(Not sure if this is worldwide or only in some countries)
Updating to iOS 26.4DB2 will put your phone into a parental-restricted mode with adult websites blocked on all browsers, warning prompts every time you try to send or receive an explicit image on a messaging app, and all social media apps blocked on the App Store (in Australia)
The settings to disable this mode are locked off until you verify your age either with a credit card, photo ID, or though information Apple already has (like the age of your account).
I’ve been an apple user my entire adult life but this might finally be the thing that forces me off the platform. Do any other long term apple users have some tips about migrating? I’ve heard Ashai Linux is pretty good on mac hardware these days and I’ve been thinking about GrapheneOS for a while.
Sadly graphene will have to implement age verification too at some point as these laws spread like the ones in California that require ALL os providers including Linux to implement it albeit a pointless user dob input at account creation or be fined into the afterlife
The California law doesn’t require age verification, just a setting on the account that e.g. a parent can set. It’s still stupid, but it’s not what apple is supposedly doing here.
including Linux
How would they enforce that on an open-source platform?
Right, people can just compile their own, which I will absolutely do if need be
By destroying all general-purpose computing available to consumers.
You mean, like…rounding up every computer and burning them?
I really don’t know what you mean by this.
Probably over time. Look at the RAM situation - the fear is this will be the norm. At best.
I mean DRMing and Tivoizing every new computer so that it can’t be rooted or jailbroken and Linux won’t run on it. Requiring a license from the state to have a compiler. You know, The Right to Read or Unauthorized Bread type shit.
Yep, I’m not sure how come everyone thinks graphene will somehow be exempt.
Yep
Google tried a few years back but there was pushback. Google will slowly boil the frog tho.
Good, I am waiting on my brand new Fairphone 6.
What…is this shit? What’s the real reason behind this? What senator or governor has a brother in law in the age verification business that got this corruptioned into being a thing all of a sudden?
I’m only on 26.3 and I got an iOS age verification popup today when opening an app for hospital/medical stuff. I was able to just close it and continue but it was surprising.
26.3.1 will be the last version without the mandatory verification
I would imagine the health app has multiple age groups. Where as an 18+ can probably save and share medical data to doctors or store it in iCloud, it’s probably illegal some places for minors to have health data being backed up to Apple’s shit.
i accepted this to use a health insurance app. anyway to go back from here?
Yeah, same, but if you close it and continue the app will treat you as if you are a child. You need to explicitly share with the app. What’s being shared seems to be just that you’re an adult or not an adult. It’s basically like an OS level “click here to confirm you are 18.” Except the OS knows your birthday.
Thank you, Tim Apple, for making 2026 the year of the Linux desktop (but not necessarily the Ubuntu, Fedora, or Mint desktop).
(but not necessarily the Ubuntu, Fedora, or Mint desktop).
Rut. Thanks for ruining my day, sigh. That shit better be a patch away from removal / spoofing…
I’m hoping the implementation is something like ‘check this box to confirm you’re over 18,’ and nothing more.
I have a Macbook air now. Do you recommend me to buy a Lenovo thinkpad? Qubes os is the top pick, I heard.
Fuuuuck with apple doing this, I wonder how long we have until this BS enters Android and Linux Kernel.
Well when we have to comply we can make a build flag everyone shut toggle off…
I suggest simply never complying. Anyone who does is a traitor. This is FOSS, they have no control over us, ZERO power to enforce compliance.
Well, my 2G Nokia candy bar phone will come in handy
For what?//can’t even make a call on it as 2g is shut off or well be Shirley depending whee you live.
I wonder if this is why they’ve been so forceful in moving capable devices to iOS 26.
Has anyone checked to see if this exists in iOS 18.7.7 or 18.8 betas?
I don’t give a shit what children see.
They’ll live.
Stop spying on adults.
I mean some shit you find online is pretty grim but when I was a kid I knew the internet was for adults and didn’t expect everything to be catered to me. Now the status quo seems to be “every website must be kid/advertiser friendly and PG13 by default, everything else must be locked behind a verification prompt”. How did we get here?
It’s just a facade to justify mining more data for power, influence and money.
Simple as that.
We let 5 companies control the internet. Instead of being the distributed thing it was dreamed up to be we allowed it to consolidate.
And it’s not like servers have gotten harder to run! Pirates serve terabytes of data that’s straight-up illegal! Your fuckin’ commercial connection should be plenty for any damn thing you want.
If the West follows into the footsteps of the propaganda they are spreading against China, I’d rather go live in China because at least there people don’t live paycheck to paycheck despite working multiple jobs. Every accusation against China was a confession.
When I first decided to switch to Linux, I started exclusively using apps that were available on Linux. This way I was able to gradually transition my workflows one app at a time without any rush. When I was ready to install Linux, I did it on a new computer so I still had access to everything on the old computer and there was no risk of going computer-less if the installation went sideways.
Also, keep in mind that Asahi only works on M1 and M2 Macs. (If you have an old Intel Mac, you can just run normal Linux without Asahi)
Oh and Veronica Explains has a great video about her experience with Asahi.
This might be a stupid question but when using ashai can you run any normal linux software or does it have to be specifically built for arm64/apple silicon?
I hope someday any normal Linux software will be usable in Apple hardware. Unfortunately, there are hurdles.
One of the biggest hurdles was getting code accepted into the Linux kernel.
This became very frustrating for the previous Asahi Linux lead developer. He would push upstream code and the Linux developers would not accept it.
Why didn’t they accept it? Because it was written in memory-safe Rust and not in memory-unsafe C. Old Linux developers don’t want to deal with Rust. So they just refuse to include Asahi Linux updates into normal Linux software.
you’re losing a lot of nuances here, just want to add for other readers.
there was and are good reasons for why code wasn’t accepted
It’s gotta be built for arm64
Can you use the makefile and compile?
I’m pretty sure you can. I never did because I ended up having to go back to macos on the machine I had.
Yes, you can. It’s just an ARM64 computer. The only special consideration is that the kernel uses 16K pages instead of 4K pages, but that’s not something I’ve encountered problems with.
Alright, time to go to a different phone. Gonna buy Fairphone tomorrow.
(Or Motorola, if it’s true that it’s gonna have GrapheneOS on it).
This is insane. They have to view your images to deem of they are explicit…
Basically a year away from a universal internet ID that will track all movements and can be restricted if your government doesn’t like you.
This also means they are tracking all the websites you are going to.
They already are. Well depends on who they are I guess but someone is.
To get a sim card in Australia you need to show identification. There is no anonymity.
That was already happening, as the option to block sending and receiving of such content was able to be turned on in your screen time settings, and you could mandate it for your children by managing your kids accounts on the family organizers device. If someone is under the age of 13 they are required to be on a family share, and if you don’t have “Ask to Buy” enabled, from what I know you won’t get a refund for anything with the excuse my kid bought this without permission.
Overall it all seems logical, but in those scenarios the ages and requirements are mostly all controlled by the parent.
Scary. I had no idea it went beyond the iCloud scans. I avoided the cloud after that celebrity image leak.
Guess we might see a rise in offline or dumb devices. I wonder how this will affect other nations that already have restrictive internet access. If the
USWest becomes more locked down where would free and accessible info go?
Apple already views your images for child porn.
Has this expanded from iCloud uploads? It’s crazy how using a device now requires users to allow company full access yo everything.
I guess I never believed it was limited to iCloud.
Do they though? As a side note, I read the documentation for the proposed system of scanning and it was actually really well designed for privacy. The problem was if they were forced to expand the scope to include other material such as, for example, proof of protest against a regime.
Wanted to view*
They probably do it for people like Donald and all his Epstein friends to save and pre order.
prompts every time you try to send or receive an explicit image on a messaging app
Does this mean they caved in to the UK’s client-side scanning stuff after all?
