Notices by Jeff Johnson (lapcatsoftware@mastodon.social), page 2

Wait, what? macOS Tahoe beta 2 automatically enabled FileVault and uploaded a recovery key to iCloud.

I did not have a choice in the matter.

This is fucking insane!

Tahoe appears to put all app icons in rounded rects, even if they aren’t rounded rects.

Ugh.

@nikitonsky Apple said, "We asked that Epic Sweden resubmit the app update without including the US storefront of the App Store so as not to impact Fortnite in other geographies. We did not take any action to remove the live version of Fortnite from alternative distribution marketplaces in the EC."

In other words, Epic just needs to submit with the Notarization option in my screenshot rather than the App Store option.

Epic refuses to submit a Notarization-only, EU-only update

@nikitonsky The tweets are misleading.

@nikitonsky No, because the developer chooses the review type. Epic chose "App Store" but could re-submit with just "Notarization".

https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/distributing-apps-in-the-european-union/submit-for-notarization

Tim Sweeney claims, "As a result, Fortnite is offline on iOS in the European Union indefinitely despite being distributed through the Epic Games Store there."

But this seems like a load of bullshit. Epic has already demonstrated for the court that Apple is refusing to consider Fortnite for the App Store, so Epic could now simply submit a new build for the EU alternative marketplace without the App Store. There's no need for Epic to sit on its ass doing nothing. A stunt.

https://www.macobserver.com/news/epic-says-apple-is-blocking-fortnite-violating-court-orders/

New blog post: App Store Curation

https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2025/4/6.html

Employers: Everyone must return to the office, because we work best when people collaborate face-to-face.

Also: We're going to replace everyone with A.I.

Cue my article "The myth and reality of Mac OS X Snow Leopard"

https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2023/11/5.html https://mastodon.online/@9to5Mac/114163146658349262

Apple software update "bug" enables Apple Intelligence

If you saw the "welcome" screen after updating to iOS 18.3.1 or macOS 15.3.1, then Apple Intelligence was probably re-enabled even after you disabled it.

https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2025/2/3.html

If Apple wants to notify users of new features, here's a crazy idea:

Put new features only into major OS updates with Apple keynotes and massive media coverage, not into minor security updates that are installed automatically.

No billionaire has a conscience. The very act of accumulating that much money and power demonstrates clearly their priorities and values. Anyone who isn't a glutton is eventually sated, but they're never sated.

It's a mistake to view the past behavior of billionaires as representing their true selves and their present behavior as deference or fear. To the contrary, they now feel safe to take off their masks and reveal the monsters underneath, because one of their own is in power.

Web docs:
"The id global attribute defines an identifier (ID) which must be unique in the whole document."

YouTube:
> document.querySelectorAll("#dismissible").length
142

https://developer.mozilla.org/docs/Web/HTML/Global_attributes/id

Apple Passwords is hostile to backups

https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2025/1/4.html

StopTheMadness Pro 13.0 released in the App Store

Can protect against double-clickjacking attacks!

https://underpassapp.com/news/2025/1/2.html

Sync is not the same as backup. That's a fundamental truth most people don't seem to understand.

One of the purposes of backups is to guard against data loss or corruption due to sync issues.

Contacts is severely fucked on Sequoia. I even tried replacing ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/ but Contacts is still empty, even though all of the data is on disk!

Wait, now it suddenly works for some reason WTF.

macOS bug:

1. Select some text in a web page in Safari
2. Click in Finder to activate
3. Right-click on the text in Safari to bring up the contextual menu
4. Left-click in Safari to dismiss the contextual menu
5. Left-click again in Safari to "activate" the window

The window appears to be active, but it mostly doesn't work: hover effects, link clicks, command-w, etc.

It might be related to this bug:

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2025/01/02/two-foreground-windows/

WebKit adds another YouTube quirk to fix the previous YouTube quirk. Have they considered just getting rid of quirks?

I had to add a quirk to StopTheMadness to work around a bug caused by the WebKit quirk.

And once again, they desperately need Safari Technology Preview for iOS.

https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit/commit/1fb3367b0a4fb304a289c0f59ac61b6c85ab4101

9 year old WebKit bug just fixed!

document.execCommand("copy") only triggers if there is a selection

https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=156529