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Apple to Block Mac Apps From Secretly Accessing Your Clipboard
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In user documentation, it’s meant to be called the Clipboard, capital C. Pasteboard comes from the class that developers use behind the scenes, so it kinda has relevance here in describing what some developers are up to. Apple’s style guide (more for developers and marketers) has explicit guidance on this.
I agree, especially when you can copy between devices. I'm amazed it was ever enabled without consent.
My workflow relies critically on cut and paste.
Apple need to understand some power users are of the cut and paste class.
your comment assumes we know the implementation, which we don't
Considering the kind of information that could be stored in clipboard (everything?!) headline should be "developers incarcerated for severe privacy violations, keys to their prison cells thrown in the middle of the ocean".
Not sure why everything is digital now but legislators still think digital crimes are kinda not real crimes.
Not sure why everything is digital now but legislators still think digital crimes are kinda not real crimes.
Good to know about this but Apple will hopefully have an option to disable this from the user side. Don't want it to be like the Sequoia screen recording permission prompts that appear once a month.
Yes, crimes in the digital world often seem to carry lesser sentences than those in the “real world”. But this has been changing.
The same goes for social media. Many people still seem to think what they say online is not the same as what they say in the “real world”. That somehow the two are different, that consequences are not equal.
Right. It's not as if the computer security landscape has changed dramatically in 25 years, is it? /s
From the article:
So it's not going to interfere with cut & paste.
I’m relieved about that
But one thing I wish Apple would do is release a purpose built pad with large cut and paste buttons. It’s critical for my high salary corporate role. Cut, paste, cut, paste. It takes skill to position the mouse pointer and then paste that text.
Everything is templated so all I need to do is cut, and then paste. Then send.
I only use the keyboard to enter my password when I first come into my office at 9 am. Then, cut and paste until 11. Go for lunch from 12 to 2 pm. Cut and paste till 4 pm and then I’m off. Collect my kids from school and drop off at home. Which is essentially a cut and paste. As is making dinner.
It’s all cut and paste.
Edit: if they could also create an overlay to change cut and past to hire and fire. That would be awesome too.
For context: Pre-XP Windows was just a "shell" sitting on top of DOS and didn't really have any concept of "user privileges" - essentially, anything could access everything. Windows XP was a far more sophisticated, modern OS, with a proper system of users and access privileges but it was required to seamlessly run old DOS/Win9x-era software which assumed access to everything. Hence, it was constantly popping up these warning dialogs. Apple chose to make a much cleaner break with OS X, which simply couldn't run old MacOS 9 software outside of the "Classic" emulator app.
Unfortunately, the practical upshot is that Windows users just got used to clicking "allow" without thinking. I find Android similar - less stringent lockdown than iOS but, everytime you install an app it's like "TipCalc requires *Access to clipboard, *Make and receive phone calls, *Permission to go through your garbage, *Your first' born's hand in marriage"... so of course people just say yes.
That's something that needs to be borne in mind when asking "Why are Apple only doing this now".
Yeah, honestly there are several apps that I use on my iPhone/iPad that I don’t install on my Mac because the lower security firewalls on that operating system.
I am glad this feature will be brought from iOS/iPad to macOS 16, just to be aware of apps accessing my clipboard.
And I now this is going to upset some people, but I really hope Apple keep on this path of implementing the security architecture from iOS/iPadOS, to macOS, such as proper sandboxing. I know, I know, all apps from the Mac App Store must be sandboxed, that’s why if there’s the option to choose where to buy the app from, e.g. iStat Menus, I’ll always choose that for the Mac App Store (aside from the ease of managing this purchases afterwards, like no needing to “deactivate” an app before formatting, or erasing, the computer because of the risk of losing that installation slot forever).
However, if such features are only enforced in the Mac App Store, many companies that won’t distribute their apps on there to save Apple’s 30% commission will leave us with the decision of not enjoying that safety barriers, thus exposing our system completely and forcing us to trust that company, or just renouncing to use that software.
Mind you, this doesn’t mean, or simply didn’t have to mean necessarily that macOS should become a closed system like iOS and iPadOS. No way. But Apple has demonstrated, with processes such as notarization, that Apple can advance in macOS security without closing the system.
I’m really surprised that this isn’t already a feature on the Mac.
I'm not a fan of Apple sherlocking apps, but a clipboard manager is one that they should, on iOS and macOS.
How it should be implemented is one issue, but some kind of protection for the clipboard must be in place and is long overdue.
Note Windows actually became a real OS starting with Windows NT, not XP. Windows NT was a full 32-bit protected mode OS with all sorts of granular user provisioning and security controls. By NT 4.0 (circa late 90s), it was a reasonably usable OS though primarily intended for the corporate/enterprise market. With 2K, the Windows NT lineage became practical on laptops.
What XP brought was an ugly UI (which could be disabled to look like Windows 2K) and the option for a stripped down Home version that vendors could preinstall on computers destined for Best Buy. And finally killed off Windows ME, which was an absolute abomination.
I recall Windows 2K/XP's tendency towards popup user warnings was similar to MacOS X of the time. It was Windows Vista (circa 2006) where MS tried to add privacy controls on top of the existing 2K/XP design and drove people nuts. Apple made fun of that but then has slowly followed suit in MacOS X over the years...
I agree Microsoft is far more committed to backwards compatibility than Apple and transitioned from the DOS/Windows 3.x model to the NT model much more gradually. Apple did offer Carbon to make transition easier but overall I agree Apple's break was cleaner. Microsoft is far less likely to break applications from release to release and more likely to keep legacy API around.
However, I think the issue for both now is that their security is rooted in a model that was designed around multi-user, administrator-managed systems where the system had to be protected from the users but users didn't have to be protected from software (because the software either came from the users or the administrator). Now we have the opposite situation of single-user/multi-device environments running software that can't be trusted but our models haven't fully caught up. We're in a hybrid where the legacy security models have been mostly neutered while the now needed security/privacy controls have been mostly layered on.
Sure - there were a couple of Windows NT versions and then Windows 2000 - I picked on Windows XP because that was when they pushed the "new" OS out to the mainstream market and began installing it as default on consumer PCs.
I actually "switched" to NT 4 for serious work, because I'd built a dual Celeron system on the cheap, and 9x didn't support multiple processors. It was rock solid compared to 9x, and great for development because it was much harder to lock up the whole system with one dodgy pointer. Totally reliant on dual-booting with 9x for non-compatible software or hardware that lacked NT drivers, though.
I think you're right that the "nag boxes" started with Vista - but they were in response to Windows XP's lousy security reputation.
I'm not either, I'd like them to buy a cool app and integrate it into th Mac, like they did with Pixelmator. Just don't dumb it down. My choices would be Grammarian, Alfred and Default Folder X; for me they add functionality that should be part of the MacOS natively. In fairness, some can be done or scripted, but it's nice to have it all at hand with no extra effort; especially for non-technical users.
Lot of people copy passwords or other sensitive data!
I like how TikTok got caught sniffing clipboard data on iOS, said it was for "security", but then immediately patched it out. Tells you all you need to know.
I like this on iOS so sure looks like a good feature to me.
But
so the next version of macOS will continue to be called Sequoia??? That's a leak that even Gurman didn't mention
It's kinda buggy on iOS. Some apps ask me every single time if I can paste. That's irritating