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Comment by sabellito | Hacker News Reader

Definitely not defending windows here, but don't you find that macs come with bloatware as well? Safari, apple music, maps, etc - some of which you cannot uninstall as well.

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The difference is that none of that stuff is running in the background when you aren't using it. Maps doesn't take up a global menu slot. Apple Music doesn't open unless you explicitly open it (unless you happen to hit an Apple Music URL on the web). You can ignore it and it doesn't bother you. Whereas on Windows, bloatware tends to add a Start menu icon, tray icon, background process, startup item, etc.

And Apple's built-in apps aren't harmful, they're just unnecessary. In the early 2000s, my parents got me a Mac that came with Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2. :-)

I never found a way of disabling the automatic starting of iTunes when you press the play/pause button on the keyboard. How do I choose my own music player app?

And my new Mac has things like (can't remember exactly) 'musiccreationd'.

These count as 'startup items' to me.

You can use software like this to customize media keys: http://beardedspice.github.io/

If you're running a non-iTunes music app (including web pages, on newer versions of macOS), the play/pause button goes to whichever one last grabbed the audio. So if you start VLC (or whatever) first thing (or add it to the auto-start items), then the play/pause button will always go there.

It always worked as a pause/play for already playing media, my complaint was about its use as a launcher. Made muscle memory tricky as its behaviour depended on what was running at the time.

There's a great little utility called BetterTouchTool that will customize the default play button app. It can do a bunch of other little things, too. https://folivora.ai

I believe it’s just in System Preferences -> Keyboard, but may be mistaken.

I had a another look in "Keyboard Shortcuts". Lots of shortcuts, including a category called 'App shortcuts'. No mention of iTunes / Apple Music. I think it's just hard-coded in the OS.

Last time I got a fresh Mac, the bloatware all had an icon on the dock - so that is a combination of a start menu entry AND a tray icon.

Grab it with your mouse, drag it off the dock, done.

I guess I’m not really seeing what I’m supposed to be outraged about, here. Modifying the stuff in the dock on OSX isn’t difficult or unintuitive at all? Just grab the stuff you don’t want on there and drag it out, and grab the stuff you do want on there and drag it in? It’s just using the standard desktop metaphor and interface, and you’re in no danger of breaking fragile uninstall scripts like you would be if you manually removed a program’s entry from the start menu on Windows. It really isn’t comparable at all.

> Grab it with your mouse, drag it off the dock, done.

Same thing with Windows too.

Really? That doesn't seem to work for system tray icons for me. Are you certain?

Little Snitch says otherwise.

Sure, but Win 10/11 have had stuff like candy crush and other 3rd party apps installed by default for a bit. MacOS only has 1st party bloat, which may be a big difference for some.

Fair point, I agree there's a difference.

First party bloat is arguably worse.

Definitely a difference between first and third party bloatware though

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