Alrescha

As Apple aptly demonstrates, if you create a quality product people will beat a path to your door and throw money at you.

Unfortunately most news sites could use a course in Jim Lehrer's rules of journalism.  Nobody in his right mind is going to pay good money for opinion-presented-as-fact such as "this is about Facebook and Instagram profiting from news publishers as it pays them nothing and drives the industry out of business".

muthuk_vanalingam said:

r_mari said:

Particularly since Apple runs their repair program at a loss.

Any source from Apple to substantiate this claim?

https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/11/20/apple-says-repairs-cost-more-than-they-earn-in-charges

In 2019 via the BBC:

In response to a question about how much the company earns from repair services, Apple said: "For each year since 2009, the costs of providing repair services has exceeded the revenue generated by repairs."

Given that, it seems optimistic to think that independent repair shops could do better.  They have every right to try, but Apple has no obligation to make their business model profitable. 

retrogusto said:

I wonder if this is a result of internal user prototype feedback.

Or maybe it was simply wrong.

Certain outlets once proclaimed that Apple was killing off the headphone jack.  When it turned out that they were only removing it on platforms that couldn't physically support it, those same outlets claimed that Apple changed direction based on user feedback.  Which is simply bullshit, as Apple was never killing off the headphone jack in the first place and those certain outlets couldn't bring themselves to admit that they made a mistake.

maltz said:

That make no sense - I stop using the installer after I've installed the program.  Can we get some clearer instruction on this?

You raise an excellent point.  The simple answer is that you must disable the updater (as opposed to 'installer').  In the future, if you want to preserve the security of your Mac, your process should be something like this:

1) Is the software available in the App Store?

If the answer is yes, then good.  This means there's no installer, no updater, nothing that lives outside of a sandbox*.  And no matter how cursory an inspection, you know that someone has taken a look at it.

2) No App Store, so the next question is 'does this software come with an installer?'

If the answer is no, but the software is signed/notarized by Apple, then good.  The software is just a program, good or bad.  It might not be able to run in a sandbox, but it's not obviously noteworthy.

3) This software comes with an installer.  This means it needs to do something unusual under the covers.  You should be questioning whether you really, really, need this program.   It's almost inevitable that it's going directly to question 4, which is:

4) Does the installer want Admin/Root access?

Full stop.  Close the the installer, take a breath.  You have to ask yourself if this software is absolutely necessary.  If it is, you must run something like Suspicious Package ( https://www.mothersruin.com/software/SuspiciousPackage ) and try and figure out what is going on.  In the case of something like Chrome or Zoom you'll see that the installer is installing extra stuff that you don't want.  Walk away.  In my case I still needed to use Zoom so I used my iPad.

* I've lost count of the number of App Store developers who play bait-and-switch claiming that App Store restrictions prevent this feature or that and wouldn't I rather download the version from their website - and they're lying through their teeth.  When you point out that *other* App Store programs have no problem doing this or that, they'll say 'ok, that will be fixed in our next release'.