Mastodawn

Phil Dennis-Jordan

Amazing, macOS 26 really is like Windows. My Mac Mini rebooted overnight to install an update, without asking, and despite the fact I left Xcode in the middle of a debugging session last night. There's a proud notification about "background security improvement". IT'S NOT A BACKGROUND IMPROVEMENT IF IT THROWS OUT MY WORK-IN-PROGRESS AND REBOOTS THE COMPUTER.
(Automatic updates were disabled, but I had left the "download security updates" option enabled. So I guess I have to disable that too.)

Phil Dennis-Jordan 14h ago

(The Mac Mini isn't my daily driver, that's still on macOS 15 and behaved itself. I'm working on moving my daily driver to another OS before macOS 15 goes out of support.)

Dmitry Rodionov 14h ago

@pmdj Curious to hear what that "another OS" might be. As in: is that Asahi on a Mac, or something else entirely on a non-Mac?

Phil Dennis-Jordan 14h ago

@rodionovd Moving off Apple hardware too, most likely. Baby steps though; I'm currently experimenting with FreeBSD on my big tower PC. I don't know how feasible that will be for more mobile computing, and getting completely out of the Apple ecosystem isn't likely to happen anytime soon also for work reasons.
Still, I'm increasingly frustrated with the way Apple is mismanaging their platforms. Plus there's the geopolitical angle of reducing my dependency on US-controlled services and devices.

Phil Dennis-Jordan 14h ago

@rodionovd Portable hardware wise, I'd actually really like to try the convertible form factor one of these days. I don't see the point of distinguishing between a tablet for "casual use" and a laptop for "real work" and having to carry both with me when travelling.
Maybe it really doesn't work in practice, but in Apple's ecosystem I've not been able to try it out. Anyway, I'll worry about that once I've found something I'm comfortable with on the desktop.

Phil Dennis-Jordan 14h ago

@rodionovd I hear the Snapdragon X-based systems are becoming much more usable on non-Windows operating systems. Unfortunately the only tablets (detachable or not) with those SoCs are currently Microslop's Surface Pro devices. Which I'm not super keen on even if I wasn't using their OS.

Dmitry Rodionov 13h ago

@pmdj indeed I think we’re in a renaissance era of Linux-powered mobile hardware thanks to the gaming industry and the attention it brought to both PC handhelds and Linux.

I wish there was similar movement in the laptop hardware area, but alas, its 2026 and only Apple is capable of building a good trackpad it seems

Phil Dennis-Jordan 13h ago

@rodionovd I do wonder how much of that is just unpolished drivers though. As far as I'm aware, the multitouch digitisers on non-Apple phones and tablets are fine, hardware-wise? (OK, pressure feedback is another matter, but I think I could live without that.)
I guess I should get a bunch of those keyboard+touchpad combos intended for pairing with tablets when I've got my desktop set up in a workable way, and see for myself what the big issue is.

Franklin Delano Stallone 14h ago

@pmdj to be fair the rapid security responses have been part of macOS for awhile now. I think it just happens it’s never been used until now. It’s unfortunate but if it’s used for genuinely important security patches and is rare, I don’t think that’s the worst scenario

Phil Dennis-Jordan 13h ago

@fds Unless it's literally fixing a bug that would otherwise cause the computer to catch fire and burn down the house, I don't see what could possibly be so important that I get no say in the matter.
I know this kind of overstepping boundaries and ignoring lack of consent is totally hip with all the big tech and startup companies at the moment. That doesn't mean I have to accept it.

Nick Ludlam 11h ago

@pmdj @fds Agreed, there’s a lowering of the assumed audience skill ceiling, which is a shame since that’s why many of us switched in the first place. I’m experimenting with Pop!_OS and like it so far, warts and all.

Phil Dennis-Jordan 11h ago

@nick @fds In this specific case, I'm not even considering it a skill thing. It's just RUDE. If I go to Tim Cook's office, find that he's out, locate everything on his desk that he's clearly been working on or that needs his attention, chuck it in a bag and throw it in a bin out the back, that would rightly be considered ridiculous. But that's what this amounts to.

Franklin Delano Stallone 3h ago

@pmdj I’m not saying it doesn’t suck. A default of needing to opt in means the vast majority will never do it. Yet in this case it’s a bug that can affect everyone in their most common app (browser). Sure we could tell everyone just learn to use their computer properly but that applies in this case too.

We should have the right to do what we want on our computers and also acknowledge how much more is at stake with everyone’s lives now on their computers so defaults should be the most secure.

Franklin Delano Stallone 3h ago

@pmdj you do get a choice if you’re using it at the time but if you’re not then it goes ahead. It could be reasonable to leave a dialog up but there’s an option to just not do them.

Phil Dennis-Jordan 3h ago

@fds Well, by forcing a hard OS reboot for a minor browser(!) patch they've successfully made me disable the whole mechanism.
(Which incidentally made me check the other Macs, and I can't find the "background security improvements" setting on anything pre-Tahoe, so this does appear to be a new mechanism, which explains why it's never bitten me before.)
And of course, this incident has made me more determined not to buy any more of Apple's stuff. 😐

Franklin Delano Stallone 1h ago

@pmdj There was rapid security update or something like that but this is background security improvements. It could have been renamed or I'm wrong but I still think it's mostly a good thing. Imo the balance gets harder when lots of people use the same OS.

I do like Linux and it's mostly the same but the trade off imo is it has other paper cuts. like still hitting audio glitches even on the same brand as my 1st Linux laptop that had no audio issues. But both are better than windows imo.