On windows you got garbage like trial versions of Blah software.
This is a fully functioning feature that people don’t like for what ever reason.
On windows you got garbage like trial versions of Blah software.
This is a fully functioning feature that people don’t like for what ever reason.
Automatically downloading AI models into disk space with no user-facing way to turn it off is especially hostile considering Apple as vendor of both the OS and the hardware is the same entity that overcharges for non-upgradable SSD storage in their machines.
They'll rent you more iCloud space when you fill up the SSD. That's good, holistic customer service.
That doesn’t work unless you’re actually able to offload stuff from disk, which is only the case when you store stuff in your iCloud Drive / photos / etc.
Case in point: the AI models can’t be offloaded to iCloud.
Maybe someone can explain why their SSDs, when not soldered down, are a proprietary form factor and can't be replaced with a standard M.2 device?
I believe they have a special kind of SSD, where the controller is locked into the motherboard. This is serial locked in some form.
(Correct me if I’m wrong, but this is how I understand it)
My understanding is that the controller is integrated into the SoC.
You can actually replace the storage on Apple desktops but it’s a bit of a pain and isn’t as cheap as m.2 2280 drives.
I don’t really know why Apple does this when their solution doesn’t seem to offer an obvious advantage. They aren’t faster than existing solutions or anything like that.
Vendor lock-in increases their profit margins. If people could purchase a 128GB Mac mini and install their own 2TB drives they wouldn't make as much money.
To gain the same effect as one that is soldered down, while giving themselves a simpler portfolio of assemblies and a cheaper FRU to swap in the event of failure.
So vendor locking to make more money. :)
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, but what you're calling "good, holistic customer service" is more commonly described as "inventing a problem and then selling you the solution".
Google is doing the same on Android - there's no native tool to search for large images and videos by date. There's a Purchase Google Cloud Storage type of header that pops up when you start to get full, and you can delete whatever is quick to find or remember to delete, like WhatsApp media, which you find through an annoying directory structure with a broken tool. It's terrible.
Like it or not, Siri is one of the features of macOS and has been for a long time. It's not just some arbitrary AI model that Apple decided to store on your disk.
People have been doing the same thing with Cortana on Windows for ages. "Debloating" tools don't primarily target OEM add-ons like free trials of this or that; they very much target Windows components.
Cortana was heavily integrated with bing. It was essentially a way to get people to use bing.
I swear didn't they lose a big antitrust case for doing this once already?
Fully functional feature consuming multiple gigabytes of storage and has questionable functional value. Maybe people don't want bloated AI crap on their desktops?
I’m not making any judgement on whether you should or should not like the feature.
I’m stating that the Windows problem was very different. Your machine would be loaded up with software for various vendors that the manufacturer did deals with to lower the price of the machine. They were all trials.
> I’m stating that the Windows problem was very different. [...] They were all trials.
Except it isn't and they weren't. MS Windows never came with trials, it came with shortcuts. OEMs bundled with their Windows image more of their (crap) full software than trials.
And to this day debloating tools are tasked with removing full MS bundled (or auto installed) software like Teams, Outlook, DevHome, Copilot, M365, Recall, etc. So exactly the same problem as Apple Intelligence. Whether you consider it useful is up to you. Whether it's bundled is up to Apple.
“Some people” arguments always hold true.
Old classmates back in the day used to hate the 128 × 128 px icons macOS shipped. A waste of space for eye candy.
12 GB is at most 4.68% of your Mac. Improving on Apple Intelligence is something of value, as is consumerizing local-first AI.
We’re not talking adware here.
5% is huge. And the way app bundles work on macOS, tons and tons of disk space gets burned up for each application relative to on an OS like Linux distros, so each GB doesn't go as far in the first place.
It's also not the full extent of disk usage by built-in apps which aren't removable by normal means on macOS. An empty macOS installation is like 35 GB. NixOS is not known for being particularly space efficient, but 30-40 GB is how much space I use on it for the OS and all applications, including a ton of developer tools, on my graphical systems. For the base OS with a full fat desktop environment, most Linux distros have you looking at less than 10 GB. So this comes as a massive increase on an OS that already burns a ton of disk space before you even get to touch it.
That’s a whole 4% of my disc. Get that out of there.
Apple's AI and harnesses are trash and a complete waste of space
Also suggesting that sacrificing 1/20 of your disk space is NBD is crazy. I have to prune space on my drive all the time because macs ship with the least amount of disk space that apple imagines they can get away with as possible.
4% of my disk on a computer with soldered storage hardware?
Is the marketing really getting this good?
This is going to shock you I suspect, it seems to be something many here fail to consider in any number of circumstances: You don't represent a majority of anything. A majority of people buying Macs, a majority of people they market to, a majority of who they design for, a majority of who they product test against. In fact I'd venture to guess that you like many here represent a vocal portion of a tiny minority that are almost impossible to please without the sort of full customization of hardware and software you want. It's much easier to neglect that small market in favor of the one that prints them money, and I'm always baffled that so many don't understand that.
People here misunderstand just how different they are to the norm. "I want x, y, z to be free so I can modify it!" Most people buying Apple products don't, hell most people buying any phone doesn't want that, they want a smartphone that works out of the box and never fails to be a smartphone. The walled garden is largely a feature and not a bug, it's just not a feature you want, just like the aesthetics, social factors, ease of use, etc don't matter to you as much as function.
Most people aren't like that.
Are you arguing that the icons did not occupy a scarce resource that could have been used for other things? Or that the value is so obvious it we worth it?
Useful or not there should be an option to turn it off and get space back (plus avoid LLM) if you want.
I don't need a more bloated operating system or greater resource usage for things I don't want, use, or need. i'd prefer a calendar app that doesn't suck, and an OS that doesn't decrease performance by 5-15% on every new upgrade for slightly older machines
It's the same reason IDEs have been largely supplanted by plugin-based editors & discrete toolchains. Integrating everything the user might want wastes lots of resources and includes things the user will never want.
That's how it was in like 2000-2008. Modern Windows bloat is Microsoft ware.
This simply isn't true.
Trial versions are installed by the OEMs so that's not a Windows problem.
Microsoft has given you the tools (Group Policy) for the last 25+ years to customize most of this.
My last install of Windows 11 was shockingly frustrating but with a little patience and discipline it's customized to Windows 7 levels of sanity using nothing but out of the box tools. Shockingly, it works better than writing angry blog posts about it.
They have to give you a choice because they have surly enterprise customers who would be upset otherwise.
> Microsoft has given you the tools (Group Policy) for the last 25+ years to customize most of this.
Morally, why should Home users have to pay a $70 upgrade (or whatever it is) to the company extorting them with forced-on crap they didn't originally have and don't want?
I just don't use it. I'm on a laptop with 500gb. I don't want to lose on so much disk space for a feature I won't use.
IE is also a fully functioning feature, so are snap packages.
On Windows there are lots of fully features features/applications people turn off. It's not all trial versions and it's disingenuous to pretend it's just that.
"fully functioning feature" -- more like fully functioning forceware/crapware which holds significant space.
So, it's not for "what ever reason", it's quite a reason to reject this.