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Comment by ridaj | Hacker News Reader

This is desktops creeping towards an attitude, familiar on Apple's phones, in which the user is essentially untrusted to make security decisions. Because let's face it nobody seriously audits the security of software going onto Macs. The loser is the user's freedom to enjoy the computer as a true general-purpose tool.

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Maybe this makes more sense if we view this as involving three parties: Apple, users, and app developers.

On OSX at least, some apps are developed by third parties whose code isn't easily scrutinized by Apple or by end users.

I think Apple's policy helps users navigate that situation pretty well. But I also can't see any good reason to prevent users from disabling that feature in a fine-grained way. E.g. per app and/or temporarily.

No it’s not; this thread is full of solutions that power users can apply to avoid or remove the orange dot.

Apple not taken anything away. What they have done is change a default. Since defaults matter most to the least savvy users, skewing defaults toward security makes sense. Power users can apply extra skill to change the default; that’s what makes them power users.

You're assuming malicious intent where none exists. This feature is a security gain for users — previously there was _no way_ to know if your mic was being used. Now there is. It's giving me extra information I can use to make security decisions, where previously I had none of that information.

It's unfortunate it causes problems for some users, hopefully a fix will be forthcoming, but I believe it's an oversight.

I'm not saying it's malicious, I'm just saying it's a trade-off. Fwiw I understand the trade-off and it makes sense to me even as a Mac user.

Fair enough. I suppose I would characterize it more as Apple not trusting developers, rather than not trusting users.

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