The Mac Is a Power Tool

A lot of the time, when I agree with Gruber it’s grudgingly. With this it’s wholeheartedly.

Early in my career I was working ops, and we got into a debate about a tool we were building - how much we should let people bypass some safeties we were putting in. A veteran colleague said "the fundamental requirements of my job are to do unsafe things," which stuck with me. For a lot of what we do, you cannot make a fully safe tool that's actually effective and usable. You need to trust your users when they tell you they know what they're doing.

I do not know what to make of this.<p>&gt; I want applications to be cryptographically signed by known developers and notarized by Apple by default<p>Not me, this describes a Walled Garden to a tee.<p>Power Tools mean flexibility, not locked down. The only real &quot;power tools&quot; out there are *BSD and Linux. With those systems I can do whatever I want without begging for permission from a commercial vendor or anyone else for that matter.

There’s one power tool remaining, Linux

&gt; Such a laissez-faire approach to software privileges obviously wouldn’t fly today.<p>Funnily enough it kinda would work, again, today as most people now only ever need one app: a browser. I still need to install apps, but most people don&#x27;t. So as far as the browser itself <i>is</i> the sandbox, the OS is fine: it runs nothing but the browser.<p>It&#x27;s the reason I could switch my mother-in-law&#x27;s laptop to a Chromebook: she&#x27;s fine as long as she&#x27;s got a browser.

I will admit that the gatekeeper change is annoying. It’s already hidden under a menu with control click so I hope that change doesn’t hit retail.<p>But correct me if I am wrong, the weekly alerts is only for screen recording right? Realistically how many apps do you have with that permission? Given that it a highly sensitive permission since it can basically expose nearly anything else that isn’t in a password box… it seems fine?<p>Maybe make it 2 weeks or “smart” and taking into account how often the app is really using that permission.<p>But similar on my iPhone if I were to grant an app permission to read my contacts(I don’t, but still), I would want to know if it’s constantly doing that in the background.<p>Even if Mac has a notice at the top saying your screen is being monitored, I still think having this periodically confirm access again is a good thing.<p>As mentioned Apple does have to walk that line between power users and most users. Even as a power user why is a one week alert really going to interfere with my ability to use it as I wish?<p>To me the reality is there isn’t a solution here that appeases everyone. An app that wants unrestricted access will try to trick the user to follow a few steps to disable a safeguard. We see this all over iOS with so many apps trying to justify their tracking.

&gt; The Mac is a platform where you need to be able to shoot yourself in the foot.<p>This person yearns for Linux but hasn’t admitted such thing to themselves yet.

If I was a programmer or admin - GnuLinux. Just for gaming - windows. The Mac is what I call a Davinci Machine. Unrivaled.

It’s a mass-market computer used by millions of people who don’t want to shoot themselves in the foot. People can be tricked into things, perhaps like turning off a “Bypass Mode”-like switch. I think this is a hard problem.

I’ve been thinking more and more about this lately. I’m not sure I want macOS to be a power tool. I’m not sure I want Windows to be either - they have access to too much.<p>I want a VM for laissez-faire workspaces, and in those cases it makes sense for my workflows to use Linux (granted it might not for others).<p>This works out pretty well for me. I have my run-whatever-I-need environment isolated from my host, which means <i>that</i> environment doesn’t have access to emails and browser logins that I don’t really need on the VM.<p>Sure, the host <i>should</i> protect my data if the permissions are configured correctly etc., but I’m not about to give anything root access if I can help it there, whereas in a dedicated environment there’s less to worry about.

--- start quote ---<p>The Mac is an expensive tool. On average, Mac costs more than iPad or iPhone. I dislike the idea that computing freedom belongs only to those who can afford it. That seems classist to me.<p>Gruber says, “Computers are such an essential part of the modern world — and almost everyone’s daily lives — that computers-that-work-like-computers aren’t for everyone.” I agree they’re essential, which is exactly why computers-that-work-like-computers ARE for everyone. Otherwise, it’s haves and have-nots.<p>--- end quote ---<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mastodon.social&#x2F;@lapcatsoftware&#x2F;112939278677244969" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mastodon.social&#x2F;@lapcatsoftware&#x2F;112939278677244969</a>