macOS Sequoia Will Require Users to Update Screen Recording App Permissions Monthly

[Shirasaki]

Fast forward a few years and we’ll have to grant permission for the system to allow apps to use the “ask for permission” api

Then the following year we’ll have to grant permission for buttons to receive the button down and button up events when interacting with the permission api

Year after that we’ll have to grant permission to the “ask for permission” api to call itself so it can ask itself to grant permission to itself to ask for permission to run itself to call itself.

Year after that…

By that point let’s just go back to Altair 8800 and use computers purely with toggle switches Since Apple distrust users entirely. Imagine M9 apple silicon Mac equipped with 3000+ toggle switches to even boot the computer. Each toggle switch flip means granting permission to progress to the next step.

 

[Shirasaki]

No, Macs are first and foremost for non-technical people who just want to use a computer and wants Apple to help them be secure in their computing.

If you like opening up a terminal window, the Mac and the Apple ecosystem isn't optimised for your use.

Wow. So much for “beloved“ Steve Jobs comment on “macOS is a truck where iOS is a car” comment. So much about That. While we are at it, discontinue macOS entirely and install modified version of iPadOS 18 on mac as well. What could go wrong. Just make macOS so easy to use it turns into iPadOS.

 

[Shirasaki]

As a business IT administrator, i'd suggest that this is a good thing for the average end user. Plenty of people inadvertently end up granting permission for all sorts of things to do all sorts of nefarious things, having this reviewed periodically is not a bad thing.

This is screen recording we're talking about which can steal banking info, etc.

Dialog fatigue is a thing. And users who have no idea would just dismiss it however they see fit and go on their way anyways. You either disable it entirely, or you enable it entirely. There’s no “pop up every month” compromise here. If there’s going to be a pop up, give it the first time, then never again.

It’s a terrible oversight or deliberate decision and will further hurt Apple’s reputation in business world. Not like they have much anyways. After all, Microsoft wouldn’t mind people going back to use their stuff don’t they?

 

[throAU]

It’s a terrible oversight or deliberate decision and will further hurt Apple’s reputation in business world. Not like they have much anyways. After all, Microsoft wouldn’t mind people going back to use their stuff don’t they?

Microsoft are doing their level best to alienate and annoy their customer base via forced telemetry, ever more pervasive ways of attempting to sign you in to 365, copy your stuff to 365 (without your knowledge), ever more annoying and inconsistent UI changes - and also refuse to run on hardware as recent as 2018.

Windows 10 (which was bad, but not as bad as 11) goes end of support for enterprise next year.

 

[Shirasaki]

Microsoft are doing their level best to alienate and annoy their customer base via forced telemetry, ever more pervasive ways of attempting to sign you in to 365, copy your stuff to 365 (without your knowledge), ever more annoying and inconsistent UI changes - and also refuse to run on hardware as recent as 2018.

Windows 10 (which was bad, but not as bad as 11) goes end of support for enterprise next year.

This is what we get for only a handful of megacorp controlling everything. Pick your poison, as each other copy each other enough to make them indifferent. I still use Windows and will continue to use Windows, just not Windows 11.

 

[MacGizmo]

Apple thinks we are not smart enough to protect ourselves.

That's because 99.99999% of people aren't.

 

[tenjikuronin]

If you have 100 apps that can records the screen on your computer, the issue is somewhere else.

Let's see, my Japanese teacher uses Skype, I use Zoom to teach design (I also use GIPHY capture), my work uses Google Hangouts through Chrome, I talk to friends via Hangouts on Firefox or Vivaldi, I interview for jobs using both. I believe Magnet, Bartender, Hyperswitch, Ice, Screentray, Trex, and Katana, use the screenrecording function as do the screenshot tools like Shottr I use. I'm pretty sure VNC and remote desktop also need permissions.

Maybe I should continue to use my computer, instead of my computer using me.

 

[The Clark]

That's because 99.99999% of people aren't.

I can assure you 99.99999% will not benefit from this "security" measure.

 

[m1370302]

Yeah because clicking a button 12 times a year is just way too much.

I don't understand why people who have commented are so upset. Are the people upset mad that they can't spy on someone 24/7? It's 12 clicks a year lol.

Well for us its 100 people without admin access (required for ISO 27001 certification) who cant do this themselves and will require a call with IT, and ironically, they wont be able to share their screen for me to type in my admin password.

 

[8digital]

It really blows my mind that Apple isn’t thinking about businesses or servers here, I work in IT and there are literally hundreds of Mac’s that we manage or update remotely. I legitimately don’t know what we’re going to do other than blacklist this update.

Using apps like TeamViewer Host or Splashtop Business on machines is going to be difficult if monthly re-authorising is required. Maybe Apple could disable this feature for machines that have management profiles installed.

 

[scottishwildcat]

It really blows my mind that Apple isn’t thinking about businesses or servers here, I work in IT and there are literally hundreds of Mac’s that we manage or update remotely. I legitimately don’t know what we’re going to do other than blacklist this update.

What makes you think they aren't? Business can already lock down or auto-approve many things on their employees' Macs by deploying custom configuration profiles, and we don't know yet whether this will be one of those things.

 

[MNWildFan]

This really isn't necessary. Even monthly is too much.

EXACTLY!!!

Simply put, it should be once, and once only

I know that it just needs access to the things it asks permissions for, so the fact that the OS just can't remember that just baffles me

 

[MNWildFan]

Seems like Microsoft's UAC was ahead of its time 🤢

Why can there be an option buried in setting so it's far from reach from users that don't know what they are doing where you can switch the frequency of this prompt to "Never" 🤯

I agree

These later versions of iOS have gotten way out of hand with the permissions prompts, so much so that way too often in my opinion I get things that mention that an app has been using your location in the background and if I'd like to keep doing that or to only while using... I mean, I granted that in the 1st place, I'm ok with that!

 

[MNWildFan]

Jason Snell went off about this policy on the latest Upgrade podcast. I love it when Jason gets feisty about something Apple does. ATP podcast did too.

From what I remember, he also did this just recently last week on the most recent MacBreak Weekly episode too

He is great

 

[northernmunky]

Dear Apple, we have an MDM system, please just let us pre-authorise these things, especially screen recording, mic access, and System Extensions etc via our PPPC profiles... I'm going spare explaining these things to people who aren't listening every day and forget immediately after. I can't run around every single workstation every time we do a software update, this is what our MDM is supposed to be for - to make it easier for admins!

 

[TriBruin]

What makes you think they aren't? Business can already lock down or auto-approve many things on their employees' Macs by deploying custom configuration profiles, and we don't know yet whether this will be one of those things.

An admin can NOT pre-approve Screen Recording (or microphone and camera) for a user. The best we can do, if the user is a standard user, is allow them to enabled those options, since they normally require an admin account.

As far as why we thing they aren’t going to allow us to suppress? Maybe because we have filed feedback from Apple and gotten our responses.

 

[brunerd]

Amplifying some of the other voices regarding this onslaught of annoying never satisfied pop-ups in Sequoia:
Sequoia Screen Recording Prompts and the Persistent Content Capture Entitlement (mjtsai.com)
The Mac is a Power Tool (mjtsai.com)

 

[Rembihnutur]

Hey,
I recently read about this, and now I’m wondering how it will affect my work Mac. We don’t have many Macs in our company, so there’s no management software or anything similar in place. I have a MacBook with a non-admin account, which is the only restriction—I don’t have admin rights. However, the admin has granted some apps permission to record the screen and similar actions.

Now, my question is: when I update to macOS Sequoia next week, will I be able to reauthorize the screen recording permission when it prompts, or will I need admin rights for that?

 

[TreatMeLikeAnAdmin]

: sigh : It's *still* not fixed in the Public Release of Sequoia (15.0), which just dropped yesterday...

I am spammed with endless dialogs giving me two options, none of which allow me to "finalize" my settings so that the damn popups finally go away for good. This was experienced a few minutes ago on macOS Sequoia 15.0. The application I was trying to approve — is Remote Support Customer Client (aka "Bomgar"). I hadn't even pinned the Jump client yet. As soon as I toggled the slider on for 'Remote Support Customer Client' in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Screen & System Audio Recording, I started getting spammed with the popups (see attached screenshot). I had to Force Quit Remote Support Customer Client to put a temporary end to the incessant popups. I entered my password to confirm the change, and that was that...or so I thought. I am still getting the popup every few minutes. It doesn't seem to 'remember' my initial selection of "Allow For One Month".

Way to go, Apple...no, really, this takes the cake...

 

[southerndoc]

: sigh : It's *still* not fixed in the Public Release of Sequoia (15.0), which just dropped yesterday...

I am spammed with endless dialogs giving me two options, none of which allow me to "finalize" my settings so that the damn popups finally go away for good. This was experienced a few minutes ago on macOS Sequoia 15.0. The application I was trying to approve — is Remote Support Customer Client (aka "Bomgar"). I hadn't even pinned the Jump client yet. As soon as I toggled the slider on for 'Remote Support Customer Client' in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Screen & System Audio Recording, I started getting spammed with the popups (see attached screenshot). I had to Force Quit Remote Support Customer Client to put a temporary end to the incessant popups. I entered my password to confirm the change, and that was that...or so I thought. I am still getting the popup every few minutes. It doesn't seem to 'remember' my initial selection of "Allow For One Month".

Way to go, Apple...no, really, this takes the cake...

View attachment 2419800View attachment 2419801

Spam Tim Cook (tcook@apple.com). Maybe enough emails will stop this or allow one to find a way to permanently disable the popup.

A better option would be to have a notification that pops up in notification center that says "hey, this is recording your screen. click here for settings to disable it." A popup that says it's doing something and gives you the option to disable it would not break things like the currently implementation (that disables it and then allows you to enable for another month).

 

[TriBruin]

: sigh : It's *still* not fixed in the Public Release of Sequoia (15.0), which just dropped yesterday...

I am spammed with endless dialogs giving me two options, none of which allow me to "finalize" my settings so that the damn popups finally go away for good. This was experienced a few minutes ago on macOS Sequoia 15.0. The application I was trying to approve — is Remote Support Customer Client (aka "Bomgar"). I hadn't even pinned the Jump client yet. As soon as I toggled the slider on for 'Remote Support Customer Client' in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Screen & System Audio Recording, I started getting spammed with the popups (see attached screenshot). I had to Force Quit Remote Support Customer Client to put a temporary end to the incessant popups. I entered my password to confirm the change, and that was that...or so I thought. I am still getting the popup every few minutes. It doesn't seem to 'remember' my initial selection of "Allow For One Month".

Way to go, Apple...no, really, this takes the cake...

View attachment 2419800View attachment 2419801

Since Beyond Trust is an Enterprise application, are you part of the IT team? If not, your IT team is negligent in allowing you to upgrade. This is a known issue as I have/had an open ticket with Beyond Trust.

This is also one of multiple reasons why we are blocking Sequoia in our org for up to the maximum 90 days.

 

[tenjikuronin]

Sequoia's the first OSX version in ages I haven't upgraded my personal machine immediately. It's a shame, I really want to use iPhone mirroring, but I don't like Apple dumbing down the OS.

 

[laptopllama]

Jordi Bruin of MacWhisper (and a bazillion other apps) fame just released an app to suppress the monthly permissions dialog by adjusting the time-tracking: https://goodsnooze.gumroad.com/l/amnesia

It's pay-what-you-want, but he mentions $0 being fine: I imagine it's a lot simpler than most of his apps.

Note that it doesn't yet work on 15.1.

And maybe Apple will start restricting that time-tracking trick at some point. But the approach they used to implement it is simplistic enough that maybe this is one of those things that they're not going to spend a ton of effort on.