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Ask HN: Is it impossible to disable Siri on macOS 27?

153 points · 87 comments · semidror

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dosisking · 1789997601 · focus · HN ↗
Resistance is futile.
1. andrekandre · 1790005514 · focus · HN ↗
  you will be assimilated
  1. hulitu · 1790261080 · focus · HN ↗
    "Is there any X Windows user in the audience tonight ? Put him up against the wall. Is there one in the spotlight, who doesn't want to use Siri ? Put him up against the wall."
2. chmaynard · 1790009734 · focus · HN ↗
  [delayed]
Nata_Elisym · 1789997666 · focus · HN ↗
In Screen Time -> Content and Privacy, there's a setting to switch Siri to 'Siri Classic' which strips out the Apple Intelligence-backed behavior specifically.
1. semidror · 1789999777 · focus · HN ↗
  Instead of "Siri Classic", I selected the "Don’t Allow Siri" option, but it didn't help. The "Siri" (Siri AI.app) process keeps running regardless.
  1. pixl97 · 1790000687 · focus · HN ↗
    Sounds like Apple hired some of the Microsoft project managers.
    alexaholic · 1790009021 · focus · HN ↗
    Why would you say that? Can't it be a genuine Apple product?
    bigstrat2003 · 1790010134 · focus · HN ↗
    It's a joke. Microsoft has been ignoring user preferences and doing what is good for Microsoft for many years now, and the parent poster was implying that Apple is now doing the same kind of bad behavior.
    card_zero · 1790011515 · focus · HN ↗
    I disagree with what you say, so remind me later.
    mh- · 1790014982 · focus · HN ↗
    I think the people who aren't greeted by this dichotomy when turning their PC aren't catching the reference.
    skort · 1790014243 · focus · HN ↗
    In my experience, every company with more than 1000 employees absolutely has garbage project managers!
    KETHERCORTEX · 1790140722 · focus · HN ↗
    There's a secret government program that distributes them. After reaching some amount of employees, a company must include one per X employees.
wpm · 1789997709 · focus · HN ↗
Try disabling any of the launchd tasks related to it, odds are theres a service that starts at boot/login regardless of any user-facing setting that do nothing if they're all turned off (just like iCloud related daemons).
Odds are you'll probably run into something that requires you to disable SIP, like I did when I got tired of mediaanalysisd eating up CPU cycles on a 2018 Mac mini.
1. semidror · 1790000475 · focus · HN ↗
  Thanks, I believe this is what the debloat script mentioned in my post does. I manually executed the `launchctl bootout` and `launchctl disable` commands on all Siri and AI-related services in the <a href="https://github.com/OleksandrKrupko/mac-os-debloat/blob/main/debloat" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/OleksandrKrupko/mac-os-debloat/blob/main/... script, but the "Siri" process ("Siri AI.app") still keeps running even after restarting.
  The Siri AI.app is read-only, so I could not even remove it. But perhaps it would be possible to boot into Recovery, mount the system partition as rw and delete the Siri AI.app from the filesystem?
  P.S. I did also disable mediaanalysisd and photoanalysisd, and those are NOT running. However, the Siri AI.app does keep running...
chuckadams · 1789998187 · focus · HN ↗
I've been daily-driving a mac for 10 years now and I've only ever triggered Siri by accident. I do use it pretty regularly on the phone, mostly to set timers, get directions, and call contacts, but I've been well trained over these years to not expect it to be capable of more than that.
1. baggy_trough · 1790001096 · focus · HN ↗
  Your training is now out of date.
2. lloydatkinson · 1790001690 · focus · HN ↗
  I remember it being pretty useful on phone. Now, it can't even "like" a song when I'm driving and I want it to add a song to my Spotify favourites list. It could do a few months ago, now it refuses with "sorry there was a problem with the app".
  I've had to resort to asking it to take a screenshot so I can go find the song later. Three quarters of the time it never saves the screenshot though, despite seeing the screen flash out of the corner of my eye.
  1. nozzlegear · 1790004371 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
  2. selicos · 1790017577 · focus · HN ↗
    Gemini is similarly a step back. Google Assistant could hear me speak up and ask it to like or skip a song being played, driving or otherwise.
    Now it takes 10-15 seconds to start after a voice command, won't audibly alert or even stop music to take voice input, and usually fails to hear anything then quit out. Half the time it does that it then pauses the music and quits...
    Maybe SOTA models can help those on the bleeding edge, but 90% of tech users just want it to work. Apple can barely do that right anymore.
    disgruntledphd2 · 1790085459 · focus · HN ↗
    > Gemini is similarly a step back. Google Assistant could hear me speak up and ask it to like or skip a song being played, driving or otherwise. It would quickly beep at me, pause the music/etc, accept input, process, then finish and resume the music (or skip to next track if asked).
    Yeah I used the old Assistant regularly, but after the Gemini update it started refusing to set a timer for me, so I churned.
3. embedding-shape · 1790007244 · focus · HN ↗
  [delayed]
  1. gumby · 1790007711 · focus · HN ↗
    It’s because they’d prefer you interacted with CarPlay with voice rather than looking away from the road.
    An admirable objective, but given how “well” siri has worked in the past, an unrealistic one. We’ll see if 27 is a significant improvement. If I had to bet, I’d bet no, at least for the next year.
    embedding-shape · 1790064168 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
4. runjake · 1790007838 · focus · HN ↗
  Trivia: the most popular method of using Siri, per the analytics, is "accidental activation".
nottorp · 1789998358 · focus · HN ↗
Just as a note, from what I see the problem is not only the privacy implications but also that the local AI comes with a baggage amounting to 10% of the space on the base mac models. Which is already severely limited.
1. threetonesun · 1789999717 · focus · HN ↗
  I have not found the local/remote hand off to be very reliable either, so tasks that used to be almost instantaneous for Siri are now spinning to the point where I assume they failed. A simple 2 minute timer took almost 30 seconds to set the other day.
  1. nottorp · 1790001215 · focus · HN ↗
    You're brave. I'm still on Sequoia.
    saidnooneever · 1790012940 · focus · HN ↗
    considering security i think you are the one who is brave but i am biassed so dont worry more than u already do xD
    nottorp · 1790016679 · focus · HN ↗
    Oh look at that, there's a new update for Sequoia in settings!
    It did take me a week to notice because the assholes keep spamming me about 26 or 27, but it's there.
    hurfdurf · 1790065553 · focus · HN ↗
    Oh look at that, there's a new update for Sequoia in settings!
    Apple only guarantees to fix all known issues and security bugs in their latest OS versions.
    Note: Because of dependency on architecture and system changes to any current version of Apple operating systems (for example, iOS 27, macOS 27, and so on), not all known security issues are addressed in previous versions (for example, iOS 26, macOS 26, and so on).
    <a href="https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/about-software-updates-depc4c80847a/web" rel="nofollow">https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment/about-software-up...
    elcritch · 1790013105 · focus · HN ↗
    Same here. The new macOS'es always seem to add more restrictions, more bloat, etc nowadays. I was thinking of upgrading the other day; glad I didn't.
    azalemeth · 1790087266 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm still on Mojave (10.14!) and it's just brilliant compared to the more modern MacOS. There's a Firefox fork called Momiji (<a href="https://github.com/aobaharuki2005/momiji-web-browser" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/aobaharuki2005/momiji-web-browser) which backports recent Firefox to very much older macOSes, and basically I still use 32 bit x86 applications sometimes.
    My next laptop computer (which is sorely overdue) will be Linux with macOS in a VM.
    A pity, because Keynote is great.
VCFundedGenYer · 1789999339 · focus · HN ↗
I've love to disable Apple Intelligence just to get the space back. It's murdering my Mac Mini.
danfritz · 1789999517 · focus · HN ↗
I didn't check it yet but I hope being in EU macOS 27 upgrade is basically small UI tweaks and thats it :D
Still holding off for now
avazhi · 1789999583 · focus · HN ↗
Sequoia will be taken from my cold dead hands.
1. semidror · 1790000160 · focus · HN ↗
  Same here. Unfortunately, if you use Xcode to develop for iOS, then Apple basically forces you to install macOS 27 to be able to develop for the new iPhones. The iPhone 18 Pro requires Xcode 27, and Xcode 27 won't run on Sequoia.
  If anyone knows how to make the iPhone 18 Pro work with Xcode 26 on Sequoia, and in turn with iOS 27, I (and I'm sure many other people) would be very happy to hear how!
  1. alt227 · 1790003179 · focus · HN ↗
    This is how Apple have forced Mac upgrades for the last 20 years, there is no way round it other than to comply and buy yourself a new Mac.
  2. dwaite · 1790009798 · focus · HN ↗
    Does Xcode 26 still work on Sequoia? They usually stop supporting N-1 around March.
    semidror · 1790011315 · focus · HN ↗
    It does. The latest officially supported Xcode version runnable on Sequoia is 26.3. See <a href="https://developer.apple.com/xcode/system-requirements/" rel="nofollow">https://developer.apple.com/xcode/system-requirements/
    But it is possible to run even the latest Xcode 26.6 by directly executing Xcode.app/Contents/MacOS/Xcode, and Xcode will run. This trick doesn't work with Xcode 27 anymore though. If you try that, you'll see a warning message that says something like "Xcode requires macOS 26 to run".
    hulitu · 1790261211 · focus · HN ↗
    > If you try that, you'll see a warning message that says something like "Xcode requires macOS 26 to run".
    Ah, the old "This program requires Windows 98 with Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 to run.". Some things never change.
2. kruxigt · 1790000274 · focus · HN ↗
  [dead]
3. dosisking · 1790007009 · focus · HN ↗
  > Sequoia will be taken from my cold dead hands.
  I'm still running Leopard. The built in X11 server, combined with X11 forwarding, and a Linux box works fine for my meager needs. I can run Chromium using X11 forwarding, seems to work fine for the most part.
kccqzy · 1790000220 · focus · HN ↗
There’s the old trick of setting your computer language to be different from the Siri language. I get the following error message when I open Siri in Settings:
> Apple Intelligence requires that Mac and Siri are set to the same language. Currently your Mac is set to English (United States) and Siri is set to English (Canada).
I think at one point they may have removed this limitation but then they reintroduced it in macOS 27.0.
1. semidror · 1790000778 · focus · HN ↗
  Yes, I did something similar: prior to disabling Siri, I set Siri's language to French and kept the system language set to English (UK), but the Siri AI.app ("Siri" process in Activity Monitor) just keeps running despite Siri being indicated as disabled in Settings.
  If you are on macOS 27, could you please open Activity Monitor, search (filter) for "siri" and see if a process called "Siri" is still running?
  1. kccqzy · 1790002271 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    quesera · 1790020088 · focus · HN ↗
    FWIW it's entirely possible (and not uncommon) for a single executable to behave differently depending on the name it was launched under.
    I have no idea in this case, but it's possible that "Siri" and "Siri AI" are genuinely different in behaviours and interfaces and dependencies, even if they are the same binary.
galad87 · 1790000657 · focus · HN ↗
The process that shows the Spotlight UI is now the one called "Siri", previously it was called "Spotlight".
1. semidror · 1790001154 · focus · HN ↗
  Thanks, that's an interesting observation! When I double-clicked on the "Siri" process in Activity Monitor, I saw that it's an app called "Siri AI".
  If the "Siri AI" app has replaced Spotlight, then I wonder if Apple keeps building "personal context" despite Siri and Apple Intelligence being disabled.
  It for sure doesn't sound well to disable Siri and still see a "Siri" process.
2. cosmotic · 1790009542 · focus · HN ↗
  This sounds similar to Microsoft and the start menu. A few years ago I went to extreme lengths to disable cortana (powershell guid uninstall). This invisibly and inexplicably disabled updates to the start menu search feature. The index remained the feature worked, it just never got updated again. No amount of manually reindexing the disk helped. Reinstalling cortana got it working.
3. kccqzy · 1790011613 · focus · HN ↗
  [delayed]
jzemeocala · 1790002832 · focus · HN ↗
if you dont want a car with the hood welded shut.....Dont buy a car with the hood welded shut.
plenty of better operating systems out their
1. stackghost · 1790003323 · focus · HN ↗
  I don’t particularly care for MacOS but Apple’s hardware is generally best in class, particularly for battery life, touchpad, and other laptop specifics.
  1. jasonvorhe · 1790019687 · focus · HN ↗
    Huawei has been shipping decent MBA-like laptops for some years now. The latest Panther Lake laptops seem to have made some leaps towards Apple on the hardware side as well. I still won't expect any Windows laptop in these form factors to outlive most MacBooks though.
2. victorbjorklund · 1790004651 · focus · HN ↗
  Silly argument. It’s more like buying a BWM and being happy with everything expect a stupid decision like placement of the handbrake. Of course you can complain about it.
  1. dwaite · 1790009934 · focus · HN ↗
    I think the counter-argument would be that one obviously should have gotten a Kia K4. Otherwise equivalent for everyone's needs excluding hand brake location.
    victorbjorklund · 1790025556 · focus · HN ↗
    Not a car person but pretty sure they are a KIA and a BWM isn’t identical cars.
3. ksnsiwxjek · 1790006121 · focus · HN ↗
  Plenty of other operating systems out there? Yeah. Better? Depends. Hardware as a package? Absolutely not and it’s by such a wide margin there’s no competition whatsoever.
  1. jzemeocala · 1791121241 · focus · HN ↗
    yeah there hardware is awesome....but i still prefer having the ability to tweak and mod my OS to my heart's content....something apple will never let you do
24sharmaa · 1790003296 · focus · HN ↗
Hi everyone! I can comment on stuff now. The login page was so basic, like Year 8 HTML basic. Whatevs, website v good.
pluc · 1790003430 · focus · HN ↗
See <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49787535">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49787535
hombre_fatal · 1790004004 · focus · HN ↗
My hobby horse is how Siri keeps popping up on my iPhone when I just want to unlock it. If it's plugged into CarPlay then pretty much any time I press the side-button, Siri's little ball appears, my audio pauses, and I have to wait five seconds for Siri to dismiss and unjank the UI/CarPlay.
If I turn Siri off, I can't use CarPlay.
teekert · 1790004051 · focus · HN ↗
I started de-googling a long time ago, part of it was an iPhone (12 mini), 5 years later I really felt like de-Appling as well. The Appstore is a cesspool, privacy concerns are about the same as Google now.
I went with GrapheneOS. Very good experience, but not without Google Play (store and services). It's all sandboxed, so presumably I'm only leaking consciously chosen data. It's really aimed at security, not so much de-google. Something like Murena's /e/OS is much more aimed at de-Googling, but as GrapheneOS devs will usually be quick to respond here, they are "quite poor" with their security.
A de-Googled functional appstore on a FairPhone (+ with all the GrapheneOS required security bells and wistles) would be ideal for me. But it's still either optimal security focussed OR de-Googling/de-big-teching focused.
alsetmusic · 1790004635 · focus · HN ↗
One workaround that I know would work would be an enterprise profile. I know this because I’m one of the people tasked with blocking AI stuff at my org. How you’d implement this without a subscription to management (MDM) software I leave to you to research. I know it’s possible without proprietary tools because I’ve read about people using profiles to block software updates on their personal computers, but I don’t recall how that’s done.
1. jonathantf2 · 1790006123 · focus · HN ↗
  You can just use Apple Configurator to make a .mobileconfig file and apply that, no MDM required.
seviu · 1790004904 · focus · HN ↗
I still have to find anybody using Siri on his Mac
Please tell me what the use case is. Somebody somewhere must find it useful otherwise it would not be so prominent.
This a genuine question btw not trying to be sarcastic or dismissive
1. jiehong · 1790008818 · focus · HN ↗
  My guess is that iOS, iPadOS and macOS are converging on some points, and Siri gets included.
  It would be interesting on macOS if it had amazing computer use and was able to control all aspects of all apps, and you’d be able to instantly do anything with voice only.
  Siri Actions are one tiny step closer to that, but we’re pretty far away from this.
2. dwaite · 1790009610 · focus · HN ↗
  Not sure. People are saying "Siri" but complaining about space utilization which I assume is for the foundational models. Those are used pervasively, and are exposed as a resource for third party app usage as well.
  Apple's goal was to have a set of foundational models to discourage proliferation of small bundled models in first and third party software. So ironically, they exist to try to save people disk space.
Razengan · 1790004945 · focus · HN ↗
The 27 release still has so many bugs.
It's depressing to see certain bugs persist in each new beta. You know they'll be in release.
I gave up reporting anything years ago.
1. jimbloat · 1790008549 · focus · HN ↗
  I really can't believe how bad it's gotten. I know people on here have been complaining about the direction of macOS for years but in the last few years it increasingly feels like I'm being punished for using my computer.
  A bicycle for your mind with squeaking brakes and a skipping chain.
  1. Tistron · 1790010550 · focus · HN ↗
    I jumped to mac with Tiger when they started using x86. Around 2006 I believe. It was always to become more comfortable with POSIX, but I liked it and have stayed. My current laptop is a 2019 MBP and as they are now phasing out Intel support I'm now buying a thinkpad and finally moving on to Linux. Macos has just become too annoying, and macs too expensive.
    jasonvorhe · 1790019460 · focus · HN ↗
    Try Omarchy, you might enjoy it and to my knowledge everything should work out of the box.
    Tistron · 1790087161 · focus · HN ↗
    :) I'm not trying omarchy. I'll probably go with Fedora or NixOS.
  2. type0 · 1790012866 · focus · HN ↗
    It's not a bicycle for your mind, it's a railbike draisine that only goes on the rails that Apple allows you to use.
    jimbloat · 1790095998 · focus · HN ↗
    I know that you're joking and that I'm late to reply but honestly thinking about the care and planning that has to go into laying railroad tracks and the efficiency of adhesion traction, I would kill for computer that came close to what I imagine using a railbike feels like (a long time dream of mine). Imagine if someone put that much thought into Finder (or Apple Music).
    I'm only allowed either Windows or Mac at work so I'll just get less and less efficient until I'm replaced by an LLM.
kdkdkcekckek · 1790006261 · focus · HN ↗
Couldn’t it be due to spotlight being entirely replaced by this new Siri AI? Not sure how things work under the hood now.
jdbloodstone · 1790008661 · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
jodrellblank · 1790009766 · focus · HN ↗
You should make use of Cunningham's Law[1]. Instead of posting an "Ask HN" asking if it's impossible to disable, post a "Show HN" claiming that it is impossible to disable.
Then people will flock to tell you how it can be disabled by XYZ.
[1] <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law" rel="nofollow">https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law
1. anguishe · 1790035332 · focus · HN ↗
  Great advice. I should definitely heed this more often.
sklargh · 1790010153 · focus · HN ↗
The absolute arrogance of taking up this much disk space for an application that most serious users will simply never engage with. Garbage.
1. toasty228 · 1790015594 · focus · HN ↗
  Yeah but siri/apple AI has 100% adoption rate on apple devices ;)
Shuddown · 1790010295 · focus · HN ↗
This is a reddit thread where OP claims to have gotten instructions from Apple Support to remove Apple Intelligence.
<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/1wlm6gd/apple_support_gave_me_terminal_commands_to_remove/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/1wlm6gd/apple_support_...
1. iAMkenough · 1790013939 · focus · HN ↗
  I like how Apple designed an optional feature that requires you to disable SIP to reclaim storage space.
  If you don't manually delete the files, they remain on your Mac until your storage is nearly full.
2. crossroadsguy · 1790141884 · focus · HN ↗
  [delayed]
throw0101a · 1790010342 · focus · HN ↗
Maybe "macOS 27: Workaround to avoid downloading AI models and save storage":
* <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49787535">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49787535
Someone · 1790010406 · focus · HN ↗
[delayed]
Danox · 1790010810 · focus · HN ↗
You can move over to Microsoft and use Copilot or if that isn’t enough, you can buy a new Googlebook laptop.
1. card_zero · 1790011232 · focus · HN ↗
  They might as well merge and become Chromicrapple.
2. type0 · 1790012344 · focus · HN ↗
  Goobledygook laptops would be as much of an abomination as those Windows S laptops
thrance · 1790015587 · focus · HN ↗
[delayed]
blueaiprod · 1790015988 · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
MotoriX · 1790064390 · focus · HN ↗
Personally, I think Apple should have gotten rid of Siri a long time ago. It's a pretty useless assistant. They'd be better off integrating Gemini or ChatGPT instead.
vancekai · 1790102289 · focus · HN ↗
[dead]
dime · 1790341484 · focus · HN ↗
This is the first time ever that I am making a strategic decision to not upgrade MacOS and iOS.
theguysudo · 1790370389 · focus · HN ↗
apple should remove siri its annoying alot and its been useless since 5-6 years google assistant was better than it before llms

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