If you have ever used an Apple product, you know that they’re not the most open systems to work with. For example, you can’t immediately download apps from the internet and just install them without a security check on the apps. However, Apple performs more checks than you might think, this is something they had a giant problem in 2020 when half of their Mac services were unavailable because of a server outage! After fixing the problems, Apple promised its users that they would implement new measures to keep this from happening again. Keep on reading to discover what happened!
Why did Apple have to make a promise to implement changes?
In 2020, Apple launched a major update called MacOS Big Sur. However, not long after the release of the newest update, they had problems with server outages affecting thousands of users all over the world. Services like iMessage, Apple Pay, and many others were unavailable during that time. However, some users were even more affected.
When you’re launching apps on a MacBook or an iMac, Apple likes to do some “background checks” on the applications. This is to make sure the certificates are verified and they’re from a trusted source. This process is called Notarization and when you’re connected to the internet, this service will be done in a couple of seconds.
Whenever you’re offline or use the computer without an active internet connection, these checks will not be successful but the apps will just launch as normal. However, during this outage, some Macs were still trying to do these checks while Apple’s servers were out, and this caused a huge delay in opening apps.
After it was resolved, Apple made a lot of promises to never let this happen again. They also said that they’d make their services work differently to prevent an outage like this from happening again. However, nearly 4 years later, and still nothing has been improved!
The security measures haven’t been implemented yet
Apple has implemented some of the promises made. They’ve also made sure an outage like that would never happen again. However, not all the promises they made have been implemented yet. Opting out of the “notarization” is one of those promises that would show up, but hasn’t been implemented yet. So if you’re working with an Apple or Mac product, you’ll have to take it with the extra Apple Checks. And you won’t be able to opt out of these notarization checks for the foreseeable future!
People think they don’t completely own their Mac devices since Apple still intervenes. They do this by verifying apps you download from the internet. Even though many people think they should be able to choose, it is still mostly beneficial. It prevents a lot of people from downloading malware or apps which are linked to fraud.
