Howard Oakley answers a very interesting question – is it possible to slim macOS down by turning off unneeded services and similar tricks? The answer is obviously no, you cannot.
Classic Mac OS was more modular, with optional installs that the user could pick and choose, as shown above in Mac OS 9.1. These days with the SSV, choice is more limited from the start, with the only real options being whether to install the cryptexes used in AI, and the x86 code translator Rosetta 2. The latter is transient, though, and likely to go away next year.
Like it or not, modern macOS isn’t designed or implemented to give the user much choice in which processes it runs, and architectural features including the SSV and DAS-CTS prevent you from paring its processes down to any significant degree.
↫ Howard Oakley
That’s because macOS is not about creating the best experience for the user, but about creating the most value for shareholders. Giving users choice, allowing them to modify their operating system to suit their needs, removing unneeded components or replacing them with competing alternatives just isn’t in the interest of shareholders, and thus, it’s not allowed by Apple. That’s exactly why they’re fighting the EU’s very basic and simple consumer protection legislation tooth and nail with lies and propaganda, while giving Trump millions of dollars and silly plaques in bribes.
You’re as much a user of macOS as a passenger on a ferry is its captain. If you just want to get from Harwich to Hoek van Holland, that’s a fine arrangement, but if you want to explore beyond the bounds of the path laid out by those more wealthy than you, you’re going to have to leave macOS behind and find a different ship.
How is not allowing modifications good for the shareholders? I honestly don’t see the connections you’re making.
iskios,
Modern corporations believe in having users be as dependent as possible to pursue rent-seeking business models. The end goal of which is to ultimately force everyone into vendor locked walled gardens and services. These often don’t compete on merit, but rather use exclusive control over user devices to give themselves a coercive advantage.
To be clear, while apple are guilty of this, it’s becoming an industry-wide problem. Although changes are gradual, it could end up being the future of all commercial operating systems, which is exactly the CEOs are clamoring for.
It’s actually good for application writers and where there are applications there are money. Why do you think there are so many applications for Windows, less so for Mac and much smaller number for Linux? Because the more stable foundation you are providing for app writers the more applications you’ll get.
At some point keeping the foundation stable enters the era of “diminishings returns”, of course, but I’m not sure MacOS is there, yet.
Thom is on a political rant again.
The reason it could be seen as “good for shareholders”, is that tinkering quite often leads to unstable systems, which leads to increased support requests. Locking down the hardware and software prevents such curiosity and “unauthorised” (read: blessed from Apple) servicing, and therefor less support requests. This leads to a reduction in support personnel, who can then be given the increased profits as dividends.
I don’t think this is strictly a rule for publicly traded companies, but it could be seen as a reason in Apple’s case.
Thom is absolutely right to point to the problem of corporate leadership prioritizing “shareholder value” infecting every decision a company makes. I defended macos on another thread, because I didn’t agree with that specific evaluation – but he’s right here. You can see it in many aspects of the OS – and it’s clear to me, that many of the best features and capabilities, survive just because engineers inside the behemoth have maintained them. But this focus on maximizing shareholder value, is a cancer for any company, and it’ll eventually lead to some catastrophic decision or another, and that will eventually sink the ship. I’d argue, they are already well on their way due to just one specific thing – soldered SSDs. There just aren’t any justifiable technical reasons for that.
Also, understanding that a focus on shareholder value dovetails perfectly with rent-seeking (instead of profit motive) is a pretty sophisticated take. I bet many readers here aren’t going to pick that one out.
Haven’t that ship sailed decades ago, when iPhone was released? Or even iPad? They were already made to maximize “shareholder value”… and people liked them. If people continue to like being milked for everything they are worth then how can we fault Apple?
It’s not just soldered SSD, but also soldered battery, lack of support for the replaceable storage, proprietary cables and removal of 3.5mm jack… there were tons of moves clearly made for the maximizations of “shareholder value” — yet people buy Apple stuff in spite of them.
Why should laptop be treated differently? Boil the frog slowly enough and you can make it pay for everything… a lot.
zde,
You’re right. We can judge them, but at the end of the day they do it because it works and they’re sitting on mountains of wealth to prove it. If apple weren’t this way then it would just be some other company. It’s quite a nihilistic take, but greed has a tendency of taking over whether or not it was originally the founders’ intentions. They always end up feeling the pressure of shareholders, profits over everything else.
As a former Windows user, the challenge has been a couple of things.
First was just software compatibility. For decades, key industry software was locked up in either Windows or macos, which mean if you didn’t want to use Windows, it had to be macos. That’s changed a lot with the rise of electron and web apps. MANY things now work just fine on Linux.
That brings me to a second reality, which is that Linux, before Wayland really wasn’t good enough. There are a lot of X11 hangers on, who still swear I’m wrong – but I’m telling you, it was a laggy, non-vsynced screen tearing nightmare, with such an auspicious input delay. It’s like – even if an end user can’t figure out what the issue is, like I did, they’ll feel it. Linux used to be icky. And it’s only very very recently become something not just good enough – but great! Wayland now, today, is amazingly good. It’s better than Windows in most of the important ways, with current versions of Gnome and KDE at least (and on AMD hardware.) This is huge – and I’d bet it’s leading to people finally taking it seriously.
The third thing is hardware. Windows machines of 10-20 years ago were HORRIBLE. They were junky plastic bodies peices of garbage, that broke after a 1 year (often on the dot) – and the batteries they shipped in those things. The winey fans. They were SO BAD. So if you had to pick between Windows and macos, if hardware mattered at all you were probably going to reach and pick Mac Book, even if the small one. Things have changed lately, another thing that gives desktop Linux an edge up. Most of the consumer devices from Lenovo have been pretty good (HP continues to be horrid) – including the sceens. Battery life is vastly improved. Things look pretty nice hardware wise.
So it’s a combination of things – Better hardware, and viable desktop Linux, (and no more iOS gold rush) and less (but still present) vendor lock in – these realities ARE changing things. This space has been exciting for the first time in decades!
Corporations literally exist to maximize shareholder value.
Nobody is stopping you from creating your own non-profit organization and create whatever product/technology that perfectly aligns with your vision of how things should be. And if enough people align with your perception, you will be in business.
Xanady Asem,
You’re not wrong, but then I don’t think it refutes what CaptainN- had to say either. Maximizing shareholder value does not negate or refuse consumers being critical of them. Ideally competition would be healthy enough for criticism to matter. Obviously duopolies and monopolies are the worst outcomes for choice.
That idea really does sounds fun and it’s interesting to ponder whether people could realistically compete against the giants. I’m really skeptical about it actually working in practice though. It seems out of reach for someone of middle class means to fund new computer platforms in their own vision. Even if one had a million bucks laying around from a lifetime of work, it doesn’t go very far these days. Renting an office and paying a few salaries would burn through it long before you had results. And even after you have results it can be difficult to get other people to open their wallets, so it’s possible you’ll never make back the money you started with.
IMHO more likely than not resource constraints would limit most people to forking existing open source solutions rather than building a new one. You typically end up with “yet another linux distro” rather than a new technical foundation.
Aside: regarding non-profits, just because you want tax-free donations doesn’t necessarily mean the government will allow it. Non-profit status requires government approval as a charity or another exempt category.
https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/other-tax-exempt-organizations
Except they don’t! There is a lot of history about how corporations (a human invention, not a natural organism) were originally justified, and a part of that deal was that they would take care of their workers and other stakeholders (some folks have remembered this, and have started to emphasize stakeholder capitalism, for example.) That was always part of the social contract – and those who promote this subversive “shareholder value” nonsense, have reneged. It’s technically and historically incorrect to say that “corporations literally exist to maximize shareholder value” – they objectively do not solely exist for that purpose. You gotta read more history.
There are tons of precesses that are unneeded, You can block their access to communicate using little snitch. if you don’t need/don’t use certain things why does it need to be active? If you pay attention to the pings the os makes back to apple servers, there is too much communication that shouldn’t happen. Can they easily remove these processes? yeah. Would it speed up and make it more reliable yes. Does Apple need to know what your doing on your own computer? no absolutely not. There is more going on that apple is doing with the information that it’s getting from you than what people know. Every feature that gets baked in to the os every year add more processes that’s not needed. and the old ones never get removed.
If you don’t like macOS, don’t use it. Beats whining like Thom does.
aaah, right. Aaaand comply, then they won’t use force.
Back to the reality – there might not be a real choice, at least for some people. What are they suppose to do then? stop using and what? that’s one of the stupidest pseudo-arguments I hear from people who clearly cannot suggest anything better.
You should be opposing stupid changes so they are modified. This also happens in commercial world. If you don’t, they assume it’s OK to fck you over. Even microslop caves in and changes stupid things if enough backlash happens.
I mean – don’t you believe in yourself? do you always give up on the start? heh.
macos is a commercial product, not some sort of basic human right.
Besides, you can turn off most non essential kernel/system services on macos, so I have no idea why this conversation is even happening.
You clearly didn’t read the article or even the summary:
Two things can happen at the same time: me having read the article, and the article being wrong.
@Xanady Asem:
From the article:
Either you aren’t running the latest macOS as the author is, or you’re deliberately lying to defend an OS restricting you from controlling it the way you should be able to. Even Windows 11 allows the user to have more control over running processes than this.
I will never, ever understand fanboyism over commercial software. It makes about as much sense as a soup sandwich.
Morgan,
It’s not just this article, I’m finding others run into the same issue. According to this post, there are low level hacks to work around the immutable SSV volume…
https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/1bne3qb/is_it_safe_to_disable_sip_for_13_minutes/#t1_kwjbyyz-comment-rtjson-content
…but the moment you re-enable SIP any changes you make get reverted. So hacking the SSV is a dirty/non-permanent solution IMHO.
Xanady Asem,
Whatever you have in mind you need to clarify it because just calling the author wrong without evidence doesn’t reveal anything new. What specifically did the author get wrong and how would you go about it on a current version of macos? Be specific!
@Morgan:
Don’t project you own fanatism issues on others, thank you.
SSV and SIP can both be disabled.
There are clearly a lot of things you don’t understand.
Xanady Asem,
You should have stated that up front because disabling SIP and SSV permanently has a lot of negative implications. On older versions of macos you could disable SIP, make a change and then re-enable SIP. But with forced SSV now owners loose the ability to make persistent changes short of having owners disable SIP & SSV permanently. Nevermind the security implications, there’s a rather serious loss of functionality too. Owners are forced to permanently disable FileVault. IOS apps will not run. Apple fairplay and apple wallet may stop working. Some software like discord and spotify won’t run with SIP disabled, etc.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/if-you-disable-sip-all-you-ios-apps-will-stop-working-on-your-m1.2269661/
https://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Mac/Spotify-crashes-upon-startup-on-Mac-with-SIP-disabled/td-p/5355634
It comes off as draconian to me that owners who would like to disable non-critical services can only do so by giving up basic macos security and functionality like this. It would be rather convenient to brush this off and not talk about it, but it’s understandable why some owners would consider these kinds of OS restrictions regressive in nature.
@Xanady Asem:
@Alfman covered the technical response in detail so I’ll just say this: You said that the article is wrong and all of those services can be disabled, but you leave out the fact that it cripples the OS to do so, which in essence means that no, you cannot disable those services and still use the OS as normal. Maybe a crippled OS works for your use case, but you are not everyone and you shouldn’t try to claim someone is wrong when they are objectively correct, just because it doesn’t fit your extremely narrow and heavily biased interpretation of “it works”.
Again, I feel like you are going to the absolute extreme edge case just to prove someone wrong because they disparaged your Holy Grail OS. I’m not knocking your love for macOS, just the fact that you’re being so unreasonable and obsessive about it. That is the definition of irrational fanboyism.
Again, I simply stated basic facts; the article is wrong, high degrees of services and servers can be stopped and disabled in macos. Some may require disabling a couple of system integrity/security services.
I have said nothing regarding my own personal opinion about macos, or apple for that matter.
None of these were particularly complex concepts to grasp, alas…
Xanady Asem,
Your claim doesn’t make the article wrong so much as it highlights a very different expectation. When you make your claim that users can disable these services, a normal user might be excused for thinking you meant doing so without breaking anything else on macos.
To the extent that you want to fault the article for presuming that the user wants to disable services while having an otherwise functional and secure macos without explicitly saying it, then you also need to fault yourself for presuming the user would be fine with permanently loosing functionality and security without explicitly saying it. This is why I keep saying that you really need to be more specific in qualifying your claim, otherwise it can come across as misleading over lack of specifics.
Once again, that has more to do with what you wrote than what I did
Xanady Asem,
One could only guess what you meant, it was not obvious that you meant permanently disabling SIP/SSV. You may not think it important to say that this solution breaks normal macos functionality, but IMHO it’s extremely important for the benefit of the people who read your comments.
I left macos a few years ago because it turned into turn, but I am going to side with Thom. It is not too much to ask to be able to stop services that are not necessary. Not only from a performance perspective (as much as Apple optimises their stuff), but also from a security/stability perspective: if you turn off services you don’t use, you reduce a possible attack/failure window.
I use Windows for most of my work since I left macOS, and you can turn off services you don’t need. Some of them require a bit more forceful approach than in the past to be truly shut off, but once you are down, the system is way leaner (less bloated) than out-of-box.
If you turn off services that you don’t use you reduce a possible attack/failure window.
If you turn off services that you THINK you don’t use then you are generating support calls — and these are costly.
One way to achieve a balance is to have two modes like ChromsOS and Android are doing: either your device is locked (and, presumably, doesn’t promt you to do support calls) or it’s not locked (and then you don’t do support calls because you know they would be rejected).
But even that is more costly than simply locking everything down as much as possible thus I’m not sure Apple would want to do that.
For the first time since 1998 I have bought a “PC” which I installed a version of OS/2 on and am now using it more than 50% of the time during the day.
Note that https://www.arcanoae.com is a version of OS/2 licensed from IBM with the main purpose of creating drivers for new PCs. Not ALL PCs but enough of them that if you want, you too could be using something other than MacOS, Linux or Windows.
I’m enjoying my computing time for the first time since the late 1990s when I stopped using OS/2 because IBM said they were not updating OS/2 anymore. But different companies have signed contracts to keep OS/2 running on new computers because there are too many banks and other companies that REQUIRE more uptime than Windows could even dream of and OS/2 delivers that.
I didn’t know that it was impossible to turn off services in MacOS. That’s appalling. So the only solution when a service crashes is to restart the system? Granted that Macs are not servers and users aren’t bragging about uptime, but that’s a pretty severe limitation.
Nah.
Other than the kernel, core system daemons (launchd, memory manager, scheduler, process/device comm server, etc) and the security/integrity server. You can pretty much disable, any server in macos from either the GUI or launchctl
You can also roll your own barebones system using Darwin and just run XNU…