Resolved What does this sign mean !?

[Pinkyyy 💜🍎]

Hi, so I downloaded those iPhone/iPad apps from the Mac App Store (I have an Apple Silicon Mac) but I just noticed this "!" sign on those apps in "App Usage" in the "Screen Time" settings, and I have no idea what exactly does it mean ..?

 

[velocityg4]

Have you tried clicking them? From what I can find it just seems to be a generic alert letting you know there is something about the app which needs your attention. One post I found showed that clicking the actual alert icon will give you more info.

 

[Pinkyyy 💜🍎]

Have you tried clicking them? From what I can find it just seems to be a generic alert letting you know there is something about the app which needs your attention. One post I found showed that clicking the actual alert icon will give you more info.

I did click on them and nothing happened, which is why I'm confused.. all it does is show my screen time on those apps, but it doesn't show anything about the alert.

 

[rpmurray]

Do those two apps have updates that you haven't installed yet?

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

Never seen that before (probably since I rarely - to the point of never - use Screen Time), but I was curious, and found one of those "warnings":

I have no idea why I spent 1 second in Preview...nor what the warning was...

If I click it, the whole row becomes marked in blue, and right-/ctrl-clicking does nothing.

Quite puzzling...

 

[Gudi]

@Pinkyyy 💜🍎 If you scroll up, you see three columns: Apps, Time, Limits. You need to put your mouse pointer straight down the Limits column, then two hidden icons will appear. Click the ⓘ and you'll learn that this is an untrusted app, which wasn't properly code signed by a developer. It might be a malware which only pretends to be the original app, but was indeed altered by a hacker.

 

[chown33]

I have to say, for something as important as "Unsigned: Could be malware", that's an astoundingly obscure set of hoops one must jump through to discover. The obvious thing to do is "Explain it when it's clicked on", or even "Explain it when it's hovered over", instead of "Touch your elbow to your nose then hop up and down 5 times while rotating exactly 735 degrees". A host of other expletives also sprang to mind, but I can't post them without banning myself.

In the past, I've intentionally designed software (and hardware) with obscure activation tricks in it, because we wanted to limit who stumbled on those things accidentally. In this case, though, it seems like an ill-conceived afterthought, and well-deserving of a bug report.

 

[Gudi]

In this case, though, it seems like an ill-conceived afterthought, and well-deserving of a bug report.

They want to go for a clean look and not show rows upon rows of identical icons, which is understandable. But than they need to show the icons whenever the pointer is anywhere on that row, not just hovering directly above an seemingly empty spot. That's what you get from completely rewriting System Preferences into System Settings.

 

[rpmurray]

Interesting that the warning icon is in the Apps column, but you have to hover over the Limits column to display another obscure icon that you need to click on to find out what the warning icon means, instead of just clicking on the warning icon. I guess the Human Interface Guidelines are truly dead at Apple. My hope is that the manager that approved this nonsense and thought this was acceptable is fired for incompetence eventually.

 

[chown33]

They want to go for a clean look and not show rows upon rows of identical icons, which is understandable. But than they need to show the icons whenever the pointer is anywhere on that row, not just hovering directly above an seemingly empty spot. That's what you get from completely rewriting System Preferences into System Settings.

Did you stumble on this obscure find accidentally, or is it documented somewhere?

I looked in the User Guide for Screen Time and didn't notice anything about a warning icon that might appear, nor even about the "Hover over empty space to make Info icon appear".

What is Screen Time on Mac?

Screen Time on Mac displays information about how you and your family spend time in apps and on websites, and provides tools to control device usage.

support.apple.com

There's quite a lot of description there and in the "See also" links about how to use it to accomplish many different things, so maybe I missed it.

 

[Gudi]

Did you stumble on this obscure find accidentally, or is it documented somewhere?

I researched and figured it out myself once I knew this Info pane must exist somewhere.

 

[Pinkyyy 💜🍎]

@Pinkyyy 💜🍎 If you scroll up, you see three columns: Apps, Time, Limits. You need to put your mouse pointer straight down the Limits column, then two hidden icons will appear. Click the ⓘ and you'll learn that this is an untrusted app, which wasn't properly code signed by a developer. It might be a malware which only pretends to be the original app, but was indeed altered by a hacker.

View attachment 2204947

Yeah I see .. it does actually say this. Which is honestly a little strange for me since I literally downloaded them from the App Store. I've always had a thought that everything on the App Store is "trusted" in Apple's terms, so it's quite odd to see an "unverified app" on there. But thank you anyway !

 

[Pinkyyy 💜🍎]

Interesting that the warning icon is in the Apps column, but you have to hover over the Limits column to display another obscure icon that you need to click on to find out what the warning icon means, instead of just clicking on the warning icon. I guess the Human Interface Guidelines are truly dead at Apple. My hope is that the manager that approved this nonsense and thought this was acceptable is fired for incompetence eventually.

For real ! Like I don't think I would even notice the alert in the first place if I were someone who doesn't use Screen Time for example. And the fact that it shows what the alert means in the Limits column while the alert is clearly in the Apps column is even weirder.. why didn't they just make it so you hover the mouse over the alert and it simply shows what it means ? Or maybe with control click or something ? That's literally why I was confused there. 😅

 

[Pinkyyy 💜🍎]

Never seen that before (probably since I rarely - to the point of never - use Screen Time), but I was curious, and found one of those "warnings":

View attachment 2204944

I have no idea why I spent 1 second in Preview...nor what the warning was...

If I click it, the whole row becomes marked in blue, and right-/ctrl-clicking does nothing.

Quite puzzling...

Yep this is exactly what I tried to do as well, but it showed nothing about the alert.. quite puzzling indeed that I had to look it up.

 

[Pinkyyy 💜🍎]

They want to go for a clean look and not show rows upon rows of identical icons, which is understandable. But than they need to show the icons whenever the pointer is anywhere on that row, not just hovering directly above an seemingly empty spot. That's what you get from completely rewriting System Preferences into System Settings.

Yep exactly.. sometimes I just wish I stayed on Monterey and never upgraded to Ventura just because of the new System Settings interface. I really do prefer the look of System Preferences.