I found this to be a very odd and strange rant. The author's three issues with Apple are:
1. Gatekeeping. OK, fine, but at the very least this has been Apple's stance for a very long time now (the author talks about faxing credit card details), so it's not like it's something new. If you wanted full unfettered installation rights, Apple was never the company for you. And while I think it's fine to argue against Apple's stance, I find most of the arguments are less than honest about the pros of things like developer verification for the end user.
2. mac OS26. I totally agree that this is a total fiasco from a design perspective, and liquid glass is unqualified shit. Still, I see Apple at least somewhat moving in the right direction by getting rid of Alan Dye.
3. Apple had a bug in their age verification protocol. Again, valid point, but Apple needs to follow UK law. I've seen a lot more missives arguing against requiring things like driver's licenses and other government ID, and so it seems like Apple is at least trying to go the least restrictive route by choosing credit card verification.
To emphasize, I'm not apologizing for Apple here. In particular, much has been written about how Apple has lost their way regarding the "it just works" philosophy. But it seems like the author's main beef is against Apple's level of control, and this is just a fundamental difference in Apple's stance that has existed for about 2 decades.
Author here. Thanks for engaging is such gentle way, this is rare these days. Let me address some of your comments and maybe you'll understand my position a bit better even if you don't agree.
> 1.Gatekeeping. OK, fine, but at the very least this has been Apple's stance for a very long time now (the author talks about faxing credit card details), so it's not like it's something new. If you wanted full unfettered installation rights, Apple was never the company for you. And while I think it's fine to argue against Apple's stance, I find most of the arguments are less than honest about the pros of things like developer verification for the end user.
Apple been tightening that control over time. For a long time on MacOS X you could simply run apps. Then came notarisation, but you could still disable it. Now, even with a certificate, it still shows a dialog. I wish that apps that went through notarisation would simply run like the ones from the app store without a dialog showing.
> 3. (...) the least restrictive route by choosing credit card verification.
But not everyone has a credit card. Those are not something you're born with or required to have or even required to have them issued from the same country you're living in. That is not the least restrictive, that is a very large assumption. What I would have liked to have seen is them providing you with options: "do you want to use credit card verification? National ID? Passport? Credit check? Etc" and then it is up to each user to decide on their risk profile and what they are okay with.
As of now, my only way to verify it is by literally ordering a credit card from my UK bank when I'm pretty happy with my debit cards already.
I am in the same situation. French citizen living in the UK. I never owned a credit card and I have no use for it.
I can't pass the age-verification. I am 49.
This alone is quite irritating, but the overall developer-hostility of Apple and the quality drift of their software is convincing me to never buy an iOS device again.
And I'll probably not release any software on their platforms either.
French-US citizen living in the UK as well. I am not experiencing this because I refuse to install iOS 26 on my iPhone, and like the OP I am transitioning away from Apple to Linux + GrapheneOS, and about 90% of the way there since I started 6 months ago.
> Apple been tightening that control over time. For a long time on MacOS X you could simply run apps. Then came notarisation, but you could still disable it. Now, even with a certificate, it still shows a dialog.
Notarisation is just proof that the app went through an automated malware scan.
Windows, Mac, and Android have all adopted measures intended to warn and attempt to protect users from malware.
As far as age verification goes, this is a restriction being forced on companies by governments.
Apple previously allowed parents to set age restrictions on their children, or not, as they saw fit.
You have to pay apple 150$ annually for the pleasure of notarisation, even if you make open-source apps. Yet you cannot distribute apps outside store on mobile (besides in eu, but not really, but is't topic on its own…).
yeah they're moving into the wrong direction as well. not to mention that notarisation is for after-the-fact anyways. malware still slips through (historically true!). it's just supposed to shrink the blast radius AFTER apple knows a binary is malware.
what does the scare modal of "are you really sure you wanna run this? could be bad dude..." do?
the only purpose i can see it serving is to push devs to use the AppStore on mac, which is highly restricted in what you can do, and of course, takes 30% of your revenue
that's the thing, it is not an option. The only option is credit card, that is what drove me nuts. If it had other options, it would still be bad, but I'd have a way to solve it even if made me angry. Now, the only way to solve this is literally to order a credit card from my bank and then use it. Which is bonkers.
I haven't tested this myself, but verifying with a driver's license should be supported [1]. Anecdotally, I've heard you have to fail the automatic Apple Wallet credit card verification, get to the screen where you're asked to input a credit card manually, and there should be something hidden in a corner that you can click to verify by uploading an ID.
It’s definitely an option in the UK, as I’ve just used it, though it’s not particularly prominent.
If you choose the option to verify with a credit card and scroll down the form, there’s an option to verify another way, which allows you to use your driving license.
>Apple been tightening that control over time. For a long time on MacOS X you could simply run apps. Then came notarisation, but you could still disable it. Now, even with a certificate, it still shows a dialog. I wish that apps that went through notarisation would simply run like the ones from the app store without a dialog showing.
The thing is, Apple has never been about developers, its main thing was to basically sell an image since its inception. A lot of people were excited about the iPhone when it first came out, and then they quickly realized how locked down it was, and how it didn't even have basic copy paste.
Even now, if you look at the AnE in the age of llms, all of it is locked down specifically because its only for Apple to use.
> As of now, my only way to verify it is by literally ordering a credit card from my UK bank when I'm pretty happy with my debit cards already.
This is not true. On the screen where it wants you to scan a credit card, tap “Enter details manually”. Scroll down. Tap “Try other methods”. And there, you’ll be offered to scan an ID or your driver’s license.
If you can use a debit card to buy stuff online, then it’s probably a visa or Mastercard, which would qualify as a “credit card” for identity verification.
Before people in other countries started popularizing the term “debit card”, most of my visa and Mastercards were hooked up to take money direct from my bank account, but they were still called credit cards.
I thought it was amusing that you said Apple was a "stupid American company with American values", even though you're actually complaining about a UK law. You do know this isn't a thing in the US, right? Just your country?
you might not be aware, but UK law doesn't actually require Apple to do it. It is targetted at social networks. Even ofcom posted praising Apple for doing it even if they didn't need to. And yes, that law is stupid, but allowing only credit cards as a way to verify an account is also stupid.
Apple has shown a warning on downloaded-from-the-internet apps since Mac OS X Tiger. That's the only reason it's being shown, there is no scary warning that users need to step-through in some basement in System Settings as they would for a non-notarized app. The popup even says "Apple has checked this application for malware". It is the smallest of friction present to get apps to run, as I'd argue that the sandboxing requirement for App Store apps and the need for a sign-in make the App Store a worse experience.
And I say this as someone more or less utterly in the same boat as you. I bought a used Thinkpad last June after seeing the first Tahoe beta. It's clear Apple is not the platform for us anymore.
TBH most of these seem like minor complaints. I've been using Apple since system 5 and I don't really see the issues you highlight as valid, they're annoyances to you but they're for other types of user.
>Gatekeeping
It's a one button dialog, hardly the end of the world, and for users like my 80-year-old mother (An Apple user since the Apple II) who rarely needs to stray outside the App store it improves her security. It's not for you, it's for users like her.
They're tightening security because security needs to be tighter. My bugbear is the implementation of privacy and security permissions because I have to walk people through it continually, it makes no sense, but it's hardly a big deal.
>Liquid glass
It makes a lot more visual sense after my upgrade to a 17 Pro from a 13 Pro, but it also ran faster on the 13 pro than the previous edition. I'm not a fan, but I haven't always been a fan of Apple interfaces since the 1980s, I wasn't into the skeuomorphic era, and people love to have a moan.
It took 5 minutes to turn the all the features off on both mac and phone, the only bugbear is the 3D border, and the contacts background (solved by turning on high contrast mode).
It was a big release, they know where the bugs are, and have already said the next release is about bugfixing and streamlining.
>But not everyone has a credit card.
68% of UK adults have one, and there is an option to scan and upload an ID. IRL law is catching up to the internet at last, and as the father of a daughter who got her first dick pic at 12 this is a good thing. It's not for you, it's for her.
You're not always the primary user these features target so you may not see the logic behind them.
The Online Safety Act does not require device manufacturers to enforce age "verification" at the OS level. If Apple had not implemented this, it would still be in compliance with UK law. Apple is displaying anticipatory obedience here, which is the opposite of good citizenship.
Two things stand out from this fiasco:
1. Apple, and those who praise them for what they just did, don't appear to have learnt from history. Anticipatory obedience used to be known as "vorauseilender Gehorsam" during a particularly dark period in the history of a country a few hundred miles southeast of the UK. It was one of the factors enabling the darkness.
2. The UK is a small enough market for Apple to treat it as a test bed. Which it probably is in this case, and which means that removal of anonymity aka "OS-level age verification" is coming to a lot more devices in a lot more countries soon. See also the uncanny coincidence of lots of OECD countries pushing for online age verification at the same time.
I hope the author reports back in a year. Getting off the Apple train appeals to me, the reality of doing so looks bleak.
Full disclosure: I've been in the Apple ecosystem since System 6, worked as an engineer there for 25 years. But I am as frustrated by many of the decisions Apple has made as many people I see posting.
Liquid glass? This too shall pass.
Locked down ecosystem? I imagine the blowback if they unlocked it and people's devices were suddenly being compromised by malware.
I guess I prefer the frying pan to the fire that I feel awaits me if I jump. As I mentioned though, seeing blog posts after the jump will be interesting.
I had the UK Age verification popup today. It verified immediately based on the age of my Apple account, I didn't have to take any further action. I am much younger than the OP, and probably than their Apple account. I am surprised that this didn't happen for them.
Criticize gatekeeping all you want, but I feel it’s safer to recommend a Mac or iPhone to an older, non-technical person than the equivalent Windows / Android machine.
And I’m still able to install any app I want with minimal fuss.
Proceeds to explain why your opinion is not "fine" but rather invalid, because Apple boiled you like a frog...
Every time someone mentions here that they're concerned macOS is becoming more like iOS, Apple apologists show up to explain how that's not actually happening. I guess now you guys have just accepted it.
I’m from the US but reside indefinitely in the UK, and I’ve dodged all this crap (age verification, disabling advanced protection) by simply remaining in the US App Store. It has some downsides like I can’t download the Vodafone UK app but nowadays most apps are available globally.
And herein lies the absurdity of the whole legal framework in the first place. Does it apply to tourists? Residents? Citizens? Citizens traveling abroad?
Yeah, agreed. Gatekeeper is nearly 15 years old now, and has progressively gotten more aggressive, but AFAIK there isn't much new in the past year or two. macOS 26 is bad, but so is Windows 11...so unless you are willing to jump into Linux for desktop, there aren't many other options. And age verification is likely going to be an issue with any platform he chooses - are other companies not using credit card?
All the reporting I’ve seen indicates that he left of his own accord and that Apple was blindsided, indicating that they didn’t even consider getting rid of him.
The author is complaining about the fact that there are a myriad of issues with Apple's ecosystem that have built up a level of frustration with their ecosystem where they can no longer tolerate it.
I find it infuriating I have to verify that I am older than 18 when my gmail account is 20+ years old.
Him moving to Android will do them no good as Google will be implementing similar controls in it. I suggest they get a Pixel Phone and install Graphene OS.
Why are you so deeply invested into defending the honor of a massive corporation that's callous to its users? Especially corporation that's supposedly proud of their UX?
> 3. Apple had a bug in their age verification protocol. Again, valid point, but Apple needs to follow UK law.
No they don't. They need to grow balls. They pay hefty tax rates in UK. If they would announce they are leaving UK market in 90 days, I bet you would find enough politicians to change the course of this terrible law.
There's a bizarre trend, especially on HN, of unjustified criticism against Apple. There are so many YC companies committing outright fraud, Palantir is building a surveillance state, a bunch of well known founders and VCs openly promote white supremacist ideology, but you'll never see more vitriol on this forum than someone complaining about the liquid glass UI or app store take rate.
Any system of age verification will fail to satisfy the writer, because it is fundamentally the UK’s fault by requiring such draconian measures. Credit cards don't work ever time, but the other options of using AI or sending your data to a third company who will resell it are also not great.
The only other complaint seems to be liquid glass? It really feels strange because Apple feels on the upswing with their new office and their cheap, repairable mac.
The space allocated for "Apple has lost their way" has been maxed out for decades, so it bears stressing that this time is different. This Liquid Glass debacle has disillusioned everyone from hardcore Apple fans to normal people who otherwise don't follow tech.
Once the dust settles, this will be a case study for decades to come. Apple threw their hard-won reputational gains off a cliff for _nothing_.
What keeps me in the Appleverse is the hardware, and the software that Just Works with the hardware (I find that "Just Works" has been rapidly eroding in general, but naturally it still handles the hardware well). The alternatives are Linux on much worse hardware, or the non-starter that is Windows on anything whatsoever.
I'm told ThinkPads are getting to parity and have primo Linux support, but barring accident, my M3 MBP will probably last me a decade. Another reason I prefer Apple hardware.
The third point in this article is what really gets me. The credit card culture in Canada and the US is just insane to me, coming from a European point of view. You can get by without credit cards in Europe, and most of my family only has one for traveling abroad. So sure, they can use their credit card if they really have to, but it’s not a good default, as many others won’t even have credit cards. (And within EU, traveling without one is still fine for the most part).
462 comments
1. Gatekeeping. OK, fine, but at the very least this has been Apple's stance for a very long time now (the author talks about faxing credit card details), so it's not like it's something new. If you wanted full unfettered installation rights, Apple was never the company for you. And while I think it's fine to argue against Apple's stance, I find most of the arguments are less than honest about the pros of things like developer verification for the end user.
2. mac OS26. I totally agree that this is a total fiasco from a design perspective, and liquid glass is unqualified shit. Still, I see Apple at least somewhat moving in the right direction by getting rid of Alan Dye.
3. Apple had a bug in their age verification protocol. Again, valid point, but Apple needs to follow UK law. I've seen a lot more missives arguing against requiring things like driver's licenses and other government ID, and so it seems like Apple is at least trying to go the least restrictive route by choosing credit card verification.
To emphasize, I'm not apologizing for Apple here. In particular, much has been written about how Apple has lost their way regarding the "it just works" philosophy. But it seems like the author's main beef is against Apple's level of control, and this is just a fundamental difference in Apple's stance that has existed for about 2 decades.
> 1.Gatekeeping. OK, fine, but at the very least this has been Apple's stance for a very long time now (the author talks about faxing credit card details), so it's not like it's something new. If you wanted full unfettered installation rights, Apple was never the company for you. And while I think it's fine to argue against Apple's stance, I find most of the arguments are less than honest about the pros of things like developer verification for the end user.
Apple been tightening that control over time. For a long time on MacOS X you could simply run apps. Then came notarisation, but you could still disable it. Now, even with a certificate, it still shows a dialog. I wish that apps that went through notarisation would simply run like the ones from the app store without a dialog showing.
> 3. (...) the least restrictive route by choosing credit card verification.
But not everyone has a credit card. Those are not something you're born with or required to have or even required to have them issued from the same country you're living in. That is not the least restrictive, that is a very large assumption. What I would have liked to have seen is them providing you with options: "do you want to use credit card verification? National ID? Passport? Credit check? Etc" and then it is up to each user to decide on their risk profile and what they are okay with.
As of now, my only way to verify it is by literally ordering a credit card from my UK bank when I'm pretty happy with my debit cards already.
I can't pass the age-verification. I am 49. This alone is quite irritating, but the overall developer-hostility of Apple and the quality drift of their software is convincing me to never buy an iOS device again.
And I'll probably not release any software on their platforms either.
> Apple been tightening that control over time. For a long time on MacOS X you could simply run apps. Then came notarisation, but you could still disable it. Now, even with a certificate, it still shows a dialog.
Notarisation is just proof that the app went through an automated malware scan.
Windows, Mac, and Android have all adopted measures intended to warn and attempt to protect users from malware.
As far as age verification goes, this is a restriction being forced on companies by governments.
Apple previously allowed parents to set age restrictions on their children, or not, as they saw fit.
what does the scare modal of "are you really sure you wanna run this? could be bad dude..." do?
the only purpose i can see it serving is to push devs to use the AppStore on mac, which is highly restricted in what you can do, and of course, takes 30% of your revenue
It's absolutely nuts that you have to. But it's an option?
[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/iphone/comments/1s2n1yc/psa_apple_h...
If you choose the option to verify with a credit card and scroll down the form, there’s an option to verify another way, which allows you to use your driving license.
>Apple been tightening that control over time. For a long time on MacOS X you could simply run apps. Then came notarisation, but you could still disable it. Now, even with a certificate, it still shows a dialog. I wish that apps that went through notarisation would simply run like the ones from the app store without a dialog showing.
The thing is, Apple has never been about developers, its main thing was to basically sell an image since its inception. A lot of people were excited about the iPhone when it first came out, and then they quickly realized how locked down it was, and how it didn't even have basic copy paste.
Even now, if you look at the AnE in the age of llms, all of it is locked down specifically because its only for Apple to use.
> As of now, my only way to verify it is by literally ordering a credit card from my UK bank when I'm pretty happy with my debit cards already.
This is not true. On the screen where it wants you to scan a credit card, tap “Enter details manually”. Scroll down. Tap “Try other methods”. And there, you’ll be offered to scan an ID or your driver’s license.
Before people in other countries started popularizing the term “debit card”, most of my visa and Mastercards were hooked up to take money direct from my bank account, but they were still called credit cards.
And I say this as someone more or less utterly in the same boat as you. I bought a used Thinkpad last June after seeing the first Tahoe beta. It's clear Apple is not the platform for us anymore.
>Gatekeeping
It's a one button dialog, hardly the end of the world, and for users like my 80-year-old mother (An Apple user since the Apple II) who rarely needs to stray outside the App store it improves her security. It's not for you, it's for users like her.
They're tightening security because security needs to be tighter. My bugbear is the implementation of privacy and security permissions because I have to walk people through it continually, it makes no sense, but it's hardly a big deal.
>Liquid glass
It makes a lot more visual sense after my upgrade to a 17 Pro from a 13 Pro, but it also ran faster on the 13 pro than the previous edition. I'm not a fan, but I haven't always been a fan of Apple interfaces since the 1980s, I wasn't into the skeuomorphic era, and people love to have a moan.
It took 5 minutes to turn the all the features off on both mac and phone, the only bugbear is the 3D border, and the contacts background (solved by turning on high contrast mode).
It was a big release, they know where the bugs are, and have already said the next release is about bugfixing and streamlining.
>But not everyone has a credit card.
68% of UK adults have one, and there is an option to scan and upload an ID. IRL law is catching up to the internet at last, and as the father of a daughter who got her first dick pic at 12 this is a good thing. It's not for you, it's for her.
You're not always the primary user these features target so you may not see the logic behind them.
> but Apple needs to follow UK law
The Online Safety Act does not require device manufacturers to enforce age "verification" at the OS level. If Apple had not implemented this, it would still be in compliance with UK law. Apple is displaying anticipatory obedience here, which is the opposite of good citizenship.
Two things stand out from this fiasco:
1. Apple, and those who praise them for what they just did, don't appear to have learnt from history. Anticipatory obedience used to be known as "vorauseilender Gehorsam" during a particularly dark period in the history of a country a few hundred miles southeast of the UK. It was one of the factors enabling the darkness.
2. The UK is a small enough market for Apple to treat it as a test bed. Which it probably is in this case, and which means that removal of anonymity aka "OS-level age verification" is coming to a lot more devices in a lot more countries soon. See also the uncanny coincidence of lots of OECD countries pushing for online age verification at the same time.
> If you wanted full unfettered installation rights, Apple was never the company for you
Author started at System 8. They didn't start locking things down until the iPhone.
> To summarise for yous there are three main issues for me and the last one happened today and is what pushed me through the threshold.
The compounding led to this, not that individual issues existed (and have been a problem) for a while.
> Gatekeeping. OK, fine, but at the very least this has been Apple's stance for a very long time now
Are you sure you're not apologising for Apple?
Full disclosure: I've been in the Apple ecosystem since System 6, worked as an engineer there for 25 years. But I am as frustrated by many of the decisions Apple has made as many people I see posting.
Liquid glass? This too shall pass.
Locked down ecosystem? I imagine the blowback if they unlocked it and people's devices were suddenly being compromised by malware.
I guess I prefer the frying pan to the fire that I feel awaits me if I jump. As I mentioned though, seeing blog posts after the jump will be interesting.
And I’m still able to install any app I want with minimal fuss.
> but Apple needs to follow UK law
And the UK law doesn't ask for device-level age verification.
> 1. Gatekeeping. OK, fine
Proceeds to explain why your opinion is not "fine" but rather invalid, because Apple boiled you like a frog...
Every time someone mentions here that they're concerned macOS is becoming more like iOS, Apple apologists show up to explain how that's not actually happening. I guess now you guys have just accepted it.
The boiling frog thing is a myth - most frogs realize the water's too hot at some point, and jump out.
And herein lies the absurdity of the whole legal framework in the first place. Does it apply to tourists? Residents? Citizens? Citizens traveling abroad?
> getting rid of Alan Dye.
All the reporting I’ve seen indicates that he left of his own accord and that Apple was blindsided, indicating that they didn’t even consider getting rid of him.
> at least somewhat moving in the right direction by getting rid of Alan Dye.
Alan Dye left of his own volition to Meta. I 100% believe he would still be there if he had not left.
I find it infuriating I have to verify that I am older than 18 when my gmail account is 20+ years old.
Him moving to Android will do them no good as Google will be implementing similar controls in it. I suggest they get a Pixel Phone and install Graphene OS.
> 3. Apple had a bug in their age verification protocol. Again, valid point, but Apple needs to follow UK law.
No they don't. They need to grow balls. They pay hefty tax rates in UK. If they would announce they are leaving UK market in 90 days, I bet you would find enough politicians to change the course of this terrible law.
The only other complaint seems to be liquid glass? It really feels strange because Apple feels on the upswing with their new office and their cheap, repairable mac.
Once the dust settles, this will be a case study for decades to come. Apple threw their hard-won reputational gains off a cliff for _nothing_.
I'm told ThinkPads are getting to parity and have primo Linux support, but barring accident, my M3 MBP will probably last me a decade. Another reason I prefer Apple hardware.