
The play button defaulting to Apple Music even when another sound source has been used more recently is one of the few things I dislike about iPhones.
That’s odd, because that’s not the experience I have. I’ve just replicating the behaviour you see and I’m not getting it. Could you give an example?
This isn’t an Apple Music thing. It’s an app stealing audio focus and them requiring you to manually revert back to what you were listening to previously.
Also that iOS decides to default to Apple Music. Every time I connect my phone to my car for example it defaults to Apple Music. Even though I have used Spotify AND Overcast to play audio lately but almost never Apple Music.
At least I could still buy "A a a a a a very good song" in iTunes Music Store still so it won't alphabetically run Anno Mundi (or for my wife whatever is the lexiographically first track of that U2 record they pushed on everyone)
But you're in Apple's ecosystem, you're supposed to use Apple products, happily.
The obvious fix for that "bug" is to start using Apple Music.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
Firstly, as someone who is frequently driven nuts by strawman arguments, thank you for spreading the general message!
In this particularly case though, I think you're missing the point. Apple takes an opinionated "we are right" approach to design, and it's typically an all-or-nothing thing. If Apple decides to allow choice, then you get choice. If they don't, then you don't. It's one whole, beautiful, integrated system (as they would say). There's a lot of (intentional) friction[1] in place to make keeping a toe in or out very uncomfortable.
[1]: Don't think this needs a citation, but if you disagree take a look at the "buy your mom an iphone" stories and the internal emails about making iMessage work on Android (Apple/Android families and all that)
Making iMessage work on Android is a non issue for most parts of the world: mobile messaging is fragmented and the US uses SMS/iMessage, while most of the rest of the world uses either whatsapp, LINE or WeChat.
I think you're missing the point. It's not about this single example. The point is that this is how Apple operates. It's embedded in product decisions all over the place.
But also, this comes off a bit like a "if you don't like it, move to another country" type of response. It's not very reasonable, and it's not very helpful for the majority of people.
How does this differ from any other company?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbole
you have to follow up the claim that it's a strawman with a counterpoint, otherwise it doesn't count. you can't just say strawman and walk away, if you actually want curious conversation, which is what this site seeks
And buy more hardware, just to be safe…
closing issue as [fixed in m4]
At least Windows had the decency to make their ridiculous straight-to-LinkedIn keyboard shortcut obscure. Applications auto-launching should not be a thing unless the user set them up to do so or they’re essential to the system’s functioning.
Mind blown.
The launch of Apple music also sends your system serial number to Apple, so technically Macs all have a single hotkey to share their hardware identifier and IP with the mothership.
Technically Apple sent their serial number to you.
Either way you can prevent this by selecting "Don't Send" when you first set up your Mac
This is false. No matter what you do configuration-wise, macOS sends hardware identifiers to Apple, on each OS update (the ECID and others to the TSS server gs.apple.com), as well as when it registers for APNS. The obtained hardware-identifier-linked certs are then used continuously to access APNS.
There is no avoiding it in the first instance (the OS update process), as it is required for updates if you have boot security enabled, and there is no UI to disable APNS.
And it is actually very useful, at least if you buy AppleCare+
Global repair with capped low price just by giving your computer and no questions asked. I just personally saved about 3000 dollars.
Exactly this. Concierge needs to know who the hell you are.
You were talking about the hotkey.
Good call. I agree generally with GP, but they definitely did shift the goal posts :-)
BeardedSpice is the saviour.
For newer Macs (10.15+) Beardie is a fork that’s been kept current.
https://github.com/Stillness-2/beardie
He's doing the lords work here!
Also annoying if you use AirPods for Google Meet and Zoom. Half of the time when I put in my AirPods, here comes Apple Music, stealing focus from what I was trying to do.
I get this all the time with bluetooth audio and even Carplay— connect the phone to some external audio sink and boom, I'm listening to whatever is at the top of my music library sorted alphabetically (The Absentee, by Crooked Still).
I'm relived to hear that this isn't a problem which goes away if I buy Airpods.
I never used to have this problem until recently, when it started happening every time I’d start my car - and even every time I’d stop playing other media in my car.
I ended up uninstalling Apple Music. At least they let you do that.
Somewhat related: Any veteran Mac user know any way to disable this thing?
https://i.postimg.cc/P5XJ1wwJ/image.png
System Settings > Control Centre > Now Playing > Show When Active or Don’t Show in Menu Bar
If only it were so easy. What is shown in the screen shot above is the result of exercising the option you describe.
Unfortunately that option only disables the display of the currently playing track title, not the entire section labelled "Music".
I modified my touch bar to no longer show the play/pause button because every time I forgot and hit it, I got punished by Apple Music opening and getting stuck in a loop of me force-quitting it and it restarting.
Me too. Sad to say just how huge the quality of life improvement from this small tweak.
I feel weird reading this thread because I use a Mac all day, every day, and I have never noticed this problem. I honestly had no idea that this was a big frustration for people, and when I saw this thread I thought "why would I need to prevent Apple Music from opening?"
I can't remember ever being annoyed by the "play" button opening Apple Music - the worst it might do is start playing the YouTube video in an open browser tab when I wanted it to play Spotify (it depends on which app i most recently alt-tabbed from), but that's only a minor annoyance.
Am I the weird one? My system rarely starts up because I rarely turn it off; why bother? (`uptime` reports that the last time I restarted the computer was 79 days ago.) And I pretty much always have Spotify or YouTube (the two main places I open in the background, so Macos doesn't need to open a new app to start playing.
What am I doing right?
For me, it's an issue because my headphones have touch input on the outside of the right side ear and often when I'm putting them on I'll accidentally rich it in a way that registers as a tap which sends the play command.
I never agreed to the EULA, which at least makes it easy to stop.