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MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

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741–750 of 1001 posts

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#741

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That sounds about right. I was doing some work in this area very recently, which found a couple of methods to bypass sandboxing entirely, but somewhat humorously the issues did not require me to have any understanding of how the lower levels of this worked ;)

Blazakis' paper is a fascinating investigative/exploratory work, delving deep into the sandbox mechanism. I learned more than I wanted to know!

Yeah, it's on my reading list :)

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#742
post #98

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I don't see it on macOS 10.15.4 (19E287). The full list of categories on my Privacy tab: - Location Services - Contacts - Calendars - Reminders - Photos - Camera - Microphone - Speech Recognition - Accessibility - Input Monitoring - Full Disk Access - Files and Folders - Screen Recording - Automation - Advertising - Analytics & Improvements Granted I don't typically use Terminal.app (iTerm 2 user), so I launched term…

You can make the category appear and put Terminal in it with this command: sudo spctl developer-mode enable-terminal

I'd be nice if this was documented somewhere :/

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#743

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> I am so glad I decided years ago to leave closed operating systems behind. The problem is, there's nothing else out there. Everything is going to shit in one way or another. Windows is now a disaster, Linux was always a disaster in terms of user experience and isn't improving. Mac OS was the last bastion of somewhat good, thoughtful design, user experience and attention to detail and now they've gone to shit too.

The funny thing is, Linux has amazing User Experience if you go all-in on the latest KDE and its associated tooling.

I set my Mac-loving girlfriend up with Kubuntu for this reason.

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#744

Adding network calls to syscalls like exec() is utterly insane. This road can lead to bricked laptops where you can't run anything to fix it (imagine an unexpected network error that the code doesn't handle properly). And crackers will just use ways to overwrite running instruction text to avoid the exec(). The comments on the article are annoying: it good that there's a mini way to reproduce, but please, use some fu…

> And crackers will just use ways to overwrite running instruction text to avoid the exec().

This would require breaking your code signature and as such requires extra entitlements in the hardened runtime.

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#745

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There is no excuse for this except for sheer, utter incompetence. Everyone involved in writing and shipping this should be ashamed of themselves.

This is what I scrolled all the way down this thread for - to see if anyone thinks this is a good design/security decision on Apples part. I’m trying to understand what the reasoning is for this particular decision and if it actually makes the OS more secure in any meaningful way? Or does it actually- just degrade performance with very limited benefits? Are there any real benefits to this VS current security design i…

It checks that executables have been notarized by Apple? I can't say I really think notarization is great, but I think it's clear from their perspective how it would be beneficial?

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#746
post #707

I still love macOS, a lot. Since moving over after the disaster that was Windows 8 (and by then I was already using MacBook hardware), I've become a loving power user e.g. with AppleScript and setting up hotkeys or other ways to do absolutely anything I want on the screen. It really is still as powerfully customisable as Linux. Turn off SIP if need be. My only problem in moving to Linux software is that I prefer Appl…

Do you write anywhere online about your workflow setup using AppleScript? It sounds interesting. I’d like to configure my macOS experience more.

Oh it's not like I have a Cmd+ for every single possible task you can imagine, it's a very tailored and customised set of sometimes complicated scripts for my weird personal needs that I've built up over the years.

Each time I want to do something, I goddamn will spend 8 hours figuring it out if have to. E.g. this: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/381441/163629 - one hotkey to change macOS Notes text into a specific hex colour (and/or bold etc). It took me a day but I worked it out. Where there's a will there's, 99 times out of 100, a way.

You can seemingly do almost anything with AppleScript. Emphasis on almost.

Here's another example: Right after I plug in my iPhone via USB, I have one hotkey to automate a little-known feature of macOS where you can turn your Mac into a speaker dock for the iPhone. Awesome thing when you have the dramatically improved 16-inch MBP speakers. Here's my applescipt for that, just customise according to your iPhone name near the bottom and try it out: https://pastebin.com/raw/9BY710Y6

YMMV, if you have additional audio devices in sound prefs so may need to change the code a bit.

AppleScript also has the ability to perform unix bash scripting and commands, so with homebrew able to install most common Linux packages, you can go wild if you want.

I'm definitely not 'advanced' applescript level, I'm intermediate. Hundreds of HN readers would know more than me. I just google and think until I find a way. I'm not a programmer.

I have other shortcuts e.g. to control the MPV media player even if it's not the currently active window. Again, weird personal needs, but awesome. AppleScript to the rescue.

FastScripts is how I assign universal hotkeys to any of my applescripts.

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#747

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I scrolled all the way down this thread for - to see if anyone thinks this is a good design/security decision on Apples part. I’m trying to understand what the reasoning is for this particular decision and if it actually makes the OS more secure in any meaningful way? Or does it actually- just degrade performance with very limited benefits? Are there any real benefits to this VS current security design i…

Couldn't this have been a business decision? Not about security? (just what they say?) To make non-App-store apps annoyingly unusable, so the App store will sell more apps, instead of people downloading in other ways? Just like Apple cripples the Safari browser and PWA apps. Long term, maybe Apple wants to be able to remote-forbid apps if Apple is developing their own competing app? Whilst most developers working at…

I don't think the people at Apple are actively trying to make non-App Store apps unusable because they want to make more money from the App Store or anything. It's just that they want code to pass through them, and as a by product making code that has been vetted less or does things that could potentially be abused is made more annoying to run. Such a change is divisive, as you may have guessed.

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#748

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There’s going to be a big exodus of open source developers going to Linux-powered platforms instead of the standard Mac laptop because of this ridiculousness

> the standard Mac laptop There is nothing standard about a Mac laptop, both technically and in market share.

At Silicon Valley technology companies? A Mac is generally the computer that you're likely to get.

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#749

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a 2019 Macbook Pro 16in and I hate it. It runs exceptionally hot (leading to massive performance problems), doesn't get enough power from the adapter to start with no battery, doesn't play nicely with my display, needs restarting every couple of days so Chrome doesn't crash and takes forever to boot. That's just the technical problems. I'm willing to give the UI a break, since it's probably as much me adjustin…

Actually, I do agree with you with some of those observations. Apple's been trying to fix their terrible T2 issue and I suspect some of the problems lately have been them trying to prevent the T2 reboot crash, while ruining other parts of the experience in the process as a necessary compromise. It may get worse (or better) as they move to all-Arm architecture. I also am sick of the touch bar now - after 2 years livin…

> it's an LCD screen

OLED.

Re: MacOS Catalina: Slow by Design?

#750

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this is the future I've been foreseeing for years. Every new OS update just ever so slightly decreases your ability to control what software is on your device, and how you can use it. For example, you used to be able to back up your purchased iOS apps to your computer, and restore them from your computer. In one iOS update (9 IIRC?), they removed the ability to back up the apps from your phone. In a later iOS/i…

If I may ask, why do you still persist with apple products then? Sounds like masochism from here...

I have no intention of buying more at this point. The last was the iPhone 8 in 2017. No clue yet what I'll do in the future for a smartphone, because I don't see Android as an option at all. Hopefully this iPhone 8 lasts forever :)
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