That's a bit of a false dichotomy, though, because there also exists the group of people that are the intended audience for this feature that is so dreaded by this small minority. The large majority of users benefit from being made aware when an application is using their microphone as it helps them see whether that's being done without their consent. Apple could, in theory, put in a toggle to allow more seasoned users to choose to hide that function but then that toggle will just be used to compromise the whole point of the feature for the majority of their users.
Case in point, my mom is getting paranoid about this stuff after watching stuff on Netflix and CNN about how Facebook is "listening in" on her. I can easily just tell her to watch for the dot and know, with reasonable certainty, that she didn't install some app on her own that would hide that.
Case in point, my mom is getting paranoid about this stuff after watching stuff on Netflix and CNN about how Facebook is "listening in" on her. I can easily just tell her to watch for the dot and know, with reasonable certainty, that she didn't install some app on her own that would hide that.
Nothing about this scenario would change if Apple chose to include a setting in the system menu that turns it off. You would just tell your mother not to mess with that setting... which you've presumably already done for numerous other settings.
There are plenty of settings that get turned off by someone falling for a guide ("customer service rep" or YouTube video or written tutorial or infographic or Facebook post or email or...) which tells them to turn that setting off as an important bypass for whatever other issue they have or think they have.
The obvious solution would be some sort of prominent warning that disabling this setting might allow malicious behavior or something, but many people are so inured to frivolous warnings that it might not work. I think the only fix to that is to make it even harder to disable, but I'm no UX expert.
Yes it would. That's how malware gets installed surreptitiously. It gets wrapped in nice instructions for how to enable some functionality that actually does something else. It's literally the entire reason for changes like this.
I still think Apple should walk it back a little but pretending like that doesn't have unintended consequences is kinda foolish.
Like other powerful tools, computers can do a lot of damage if used carelessly. That's the way it has to be. Such tools should be made as safe as possible, but no safer.
Don't nerf my computer because your mother can't be trusted with the digital equivalent of an electric carving knife. Just add a few more warning labels and let Darwin sort it out.
Case in point, my mom is getting paranoid about this stuff after watching stuff on Netflix and CNN about how Facebook is "listening in" on her. I can easily just tell her to watch for the dot and know, with reasonable certainty, that she didn't install some app on her own that would hide that.