macOS 27: Workaround to avoid downloading AI models and save storage

lotsofpulp

This type of stuff gives me PTSD flashbacks from trying timo de-crapify Windows.

thewhitetulip

I am tired to fight against every platform that I have to use De macify Mac Degoogle Android Demacify ipad DeLLM chrome browsers local llm Can we expect sane decisions from corpos about what we want rather than what latest thing they want to push on us?

jtbayly

Yeah, I’ll wait to update my computers until Apple gives us an actual choice.

thih9

Off topic. Since old.reddit is now login walled - is there an alternative frontend?

ebtebt

How much storage does this save?

kotaKat

without a reddit account: ... can you also force Siri off by using Screen Time controls? I noticed that in the Screen Time menus, "Content and Privacy" restrictions can be toggled on. From there seems to be an additional "Siri" menu that lets me change the allowed Siri version from Siri Classic to Siri AI as well as options to turn off the global writing tools/assistance (which turns off the annoying Siri bubble on every textbox now). I suspect forcing Siri off via those controls would work easier than using Low Data Mode or trying to force Siri to disable via language selection.

hbn

I'll say they definitely need to let people disable/offload the model, but if you haven't tried the new Siri, it's been great. Obviously it's not a state of the art LLM, but it's good enough, and the fact that it can search and take actions on your local data makes it incredibly useful. I definitely use it more on my iPhone where it's slower to get things done the traditional way, but I use it all the time now. "What was the quote for my insurance claim?" - it'll look through your emails and pull the number with the source email so you can jump right to it. The other day I asked "when did I arrive and leave Mexico City on my trip at the end of 2024?" and it nailed it based off my flight receipt. Since learning Spanish I get a lot more Spanish stuff in my feeds, and if I e.g. don't understand a meme I'll just ask "explain the joke here" and it reads the screen and explains it. You can have an article open in Safari and say "remind me to read this tonight" and it'll make a reminder with the link. Or you can modify reminders - "move my reminder to get groceries to tomorrow at the same time". Yesterday I told it to make me a reminder and it did, but I worded it in a clunky way so I followed it with "reword that to sound more natural" and it did it. We've been trained for a long time to think Siri can't do anything but I urge you to try it once you're on the new one, it's quite good. And I'm sure I've barely touched all the things it can do. David Pogue published a pretty thorough test other day: https://pogueman.substack.com/p/125-tests-of-the-new-ai-siri

VCFundedGenYer

They need an option to completely disable and delete Apple Intelligence. A 256GB Mac Mini is effectively unable to use macOS 27 due to this bloated nonsense.

jleehn

Tangentially related, I've always been frustrated by Apple's refusal to allow sorting photos/videos by file size. It feels like a blatant push to force users towards paying for their cloud storage.

5555watch

If Siri and Apple Intelligence is disabled in the settings, does it still do the download?

happyopossum

Worth pointing out that the Foundational Models can be used by more than just Siri - apps, shortcuts, etc can call/run those models for local inference.