> 2016 – Apple hides option to allow unsigned apps from the Mac GUI.
Are you referring to System Settings? There was always a more convenient option which continues to work: right-click and select “Open”. Granted, you have to know that’s a solution and most people don’t (including developers, who recommend cumbersome methods in the documentation of their own apps), but the option was never removed nor is it hard to do.
I think having to right click and select “open” is effectively hiding the option from the GUI, since the assumption would be that does the same thing as double clicking. The whole point of a GUI is to be discoverable, and that workaround is very much not obvious or discoverable. If you right clicked and it said “open regardless of security concerns“ or something like that, then maybe it would qualify. The original article says the option was hidden from the GUI, not that it’s impossible to do.
^ Yes, this is what I meant by "hidden from the GUI". Apple is purposefully obscuring the process. If you double click, the OS tells you "this Application is damaged" which is at best leaving out key information and at worst deliberately misleading.
As I said in my original comment—I'm not necessarily against these changes in isolation. I think macOS handles the balance reasonably well. However, if you take these changes together, the throughline is clear. We went from "don't worry, Gatekeeper is entirely optional and easy to turn off" when it was first introduced to "don't worry, advanced users who can use the Terminal or know the specific hidden incantation can still bypass Gatekeeper."
Are you referring to System Settings? There was always a more convenient option which continues to work: right-click and select “Open”. Granted, you have to know that’s a solution and most people don’t (including developers, who recommend cumbersome methods in the documentation of their own apps), but the option was never removed nor is it hard to do.