Thread

macOS 27: Workaround to avoid downloading AI models and save storage

240 points · 123 comments · ano-ther

thewhitetulip · 1790004263 · focus · HN ↗
I am tired to fight against every platform that I have to use
De macify Mac Degoogle Android Demacify ipad DeLLM chrome browsers local llm
Can we expect sane decisions from corpos about what we want rather than what latest thing they want to push on us?
1. jhack · 1790004447 · focus · HN ↗
  Apple says their users make 2.5B Siri requests per day. Sounds like people want it?
  1. Hodgewocket · 1790004833 · focus · HN ↗
    Are they aware?
  2. moribvndvs · 1790004870 · focus · HN ↗
    Even though I do use it, a choice would be nice.
  3. GuinansEyebrows · 1790005027 · focus · HN ↗
    i wonder how many of them are like 100% of my requests?
    - "set a timer for 14 minutes"
    - "remind me to make a doctor's appointment tomorrow at noon"
    - "turn off the bedroom lights"
    that don't require any form of AI and have functioned perfectly well (aside from having a hard time when i mumble) for years on non-AI versions of Siri?
    thewebguyd · 1790005988 · focus · HN ↗
    I suspect even some of the more "advanced" queries they demoed off, i.e., "what was that restaurant John and I talked about last week?" also not require LLMs whatsoever and could have been accomplished with a simple search.
    anamexis · 1790007598 · focus · HN ↗
    I think you're going to need some kind of ML to turn that question into a structured search, and interpret the results.
    regenschutz · 1790009494 · focus · HN ↗
    Not necessarily. NLP is possible to do without any ML. See ELIZA [0] as an example, which used pattern matching and substitution to process natural language. A few simple rules can cover a majority of requests. It's still AI, but not ML.
    Though I do agree that the ML-based NLP thst we have today is much more usable, albeit more compute-expensive.
    [0]: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA
    exographicskip · 1790005994 · focus · HN ↗
    This matches my use cases. Poor speech to text recognition so I don't trust siri to do anything non-trivial
    dreamcompiler · 1790012057 · focus · HN ↗
    Siri was always AI, but the popular connotation of "AI" changes all the time. It now means "LLMs built with transformers."
  4. tiborsaas · 1790005844 · focus · HN ↗
    Do they have a breakdown for platforms? iOS vs. macOS, I'd bet most of it is iOS.
    I don't have Siri enabled, I've never felt the need for it on desktop.
    nozzlegear · 1790012971 · focus · HN ↗
    I use it on the desktop.
  5. thewhitetulip · 1790006463 · focus · HN ↗
    How many apple devices exist globally?
    Does everyone use siri? How about keeping it opt-in?
  6. javier2 · 1790008503 · focus · HN ↗
    I dont even have Siri enabled, but even less so on macOS.
    a1o · 1790009214 · focus · HN ↗
    If you have a car you are forced to because you can’t use Apple Car Play if you don’t enable Siri.
    I also don’t use but I have to have it enabled to be able to use Google Maps, and Siri occasionally mistakes a conversation for being invited to listen and speak.
    cromulent · 1790021014 · focus · HN ↗
    Curious. I have Siri turned off (just checked again) and I use Apple CarPlay daily. Maybe an EU thing.
    officeplant · 1790025394 · focus · HN ↗
    >you can’t use Apple Car Play if you don’t enable Siri.
    It works for me, but I'm using wired carplay on an iphone 11 w/ios27. (In the US, Swapped to Siri Classic, then disabled it.)
    Looking around online it seems doing it wired can bypass the Siri requirement. Which may work in my case because in the Ford headunit I can force wireless projection to be off and blocked (including turning off the wifi for the headunit). So some cars might be forcing wireless Carplay and triggering the Siri requirement.
  7. mathisfun123 · 1790008798 · focus · HN ↗
    > 2.5B Siri requests per day
    that's like one request per day per user lolol
  8. pesus · 1790009622 · focus · HN ↗
    I get forced to use it While using CarPlay. I don't particularly want it, though, considering it still regularly fails at basic tasks like adding the currently playing song to a playlist.
  9. vitalrune · 1790011260 · focus · HN ↗
    The issue it's they make it very hard to remove it to clear the space used by it, i think you got to boot into recovery mode and do some risky crap, my macbook is almost out of space just from development cache..
  10. drooopy · 1790013211 · focus · HN ↗
    Never met anyone who used siri out in public, to be honest.
  11. quaddoggy · 1790023791 · focus · HN ↗
    Timers. Easily >50% of these requests are people setting timers.
2. basisword · 1790005066 · focus · HN ↗
  You don't need to. Use the alternatives.
3. ezst · 1790006476 · focus · HN ↗
  KDE. KDE is all you need.
  1. Ginger-Pickles · 1790007157 · focus · HN ↗
    One arguably don’t even need KDE any more; the coding models will throw together a perfectly adequate desktop environment.
    regenschutz · 1790009187 · focus · HN ↗
    Why should one use something adequate when something amazing exists?
    ezst · 1790009435 · focus · HN ↗
    Not sure what the point of this would be? Devalued street creds for running something nobody else does? Who cares?
    bitwize · 1790015729 · focus · HN ↗
    Well, it's literally the reason Omarchy exists so some people like it...
  2. kdkdkwjdjwkd · 1790036066 · focus · HN ↗
    If you’re gonna use KDE, just go with Windows. Same UI paradigm and, surprisingly, Windows looks better (that’s how bad KDE looks).
    ezst · 1790054296 · focus · HN ↗
    "look, MacOS is following the same trend as windows as to become measurably worse over time, with bloat, slop, user hostile/dark pattern, removing freedoms configuration and escape hatches"
    "KDE is immune to those by design"
    "Then use Windows"
    I'm surely convinced!
4. agoodusername63 · 1790007620 · focus · HN ↗
  no. buy a linux compatible laptop and deal with the UX downgrade.
  1. drooopy · 1790013121 · focus · HN ↗
    What downgrade? A typical Gnome desktop is far more coherent than Windows or even macOS in some regards these days.
    zahlman · 1790030578 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes, and you can do much better than GNOME, too.
  2. hattar · 1790015655 · focus · HN ↗
    There are definitely some cool features missing, but I'd take KDE over any other window manager without a second thought if it were possible.
  3. davidee · 1790039479 · focus · HN ↗
    I’ve found the downgrade surprisingly minimal on plasma 6 - and it’s far more customizable.
    Thanks to marginal gains on MacOs (nee OS X) the Linux desktop gets closer more quickly than Apple can pull away.
  4. thewhitetulip · 1790042454 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes I use cosmic DE on Fedora. I didn't find it a downgrade at all! Despite not running an M chip it is butter smooth

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