Is it possible to block Apple Intelligence from sending data over the Internet via Little Snitch? I would assume it is, but I'm not sure if anything significant has changed in macOS 27 that makes this impossible now. I don't really mind the local features - I'd rather they stay disabled, but it's not the end of the world - but I really don't want any data leaving my Mac.
ActorNightly 4 minutes ago [-]
Apple OS will bypass any user space firewall.
You can verify this yourself. Get an old laptop to act as a wifi hotspot and forward traffic over usb ethernet adapter to your actual router. Then run tcpdump on the computer. You will see the multitude of phone-home traffic.
strictnein 17 minutes ago [-]
The thing that's weird about Apple's "Intelligence" features is how dumb they are. I messaged one of my kids yesterday that the pizza I made was ready and that I was out in the backyard with our dogs. Genmoji (or whatever it's called) then decided to suggest that I make a new Emoji with pizzas in a yard.
It's great that they're on device and all, but how incredibly stupid.
doc_ick 7 minutes ago [-]
Still better then Microsoft.
k310 41 minutes ago [-]
This applies to MacOS 26.
On iOS 27, it looks like changing the settings for eight different apps taking 5 or 6 steps each.
Funny how Apple has reached the crapware maturity level that Microsoft users are quite familiar with: After first boot, go through a long list of things to deactivate so that one can experience at least some feeling of agency and privacy when using your own hardware.
ASalazarMX 6 minutes ago [-]
I'd expect turning off Siri as a whole, which is very easy, would be enough. The list is for people who still want to use Siri after it became a OS-level LLM, I mean, Apple Intelligence.
ryandrake 3 minutes ago [-]
It's the "agency" bit that really annoys me. The Computer is no longer Personal. I expect my personal computer to only do things that I choose to invoke. It should not do a laundry list of things that the device manufacturer wants it to do, nor a laundry list of things the OS vendor wants it to do. I shouldn't have to turn things off. They shouldn't be on to begin with, unless I deliberately turned them on.
Of course this doesn't extend to obvious things like "running the kernel" and "initializing the filesystem." But in general I want to be the person responsible for running things, not some product manager 3,000 miles away in Silicon Valley.
iAMkenough 39 minutes ago [-]
Note that storage space taken up by local models is not reclaimed and remains dormant on your Mac until you're nearly out of space.
totetsu 31 minutes ago [-]
They cant take up that free space if it was already full in the first place..
Rendered at 18:40:17 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
You can verify this yourself. Get an old laptop to act as a wifi hotspot and forward traffic over usb ethernet adapter to your actual router. Then run tcpdump on the computer. You will see the multitude of phone-home traffic.
It's great that they're on device and all, but how incredibly stupid.
On iOS 27, it looks like changing the settings for eight different apps taking 5 or 6 steps each.
https://archive.ph/AE72I#selection-712.0-731.53
Original: https://www.ithinkdiff.com/how-to-turn-off-apple-intelligenc...
Of course this doesn't extend to obvious things like "running the kernel" and "initializing the filesystem." But in general I want to be the person responsible for running things, not some product manager 3,000 miles away in Silicon Valley.