Jake Quist recently wrote about OpenClaw, the open-source framework people are using to run AI agents on Mac Minis. His argument is that OpenClaw is what Apple Intelligence should have been. I think he’s right, but the real takeaway isn’t that Apple missed the moment. It’s that they’re uniquely positioned to build something no one else can.

Liquid Glass is fine. Make it the last UI overhaul for a while. macOS is already great for humans. The next OS release should focus on making it great for agents. That’s a totally new problem and no one has solved it yet.

OS-Level Agent Permissions

Not “Siri can access your calendar.” I mean real, fine-grained, Unix-style controls. My agent can read this email account but only send to these addresses. It can see this directory but not that one. It can use this stored credential and nothing else. Enforced by the kernel, not by the chatbot.

Multi-User, Multi-Agent

I want my account, my wife’s account, my agent’s account, and her agent’s account. All on one Mac Mini sitting in a closet. Headless by default, no HDMI dongle required.

First-Class Safari Support for Agents

Not a hacked-together Playwright session or a headless Chrome instance dodging bot detection. A real, sanctioned browser context that agents can drive natively, with the same permission model as everything else. If my agent needs to log into Southwest and book a flight, Safari should support that as a first-party workflow.

A Threaded Conversational Interface

iMessage, maybe with some Slack-like enhancements. Different conversations, different contexts. Maybe a family channel with a shared agent that can check all our calendars and coordinate schedules.

Virtual Apple Card Numbers with Agent Controls

Virtual Apple Card numbers that the agent can use with per-vendor spending controls. A $500 card locked to Southwest. A $5 card locked to Robux for the kids. Every transaction buzzes my phone for approval.

The iPhone as Remote Control

My iPhone becomes a remote control. A window into a powerful agent running on hardware I own.

Apple Has Every Piece

Apple has every piece of this. Secure Enclave. Multi-user macOS. Apple Card. iMessage. Safari. The privacy brand. What they don’t have is the model. It’s a big vision, different than anything they’ve done before, but something I think Apple is uniquely positioned to do.

So build the OS. Then pony up the better part of a trillion dollars and buy Anthropic. 😀