this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2026
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Honest question; in what way is it spyware and do you have references?
From everything I’ve ever seen, macOS is more transparent and controllable than Windows or Android.
I’d still recommend Linux but if I were forced to use a mainstream commercial OS (e.g. for work), I’d pick macOS over anything else except FOSS.
Another example is that macOS periodically sends records of which apps you’re opening to Apple, due to OCSP cert revocation checks: https://www.howtogeek.com/701176/does-apple-track-every-mac-app-you-run-ocsp-explained/
I realize this is ostensibly to enable a security feature, but if your threat model includes American software companies & oligarchs tracking what you do on your computer, it’s still something to be aware of.
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This was only for icloud photos, and the reason they were considering that was to keep your photos encrypted in the cloud. this way the photos are analyzed locally on your device and kept private, unless they are found to be problematic obviously.
mediaanalysisd isn’t mysterious. It’s a ML process that evaluates your photos and videos and generates description metadata to make them text-searchable. It’s what allows you to search your photos for “flowers” and see all the photos with flowers in them.
Sorry! I entirely missed that!
But yes, it’s an inefficient and buggy process. I think it’s also what makes text selectable in images, which is why it is always running. Since we’re living through a RAM apocalypse you would think that Apple would find ways of making always-on processes more efficient.
Every US company is spyware after the US Cloud Act got into law in 2018.
All proprietary software is spyware/malware/etc. If you can't know if it is safe or not, then you have to assume the worst. Especially if it is your operating system.
You shouldn't defend it.
I’m not a Mac lover, it’s just the term; Spyware is data gathering in secret without the user’s knowledge. Apple seems to have it all documented and controllable vs say Windows where you can’t turn off telemetry gathering, just set it to “Basic/required”.
More a semantics thing. I assumed you meant there was something you can’t turn off in Apple shit and it’s done secretly (another commenter has highlighted a daemon that’s doing exactly that!).
I wasn’t part of the downvote brigade either. I don’t get why people downvote stuff that’s more a point of discussion. You didn’t say anything shocking nor blatantly incorrect.
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Totally - it got us discussing! And if we didn’t, that daemon wouldn’t have been flagged.
Cheers for the thought provocation.
Effluently shining!
Users often ask / let me turn those off for them. Except spotlight local-to-disc, plus system updates, but if the user is savvy at all I ask if they would like notifications instead of auto install.
The iCloud stuff that is hard to let go is usually the calendar/contacts/reminders, and substitutes are poor usability. I’m often surprised at how easily they give up photo syncing for ‘I’ll just use a cable.’
fb messenger, though, once people are locked into that, it’s hard to escape, especially for boomers.