Odd problems with Sonoma: every old app now listed in the Open With popup menu in the Finder, and lsregister that reports errors, and gets System Settings into trouble.
LaunchServices
After the dataless file, we get the codeless app, in the form of Sonoma’s new Web Apps. These sidestep issues of code-signing with their linked UUIDs and ad hoc signatures.
A fuller account with log extracts to show what happens when a user creates a Web App, and when they run it.
What is a Web App? How to create and use them, and how they run without any executable code. Could crafted Web Apps turn malicious?
What if, when you double-click a document, the wrong app tries to open it, or maybe the right app but wrong version? Includes command tool use.
launchd, LaunchServices, RunningBoard, TCC, CFPrefsd, and other macOS services that manage and control your apps.
I’m browsing images in the Finder, when my software firewall tells me macOS is trying to phone home to one of Apple’s servers. We all know what that means, don’t we?
How does the Finder know the right app to open a file with? Or QuickLook how to preview its contents? Or other services like Spotlight know how to index and handle files? UTIs.
Many think that a file’s type is determined by its extension. Although partly true, that’s indirect: it’s the UTI which sets the type, as explained here.
Four popular and straightforward ways to set your Mac to run an app or other software when it starts up. Includes AppleScript code.
The Eclectic Light Company 