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My partner got the "you must download iOS 18.3, it has security fixes!" message, and did so. It defaults to Apple Intelligence "on", which they had already dec
by deltarholamda 2y ago
My partner got the "you must download iOS 18.3, it has security fixes!" message, and did so.
It defaults to Apple Intelligence "on", which they had already declined in the last update. So, turned it off in settings. Then discovered they had to turn it off in each app that uses it individually.
That is not good, Apple. Terrible UX.
All the other changes were just as big of a hit. Mail went wonky (the Categories view is not great). The iMessage apps list is now gigantic and many of them you can't turn off, only reorder.
Honestly, this Wall Street-influenced AI goldrush is getting out of hand. Apple used to be better than this. The last updates to iOS did not make the devices better, just different. I'm staying on iOS 17 as long as I can, my feeble iPhone 14 won't do Apple Intelligence anyway, but I also don't want 18 and its changes.
Honestly, I'm about ready to just move to a flip phone. The only feature I really need is a WiFi hotspot.
- sureIy 2y ago[flagged]
- hobs 2y agoAs you are acting as a mouthpiece for Apple, let's pretend you are Apple. You just turned on a thing I find annoying that I have to individually turn off everywhere, which one of us is doing a knee jerk thing again? You, remove the knee. You need to sell me on the value prop of a thing, not force it upon me.
- sureIy 2y ago> you are acting as a mouthpiece for Apple No bro, read my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42899513 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42899513 > You just turned on a thing You appear not to read. It's not one thing. My point is that people are lumping things together also because of Apple.
- hobs 2y agoI read your point, you ignored mine - I understand the companies position, and they are wrong, my customer perception matters because you literally changed my experience. I genuinely don't care about the other perspective when I am explaining the one you are ignoring.
- Spivak 2y agoSo for you is the thing that because it's under the brand of Apple Intelligence and the apps are all made by Apple that you expect this kind of global toggle? Because I wouldn't expect to be able to turn off "AI" features in all my non-Apple apps simultaneously. To me they're just new features in iOS and new features in Apple's various apps. Never really before has there really been "turn off all changes in the last update."
- hobs 2y agoEntirely true, and I had to go through all my freaking apps and turn off Siri in them because I dont want some annoying voice feature, one by one. This compromises my belief in Apple being a company that gives a crap about UX. Here's an idea - say they are 10000 things, but I conceptualize them as one as your customer. LET ME TURN IT OFF. THAT CHANGES NOTHING ABOUT WHAT I WANT AND I PAY YOU MONEY.
- layer8 2y agoYes, it feels like Apple is increasingly embracing dark patterns. The fact that they are withholding security updates for older iOS versions from devices that support newer iOS versions is also one. (E.g. I can’t upgrade from 17.7.1 to 17.7.2 now, currently staying on iOS 17 like the parent, although it was possible for a few weeks from mid-November to mid-December, but I had somehow missed that. In other cases the updates have been restricted to older devices to start with.) Furthermore, patterns like the one noted in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42899637 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42899637.
- walterbell 2y agoIt's a disaster for Apple devices breached by an iOS zero day. A "workaround" is to track every outbound network connection, block C&C traffic at the router, then keep using older iOS-infected-with-dormant-malware. If attackers create ransomware (instead of spyware) for iOS, governments will have to force Apple to enable 3rd party backup and restore to a clean DFU install of their existing iOS version. Currently testing Google Pixel tablet and phone with GrapheneOS, where Debian Linux VMs will be possible in Android 16. Better security, weaker hardware, less usability, but at least the OS isn't channeling HAL 9000, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARJ8cAGm6JE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARJ8cAGm6JE
- okamiueru 2y agoFirst I hear about Debian on pixel phones with graphene. Do you have a link to information on this?
- walterbell 2y agoAny Android 16 device that supports AVF, which includes Google Pixels, but excludes Samsung. https://www.androidauthority.com/android-16-linux-terminal-doom-3521804/ https://www.androidauthority.com/android-16-linux-terminal-d...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- philipov 2y agoThis is why I don't update things anymore. Even if they claim to have security updates. That well has been poisoned. The updates themselves are a security threat.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoOne thing I do not understand is the repeated reminders to use some Apple feature like intelligence or Siri in the settings. It shows up as a badge on the settings app as if there’s an update. And there’s no clear way to dismiss it. You HAVE to click it then cancel the process of setting it up. It’s especially annoying when they do this for paid services from Apple - isn’t that illegal bundling?
- walterbell 2y agomacOS workaround: https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2025/1/7.html https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2025/1/7.html
- mikae1 2y agoCan also recommend GrapheneOS. It's basically unenshittified Android sans the dark patterns.
- ForOldHack 2y ago"unenshittified" The English language grows and grows. Thanks.
- everfree 2y ago> Then discovered they had to turn it off in each app that uses it individually. Technically the "Learn from this App" feature isn't an Apple Intelligence feature. It's been there since at least iOS 15 in 2021. I haven't heard people really discuss it at all until recently. My understanding is that it basically just enables suggestions. So, ordering things on your share sheet according to usage, search suggestions, the little button in Maps that navigates you to the location of your next calendar event, etc. It could still really benefit from a "turn off all" button, though.
- walterbell 2y ago> enables suggestions Dear Siri-Clippy, you were never granted permission to spider every decrypted message in E2EE messaging apps. Since you granted yourself this permission by default, please provide a detailed report of all data derived from spidered data, and instructions on how to securely delete said data from disk.
- rblatz 2y agoYou’re concerned about your phone keeping data on your phone, that it derived from data on your phone? At that point I think you are so far outside of the norm as to be considered a fringe use case.
- walterbell 2y ago> derived from data on your phone By violating the application sandbox!!! Some E2EE messenger apps have "data at rest" encryption of local messages. How is Apple protecting the spidered app data? Dec 2024, https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/us-officials-urge-americans-use-encrypted-apps-cyberattack-rcna182694 https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/us-officials-urge-amer... > Amid an unprecedented cyberattack on telecommunications companies such as AT&T and Verizon, U.S. officials have recommended that Americans use encrypted messaging apps to ensure their communications stay hidden from foreign hackers. The hacking campaign, nicknamed Salt Typhoon by Microsoft, is one of the largest intelligence compromises in U.S. history, and it has not yet been fully remediated.
- rafaelmn 2y agoApple going full Microsoft
- deergomoo 2y ago> Apple used to be better than this Unfortunately I find this to be true for their software in general these days, even outside of the AI junk. I'll continue to roll my eyes at the "Jobs would have never allowed this" trope because it's often trite, but the fact is Tim Cook is not and has never been a product guy and the polish seems to have long since worn off. Software-wise at least anyway; I'd argue the hardware has never been better.
- JKCalhoun 2y agoIf it's the software, you should call out Federighi.
- deergomoo 2y agoI have thought about this actually. Federighi seems to have a positive sentiment for having a sense of humour about himself and managing to deliver presentations sounding the least like C-3PO in human clothes out of all the execs. But I guess the buck does stop with him on this.
- rchaud 2y agoWe are still living in a world where most people think Apple is still a Jobs-era company. Changes in public perception happen after years of inertia. Anybody who's opened the App Store or Apple News at any point in the past several years can see the design and ads are just as spammy and ugly as Google and Facebook. anybody without their head innthe sand can see the Apple Intelligence rollout has been as bad as Apple Maps in 2011, and that dark patterns used to opt people in suggest Apple is waving the same AI magic wand at their share price as every other tech company.
- lemonberry 2y agoApple News is terrible. The fact that I can't remove the News.app from my computer MacBook Pro is crazy. It's considered an essential part of the OS. What?
- dpkirchner 2y ago
- ghilston 2y agoI don't post on hacker news often so forgive me if sharing a link to my own blog post is not kosher. I'll remove it if so. I've been experimenting with using a flip phone for a few months now. It's got some quirks and has been more interesting of a switch then I thought. I wrote about it here: https://www.greghilston.com/post/switching-to-a-flip-phone/ https://www.greghilston.com/post/switching-to-a-flip-phone/ Disclaimer, I have two analytics JS libraries running. One is gA, the other is one I've been meaning to rip out but haven't yet. I also want to add a comment system that ties into say GitHub posts or something else. Open to any advice on making these posts more "hacker" friendly
- JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 2y agoI find it interesting that a hacker with a flip phone would use analytics at all. Can you explain why you feel this need?
- ghilston 2y agoDefinitely no need but more of curiosity and current smith of time I'm willing to spend on my site. I've had my site for many years and the analytics set up were set up from the start. The amount of free time I can decorate to my site and the length of my blocks of free time have drastically changed, which made me focus the time I spend on my site to only writing. I have a large backlog of non writing things I wish to do, but can't justify them as of right now. I'm going to remove the UI tracking component as I never look at the data. It was just something I thought was neat and was exploring for a work situation at the time. The usage of GA is nice as it tells me what posts are popular but that's really not important in the grand scheme of things. As I always blog about what I find interesting regardless of how popular it is. So in short, if I was willing to dedicate my time I spend on my site to non blogging right now, is rip out our of the analytics tool. And look for a replacement on the other, or rip it out entirely. The flip phone component was mostly to decrease the availability of distractions in my life. Which doesn't necessarily mean I'm against analytics but yeah. I hope that answers your question. Thanks for taking an interest in my setup :)
- JadeNB 2y ago> It defaults to Apple Intelligence "on", which they had already declined in the last update. So, turned it off in settings. Then discovered they had to turn it off in each app that uses it individually. Same with Siri, by the way. It's especially fun because, even if it's turned off already for every app, it still defaults to turned on for new apps, so you have to remember what additional steps to go through for every new app.
- glandium 2y agoSame with iCloud, too.
- Huppie 2y agoAs someone who - by default - has Bluetooth disabled, I can safely say: Same with Bluetooth. I'm slightly annoyed I have to check settings every update, but it's not like it's something new, it has been that way for years. E: typo
- JadeNB 2y ago> As someone who - by default - has Bluetooth disabled, I can safely say: Same with Bluetooth. Bluetooth has to be turned off for every app? I thought there's one switch.
- walterbell 2y agoOne switch.. that ignores user setting and turns on after every update.
- JadeNB 2y ago> One switch.. that ignores user setting and turns on after every update. Ah. That is indeed irritating, but at least it's easily fixed once you know about it, even if it shouldn't have to be. Even when you know it needs to be done, it's very cumbersome to go through every single app, separately toggling off Siri (and, I guess, now Apple Intelligence? I don't know if that's another toggle). Fortunately this process seems to be "sticky" across updates, which is a win, but it still isn't something I should have to do for tons of apps at start, and then for every app I ever install after.
- benreesman 2y agoThe megacorps are reporting billions in AI revenue. Does that typically count stuff like this where it’s dark-patterned in? The Google Workspace thing where it’s a support ticket to make it even have a switch would be another example. It’s starting to seem like admitting people hate this stuff poses a systemic risk to the whole economy, which historically means John Q Taxpayer is about to pick up the tab.
- emchammer 2y agoLook at it as a typewriter that knows what you should say. Don't think about it too much.
- fsflover 2y ago> Honestly, I'm about ready to just move to a flip phone. The only feature I really need is a WiFi hotspot. Then you could also try a GNU/Linux phone.
- snackbroken 2y agoCan those actually place/receive phone calls (actual phone calls, not WhatsApp or whatever) and send/receive SMS messages these days? Last I checked, which admittedly was 5+ years ago, the answer ranged from "no" to "sometimes, when the stars align on a Thursday". Merely being phone-shaped does not a phone make.
- fsflover 2y agoYes, I use Lbrem 5 as a daily driver. See also: https://forums.puri.sm/t/nine-months-librem-5-as-my-only-phone-my-review-and-workflow/23268 https://forums.puri.sm/t/nine-months-librem-5-as-my-only-pho... https://forums.puri.sm/t/a-l5-review-1-week-to-my-ready-to-ship-l5-anniversary/23181 https://forums.puri.sm/t/a-l5-review-1-week-to-my-ready-to-s...
- snackbroken 2y agoCool, thanks! Looks like they still have a ways to go before some major pain points are ironed out, but at least the phones are actually phones now! I'll have to consider them next time I switch phones as I'd much rather the Linux ecosystem "support everything forever" attitude than the Android tradition of "vendor drops support 1.5 years after purchase".
- deltarholamda 2y agoI'm not completely opposed, but the ones that seem to be worth the effort are still very expensive. The advantage of the flip phone is that it is cheap and durable. If I need something more robust, I have a laptop. If the flip phone can get me decent internet, I'm good. And if I need something like map directions while I'm driving, well, I can keep my iPhone and just connect it to WiFi.
- Neonlicht 2y agoHonestly I accept advertising in Windows because I haven't paid for it since Windows 7. I am the product. But I always thought that you pay the Apple premium to get away from monetising shenanigans.
- FearNotDaniel 2y agoTo save anyone else panicking and/or wasting time searching for more context around this: you only get Apple Intelligence turned on (whether by default or not, I couldn’t say) if both your hardware and geographic region support it [0]. As an owner of a pre-15 iPhone in the EU I can sleep tonight knowing the 18.3 update won’t (yet?) do all these terrible things to my UX. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Intelligence
- exogenousdata 2y agoApple wants to prove to investors that users are enabling their new “Apple Intelligence” feature. It should be labeled market manipulation.