“You’re buying something to hopefully improve the way you work and just improve your workflow. And if you’re fighting around AI obstacles and all this surveillance software, it’s just ridiculous. So, yeah, you can see why there’s been an increase in MacOS users and Linux users. There’s a reason.”
I want to add: If Apple doesn’t watch closely, there will only be an increase in Linux users.
I came to this decision when Windows Vista came out, that is when I discovered that with a Mac I could run a VM on a Mac and run Win XP for software I needed. I got a Mac with employee 25% discount from a friend of mine who was in charge of iTunes in 2009, it was still working in 2025. Now I rarely use Win so didn’t install a VM on my new MBP.
I hope that Apple “Thinks different” and doesn’t emulate MS.
Indeed. I switched to Apple in 2011. I skipped iOS and macOS 26 because they were clearly awful, intending to get back on the train with 27. But uh-oh, Apple have embedded “AI” without a way to switch it off. So I’ll be skipping 27 and, no doubt, thinking about my options over the coming year.
As I’m wont to say: marketing is a psychopathy.
Yeah I think that’s here to stay now, so Linux would be the only option. I doubt local LLMs will be removed ever, now, even if the bigger bubble bursts (soon the better…)
iOS 26 was truly awful.
27 is pretty good.
MS Windows has been ruining laptops? Ha.
Manufacturers have ruined Windows laptops for years with a battery life of two to four hours after only a couple of years of use. I don’t see anyone complaining about that.
I finally got fed up with Dell/Windows after my battery life went down to 2 and 4 hours, respectively, on two laptops. Bye bye Dell and Windows.
Really? I was hoping you’ll never see it unless you opt in.
Effectively, it can’t be switched off (at least, as far as most users are concerned). You can manually disable most AI features, but they will still be there in Siri. The only way to block it in Siri is to… block Siri entirely (adding Siri as a screentime block would do the trick). Even then, I think some of the services are still running in the background.
That ship has sailed for iOS/MacOS 
(Edit: there are some hacky solutions, and no doubt there will be some utilities that will offer some way to kill it - at least on macOS - but for almost all users who will never do this, they now have non-optional AI features)
You can’t turn off Siri in System Settings anymore? (I’m still on 15.x)
EDIT: Reading this guide sounds like… the way you have to declaw a Windows installation. Which is one reason why Windows users switch to macOS. 
I could never figure out why some one would use or want Siri. The only use case I could see would be if someone was forced to use voice commands because of a disability.
Oh, I think the embedded LLM will be removed fairly quickly; probably to be replaced with some sort of API to an optional local LLM (or other neural net) of the user’s choice. We’ll see.
What makes you think that? (I hope you’re right.)
Mostly because LLMs can’t do what they are being “marketed” to do. LLMs are not designed to return “correctness”, which is what people want. They are also not deterministic, which for most will be confusing.
There are options beyond LLMs that could usefully be embedded, but we don’t appear to be in that universe yet.
Apple knew all of this beforehand and still created this mess. Including a nice scavenger hunt for all those separate switches and workarounds and command line fiddlings to opt out. (And apparently there’s no way to reclaim all those wasted gigabytes of storage occupied by model data.)
Big part macOS’ appeal is that it gets out of the way. If I wanted to fight my Computer, I would be on Windows.
But Apple also has a tendency to listen to its users. That is why there is no longer that “touch bar” at the bottom of the screen that users hated. So there is cautious optimism taht if something is unpopular it will eventually fade out.