Turn off and restrict access to Apple Intelligence features on Mac

Re:Turn off and restrict access to Apple Intelligence featur... by m463 on Monday September 21, 2026 @03:36PM (#49792244)

It (purposefully?) doesn't find everything.

For instance (this is just sequoia, but same for ios) searching for "improve" finds:

"improve assistive voice features" (I turned it off)

and diagnostic & usage data with: "improve siri & dictation" (I turned it off)

but under spotlight, it doesn't find "help apple improve search" (I turned that off too)

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Re:Turn off and restrict access to Apple Intelligence featur... by Forgeties79 on Monday September 21, 2026 @03:24PM (#49792074)

Normally I'd say that's at least somewhat valid but Apple also has a nasty habit of coming up with new names for things everyone else had a name for for 30 years already. Then they do bizarre things like when I tried to help my mom with her airpod settings the other day - searching "airpod" gave no hits. I mean...what?

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Re:Turn off and restrict access to Apple Intelligence featur... by fooker on Monday September 21, 2026 @03:28PM (#49792140)

Searching for "airpod" in settings brings up - Accessibility, "Headphones/AirPods/Beats", Conversation Boost, Noise Cancellation, Press and hold duration, Press speed, Transparency mode

Not sure what went wrong for you, these results seem pretty much on point.

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Re:Turn off and restrict access to Apple Intelligence featur... by Forgeties79 on Monday September 21, 2026 @03:30PM (#49792173)

This literally happened yesterday. It tried to bring me to a safari search and I got no other hits. Could've been just a buggy moment with search who knows.

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Re:Turn off and restrict access to Apple Intelligence featur... by BlobberSnobber on Monday September 21, 2026 @04:02PM (#49792604)

I tested it just now. My AirPods are connected to the iPhone, and searching “AirPods” gives me the accessibility settings for them, not the actual AirPods’ settings. I have to open the Settings app and then they’re up there, but it’s ridiculous that they don’t show in the search.

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Re:Turn off and restrict access to Apple Intelligence featur... by pixl97 on Monday September 21, 2026 @04:43PM (#49793112)

Great, Apple hired the team from Microsoft search too.

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Re:Turn off and restrict access to Apple Intelligence featur... by dd8601fn on Monday September 21, 2026 @04:50PM (#49793214)

That doesn’t surprise me. Search in Settings is sketchy.

The other day “login” didn’t produce Login Items. But I wouldn’t be surprised if you tried it right now and it worked fine.

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Re:Turn off and restrict access to Apple Intelligence featur... by zzyzxd on Monday September 21, 2026 @04:50PM (#49793213)

There are reasons graphical interfaces exist. Otherwise why don't we hide everything behind one single search box? And unless you are a die-hard Apple fan, you may not always know the correct feature name to search for.

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Re:Turn off and restrict access to Apple Intelligence featur... by roboror on Monday September 21, 2026 @05:47PM (#49793897)

That's putting a bandaid on an infected wound.

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Re:Turn off and restrict access to Apple Intelligence featur... by FireBeyond on Monday September 21, 2026 @06:57PM (#49794546)

If I want Siri to talk faster do I go to:

- Accessibility > Siri > Siri Speaking Rate

or

- Siri > Voice

Because in iOS 27 these two are absolutely not the same thing, and the one you probably want is the latter.

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