I don't think Apple recurringly hounds you to sign in when you hit "Do it later" though. I read "Do it later" here as a subtle reminder that "the option is not gone. You can do it later on your own in your system settings if you want", as opposed to "ok we'll ask you again later unprompted :)"

Everytime my BT headphones connect, Apple Music opens up.

Own and iPhone and you are reminded quite often of the benefits of an iCloud subscription.

Try setting up an iPhone w/o an apple account for that matter, or using an Android phone (that hasn't been de-googled) without a Google account.

Not to mention, users expect their files to be with them everywhere. IMHO Microsoft should make OneDrive free with some obscene high file limit and default My Documents to it, and they should have done this back in the Windows XP days.

> using an Android phone (that hasn't been de-googled) without a Google account.

This is still very doable (or, it was when I got a new phone a couple of years ago). It wasn't even hard to avoid using a Google account.

> It wasn't even hard to avoid using a Google account.

And then you launch any of the included apps. Chrome wants you to sign in, calendar wants you to sign in, photos wants you to sign in, not to mention Google photos pushes notifications ads trying to sell photo albums.

The photo app will also try to sell you a premium subscription to store your photos online.

The phone is very much designed to be used with a Google account, you can avoid it, but the experience is limited.

Microsoft noticed that people liked having their photos automatically backed up and being able to share them with friends and family. Same goes for documents, being able to push a "share" button on a family finance planning Excel sheet is a lot easier than emailing it around.

There is a lot of crap in the start menu that needs to be removed, and the constant attempts to change the default browser to Edge needs to stop, but "please backup your documents so you don't get all angry at us when your HD dies" is not what I'd call an intrusive ad.

> And then you launch any of the included apps. Chrome wants you to sign in, calendar wants you to sign in, photos wants you to sign in, not to mention Google photos pushes notifications ads trying to sell photo albums.

Yes, if you're going to use those apps, you may as well sign in with a Google account. I don't use them, though. There are plenty of better alternatives to all of them.

> The phone is very much designed to be used with a Google account, you can avoid it, but the experience is limited.

No, it's really not limited. It does take a little more setup to install the apps you want, though.

There are alternatives to all of those apps from F-Droid. I have stock Android, and it works just fine without logging into a Google account.

> Every time my BT headphones connect, Apple Music opens up.

Sounds like your headphones are issuing a play command during the connection process. My car does this. It’s very annoying.

The MG3 will turn on the radio turn the volume up to at least 50% and auto play via Bluetooth whenever the ignition starts.

So you might not want music. You turn down the radio and turn it off. Next ignition you find your paired phone starts up Spotify on command from the car and starts playing.

It means you have to never pair your phone. Worse than annoying. Who wants that? At the very least keep volume at 0% if that's what I set it last ignition.

> Everytime my BT headphones connect, Apple Music opens up.

https://github.com/tombonez/noTunes

> noTunes is a macOS application that will prevent iTunes or Apple Music from launching.

Simply launch the noTunes app and iTunes/Music will no longer be able to launch. For example, when bluetooth headphones reconnect.

You can toggle the apps functionality via the menu bar icon with a simple left click.

I'm quite sure there was a way of preventing this without having a random app running. I actually did use itunes, and later music, but also used that key for other purposes, like Spotify. iTunes / Music never came up on its own when I used my BT headphones (Sony and Shure).

I don't use a mac anymore, so don't quite remember the specifics, but a quick search brings this up (old, so may not work anymore): https://www.howtogeek.com/274345/stop-itunes-from-launching-...

That's a way to turn off the keyboard's function key assigned to the play media command, so you won't accidentally activate it.

The issue being discussed here is that certain bluetooth headsets send the play command when they connect. Hence the open source software to prevent that errant play command from launching a media app, if you happen to own a bluetooth headset that has the issue.

> Everytime my BT headphones connect, Apple Music opens up.

You make it sound like there's code to show you ads when you connect a BT headphone. I can't confirm this despite using it daily.

This doesn't happen with AirPods. Nor does it happen with a Sony headphone. So it's not behavior baked into the OS.

I'm also sure you meant Music.app, not Apple Music. When I open Music.app on a Mac, it shows me the local songs. It's also possible to hide Apple Music in Music.app.

I wouldn't be surprised if some shitty Bluetooth headphones send a "play" command on connection, which then opens the default music player if no others are running, and by default the Music app has some Apple Music stuff (though as you say it can be disabled).

While there should ideally be a toggle in the OS to be able to ignore play commands completely from bluetooth devices (to deal with such defective ones), but I don't see it as outright malicious unlike putting spam in the start menul

> I wouldn't be surprised if some shitty Bluetooth headphones send a "play" command on connection,

Bose's highest end headphones.

> While there should ideally be a toggle in the OS to be able to ignore play commands completely from bluetooth devices (to deal with such defective ones), but I don't see it as outright malicious unlike putting spam in the start menul

Windows does the "proper" thing here and starts playing whatever media was last being played, which while annoying, at least is an attempt to follow the standard. (And Windows really goes the extra mile to remember what was last playing, sometimes resuming sound in a browser tab I haven't looked at in several days!)

> at least is an attempt to follow the standard

There's a standard that blesses automatically running a media application when headphones are connected?

Unless it can be disabled, that behavior is beyond obnoxious.

Auto play is disgusting, especially with videos on websites. I cannot imagine why anyone would think auto playing media is the “correct thing” to do.

Odd. Because my Bose NC700s don't do that under Ventura.

> And Windows really goes the extra mile to remember what was last playing, sometimes resuming sound in a browser tab I haven't looked at in several days!

And sometimes calling up some random contact on Teams because it sticks around in the "media" panel. Good times.

Everytime you open settings on a new apple device you get a artfully phrased reminder 'x number of days remaining to add applecare' and 'try your new trials'.

> Everytime my BT headphones connect, Apple Music opens up.

This does not happen to me w/ my bose bt earbuds ... curious.

> Everytime my BT headphones connect, Apple Music opens up.

I had to use a jailbreak tweak to fix this: http://cydia.saurik.com/package/com.itortrix.stopplayin12/

* * *

my nearly 10 year old imac asks me daily to either install updates now, enable auto updates, or "remind me later" for software updates. apple doesn't even update anything for this OS anymore.

This is stupid, but if I recall correctly, if you click the close box “x” in the upper left corner of the notification, it will stop asking, but if you say “remind me later” it continues to ask you. It is utterly infuriating that they use this dark pattern.

Apple and unintuitive UI patterns, be they dark or otherwise.

How many people have discovered macOS or iOS behaviors with accidental keypresses, swipes or gestures, or long holds on a button or ... bleh.

> How many people have discovered macOS or iOS behaviors with accidental keypresses, swipes or gestures, or long holds on a button or ... bleh.

A similar number to those who have discovered them on Windows, I'd wager.

Its not as bad as windows, but it will constantly give you a badge on the settings app to notify you that you didn't finish setting up siri.

Nope just click on the notification to start the setup then decline by opting for "do it latter" poof notification badge is gone. It might popup again after major update if there are "new features" but the same step will dismiss the badge/notif.

Not to mention that it's also easy to skip. I had Windows 10 on my spare machines, and never have I seen an OS that showed so much level of contempt towards its users.

Every OS update forces me to go through pages and pages of privacy invading settings before letting me use my own computer again. Each time the UI for those settings change with fresh new additions of dark patterns. Each of those settings must be carefully disabled or I'll end up with a key logger on my system.

It's not done even after it shows me the desktop either, proceeding to add Edge to the desktop, taskbar, and the default browser settings, all without even asking.

No other OS comes even close in terms of hostility.

I definitely get hit with a "sign in to siri" on a regular basis. The iPhone I use is a dev phone, I don't need all of the iCloud, etc services. So I suspect that anybody who says "Do it later" will be hounded just like I am.

It constantly asks you to sign up to icloud, and makes it difficult to refuse. Fuck apple too.

The big red circle on the System Settings app because I've not configured iCloud or similar begs to disagree.

It's not a model dialog, but it is a call to action that doesn't go away.

I have an iPad I use for reading books (1 app). Every time I wake it up on I have to click through 4 login promts (that interrupt each other, so I have to watch the animation of them appearing and disappearing twice).

Maybe the desktop doesn't do this _yet_?

That has not been my experience. I got my first Mac last year because it was an irresistible used price, and I expected to hate MacOS. To my surprise, it's actually been very pleasant, inviting me to set up an Apple ID when I first set it up but otherwise staying out of my way.

I'm not sure it ever does ask you to set up those things again. I never set up fingerprint scanning and I don't recall it asking later to set those things up. (maybe it has after a patch though I don't recall it.. also maybe if you go to the place in settings where you might set one of those things up, like if you went into the siri control panel it might prompt you to set it up there... but that seems very reasonable.)

Are you using 'payment' where it asks you to sign-in w/ iCloud? Cause those aren't the same, and I've never seen a macOS install ask for payment information. I just re-installed on a M1 three days ago, nevermind a macOS user of the last 6 years.