fp.

This popup has been a constant gripe of mine for years. I almost NEVER want to allow this permission and there is no system setting to disable it globally and prevent the popup from interrupting your typing, etc. This tiny swift app I built will autoclose it in 1/4th of a second and leave behind a little notification that it did so. Would love to hear feedback!

Comments

poszlem•1h ago

Yes. Thank you. This is such a simple thing that should be a part of the operating system, and in the ideal world it would be. This is the perfect problem for the LLM to solve, because the reason it does't exist in the system is a decision by some stupid PM at Apple, and not an actual system constraint.

klodolph•1h ago

It’s just a choice of which key to use. I don’t think it was some decision made with this intent, I think it is just the unexpected result of a decision.

johncassil•56m ago

I maintain that Steve Jobs would have taken the engineers to task over this poor UX.

browningstreet•1h ago

Thanks. It’s macOS' own cookie banner and dick bar.

It’s weird they haven’t just made this a menu flag…

LoganDark•1h ago

"One Swift file" except it's two Swift files

hmokiguess•1h ago

One bunch of Swift

johncassil•57m ago

oof, it was originally one, forgot about the refactor lol

HughParry•1h ago

side note but what is the consensus on figuring out whether small brew packages like this one are malicious?

I'm sure this one probably isn't, but I have no clue how I would know whether it is without reviewing the source code myself (or pointing an agent at it etc)

sigmoid10•1h ago

Basically the question for any executable code (or even just any data) that you let on your machine and which did not go through independent vetting processes. The question you need to ask is if the benefit (getting rid of an annoying popup) is worth the risk of a distribution method that is trivial to compromise.

hmokiguess•1h ago

so we are back at choosing where we draw the line and you picked this one to get us going

johncassil•56m ago

Good question -- I have been pointing claude at repos for security reviews before I install stuff now for exactly this reason.

ShinyLeftPad•43m ago

It's so funny to read these, as if countless examples didn't prove that llms don't actually distinguish between your instructions and the data they read at your request.

Do you think a malicious repo author won't think of hiding a suitable prompt within?

NavinF•

john_strinlai•1h ago

this is exactly the type of app that makes me excited to see what the future will hold with ai. any regular joe or jane can now realistically solve many of their small annoyances with little effort and no experience.

(not saying this is ai or not, i have no idea, just speaking generally)

scosman•1h ago

Yes! I got annoyed that I had to manually close old finder/preview windows, so I OSSd an app that closes any stale window. There have been commercial apps in this space a decade, but none worked how I wanted (per window not per app, config each app separately). So I just made it with Claude using some spare tokens at the end of the week. You can customize anything to be the way you like it now.

https://github.com/scosman/Squeegee

johncassil•53m ago

This particular item never been a problem for me because I incessantly close everything after I am done with it but it is super cool that we can ask AI to dig into the weeds for us now and fix our annoyances -- or even search repos online where someone else had and fixed this problem

eastbound•53m ago

The first app I will do is Spotlight. Its insistence on finding everything across the universe except applications is tiring.

We're getting free from our software!

LoganDark•4m ago

Sometimes I am shocked by how blind Spotlight is. I will have something in my applications folder with a straightforward name -- say, Steam.app -- and it will keep picking the shortcut generated by CrossOver for the Windows version of Steam, that is nested inside a bunch of subfolders. Wtf? I ended up renaming the CrossOver version to WinSteam so it stops prefix-matching.

nottorp•1h ago

Hmm another gripe of mine. Mac OS's vnc brings a popup that steals your focus when someone connects to the machine while you're physically in front of it.

I know it's well intentioned but I have this weird setup where I am almost constantly keeping vnc on from my laptop to my desktop. And the mbpro randomly wakes up to do whatever, even when not used, which reactivates the vnc connection, which pops up a warning on my desktop, which steals my focus.

Anyone knows a way to disable that? Possibly just for connections from a specific other machine.

Edit: as for this app, I think the OS only asks once for a new app? I don't remember being asked a second time even when denying it.

I could also whine a bit about "this app wants to access files on a removable volume" since my desktop has a thunderbolt ssd plugged in for extra space...

johncassil•42m ago

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/repeated-allow-google-c...

You can see other people with tens of instances of the same app in the settings for this

InsideOutSanta•55m ago

Can I have the opposite, a tool that automatically clicks on "allow"? I installed the app, it's fine.

johncassil•48m ago

I assume that is a quick fork and publish, but seems scary lol

mostlysimilar•47m ago

Sometimes you need to use a particular piece of software but don't want all of its functionality. You're allowed to want some but not all.

ASalazarMX•33m ago

I don't know what Apple is looking for. The iPhone ships with a Weather app preinstalled, you allow it to your location so it can warn of severe weather, and several weeks later "OMG WEATHER APP IS USING YOUR LOCATION!!11!".

Same with MDM agents. Ours are installed automatically as part of the Apple Business Manager configuration, we manually grant them precise location in the background, and months later "HEY USER, WANNA BLOCK LOCATION FROM 'MDM SERVICE'?".

Edit: To avoid replying to the two following comments with the same reply, my gripe is not about the notification, that's a good thing; my gripe is with their implementation, which seems very in tune with Apple's way of complying with regulations. There are definitely many user-friendly ways to handle privacy compared to seemingly random notifications.

VCFundedGenYer•31m ago

That was due to antitrust pressure such that they did not self-prefer their own apps.

ShinyLeftPad•45m ago

Have a problem with pesky permissions dialogs from sandboxed apps? This unsandboxed unverified app that requests Accessibility permissions, to the rescue!

jshier•36m ago

I'd rather something tell me exactly why this popped up in the first place, as every new OS version seems to introduce more triggers. I have apps that now pop this up when I quit, which doesn't make much sense.

tobi_bsf•34m ago

Says a lot about the state of Mac OS.

bigwheels•33m ago

Did Apple hire some of the folks who created Windows 11?

skissane•12m ago

The big problem with these permission dialogs, is their lack of technical detail about what the app is actually trying to do which triggers them.

How do I know whether to say "Allow" or "Disallow" when it gives me no idea what either option actually means in concrete?

mschuster91•9m ago

> Chromium browsers (Chrome, Brave, Edge, Island, Arc) copy their own app bundle into a random temp folder at launch so the code signature survives in-place updates. macOS keys the Local Network decision to that random path, so the next launch looks like a brand-new app.

OH DEAR GOD that explains so much other cursed behavior, including the "do you want to allow google chrome helper to show notifications" always reappearing. or teams. or anything that does autoupdates.

> Nothing on a typical Mac needs this permission except a printer or scanner utility, a media server, or a LAN-discovery tool, and those you answer once and they're done.

This is wrong. Browsers and media players need it because that is how multicast discovery for stuff like Chromecast works. Spotify, same thing. And Steam plus virtually all games with LAN multiplay for the same reason. Did I note already that Steam also has an autoupdater and so does Spotify and... argh.

Apple really needs to fix the very first point, preferably in a way that doesn't force app developers to ship a "helper" binary.

(Side note: it might even be the case that opening the file picker may be enough, if you got network-discoverable paths in your Finder Locations sidebar, but i'm too tired to test that one out...)