If you remember how everyone moaned about iTunes and begged Apple to rewrite it, then got Music in macOS Catalina, you can kind of see how the new System Settings app is.
If you remember how everyone moaned about iTunes and begged Apple to rewrite it, then got Music in macOS Catalina, you can kind of see how the new System Settings app is.
I hated everything about the UX on Big Sur and they seem to have doubled down on their poor decisions. This news destroys the final bit of hope I had that they’d correct the MacOS path the way they did with MacBook hardware.
This seems like a bug they might actually fix? As opposed to the "bug" of showing you those at all, which is pretty annoying but unlikely to get looked at.
MacOS is a clear second class citizen at Apple. Each of the least three releases has been worse than the one before. I hoped it was the last gasp of Ive but it’s apparently intentional. Or maybe nobody is in charge, which would make more sense.
At this point Linux looks like a better option.
MacOS has become less and less pleasant to use in that last 3 to 5 years for me as a developer, because of this. Which is such a shame, because the new Macbook Pro's are really amazing machines, hardware-wise. Great keyboard, Magsafe, no Touchbar, amazing screen and great battery life.
I will be requesting a Linux (or Windows.. whatever) laptop at work if this one dies.
With it, I could at least scan. Image Capture/Preview just produce invalid files. (Samsung M2070w). Now to scan I have to use Linux or Windows machine.
You can also try VueScan, which is a spartan UI, but works great.
It is pretty much device specific; an HP MFP at home works fine. The Samsung app was an workaround, but it was pretty obvious that nobody is going to fix Image Capture.
The list of Steam games that even supported macOS at all was already quite short, but now Portal, Portal 2, Team Fortress, the entire Half-Life series, and quite a few others will no longer run.
The switch to Apple silicon machines also makes running them in a VM tricky. Even though Windows supports running x86 code on Arm hardware, the mix of architectures inside the VM creates new problems, particularly for Steam.
The Khronos APIs are the ones I have more experience with, and it pains me that all these years it stays as kind of initialiation ritual to go through all the things they miss versus proprietary APIs.
Everyone has to write their own mini-engine with their APIs.
What do you mean?
Right click in the message pane and select "Show Times"
> I’m not sure search even exists
Search exists and seems to work pretty well
Search works great. My CPU is idle. Sync iCloud works perfectly if you toggle your iPhone to also share SMS with your Mac.
To be honest, the apple ecosystem stuff and how well it works, for me, is one of the biggest benefits of Apple. I walk up to my computer and my watch unlocks it. I can take a call or respond to a message literally on whatever device I happen to be on. For me, I can put up with UI/UX quirks in features like system preferences that I use maybe one or twice a month.
Its the holistic experience that matters to me.
It wasn't the software.
Well I would consider hiding system traffic from firewalls to prevent tracing to be an enormous one, wouldn't you?
https://www.obdev.at/support/littlesnitch/245914647368270
Oh I almost forgot about the image scanning regression:
https://techcrunch.com/2021/12/15/apple-removes-csam-detecti...
And the ominously named "Gatekeeper"
https://www.engadget.com/macos-slow-apps-launching-221445977...
For example, have you ever used the system settings panel in Windows? It’s the most confusing, horrible, and neglected part of the OS. For like 15 years they had mashed together settings panels from different versions of Windows without even bothering to make them visually consistent. Ditto for a lot of Linux distros.
I think you’re overthinking it. MacOS has barely changed at all in last 20 years from a UI perspective compared to Windows. Upgrading from an 8 year old intel model to an M1/M2 model is going to feel like strapping on a jetpack.
That wasn't even the gripe. They have disliked the last few major revisions of macOS. I think that's a good enough reason to consider a switch.
I do feel some Linux or perhaps a BSD system with a GUI like WindowMaker might feel like an improvement at this point.
It’s something I will probably try in the coming year.
I'd like to have a system that is 'less secure' in which I feel I have more control over my system.
Also it seems Apple is moving apps included in macOS to be more in line with iOS, which is not really something I like to see. It will likely dumb down app functionality.
I used OS X exclusively from 2008 onward, and I switched fully to linux late last year. I managed to make the switch tolerable by learning and falling in love with tiling window managers and minimal desktop environments that are available on linux. I could never stand 'traditional' desktop environments on linux, they always felt so clunky. With Sway (or i3 on my desktop), the operating system just disappears out of sight. All I see is what I want. A little bar with information and system status, a browser window, a bloated text messaging program or two, and heaps of terminals. Really fast, too, unlike macOS.
iOS, that's changed a lot. Could we move back toward iOS 6? I still miss it.
I use Monterey at the moment on my main Mac and it’s absolutely fine.
i did just that, and it simply felt "normal" again after years of increased slowdowns on every macOS update without any noticeable big improvement to the UX.
The bloat is real.
There's only been 1-2 major macOS releases since the M1 launch and benchmarks have gotten faster during that time. There's simply been no "years of increased slowdowns".
Consider that the "years of increased slowdowns" probably referred to the years before the M1 was released a year or two ago. Which would make sense, as the comparison was pre-M1 vs post-M1.
The rest is irrelevant to the point.
Closer to 30 years actually - there are many configuration dialogs which have been virtually or entirely unchanged since their first appearance.
The worst part is: It's not even neglected. It's been undergoing constant changes, and while they're mostly for the better, the constant stream of changes really highlights how poorly thought out it was in the first place, and makes finding anything an exercise in frustration.
That's what I use Spotlight for. Years ago someone pointed that use of Spotlight out to me and I've been using it that way ever since. No longer have to pull up System Preferences and I can find any setting I need immediately.
The OS is perfectly fine.
Battery life is more a hardware concern than software anyway.
Almost no one buys desktops anymore, even though they are obviously a better choice in many regards, including ergonomics, if the thing is to be strapped to a desk 100% of the time.
The market for desktop computers is a market for people who also own laptops, with very few exceptions (mostly gamers).
Speaking of UPSes, I wish that desktops/servers would just chuck a laptop battery socket on the back. Batteries are the only real difference between desktops and laptops, and desktops need them nearly as much as laptops do.
I have this on my 11 inch Air from whenever it was - maybe I can get them for false advertising - because they are saying I can have some great new features if I click the button ...
Made me wonder how part-time hobbyist with minimal resources can continue supporting old hardwares while a trillion dollar company cannot.
[1] https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/START.htm...
Of course, I couldn't tell if it was indeed a factory reset or not - what even is content? Does it include non-user scoped files and folders? Why not just use normal language people are accustomed to?!
There’s a read-only partition that contains system files and default applications, and a read-write partition that contains files and apps you’ve added. The second gets erased, keeping the first.
Factory Reset term been around for so long and everyone already know the term meaning. Even I remember that term 25 years ago. Apple chose to change the language and this cause confusion. "Factory Reset" and "Erase all content and settings" didn't implies the same meaning. Apple should add a subtitle or a tooltip to indicate that it is factory reset or additional context for us to understand what it does. So why change the term if it isn't broken?
- Task/ process management is done in "activity monitor" - what the hell is an activity? An event? - Error logs and crash dumps are found in "console", which is different from a terminal. There's many more examples too
I’m not saying that necessarily makes -any more- sense. Given that the VPN settings are much more widely used and used to be available only through the top line settings, and is still also available at the top of the first list of settings.
I have to say though, iOS does not seem like the best model of Settings that I would emulate. Rather than the years-long, pile-on model that iOS Settings seems to be the result of, someone needs to step back and reevaluate where every setting ought to belong — how best to organize them.
Also, speaking of iOS Settings — Mail setting should be in the Mail app, Safari settings in the Safari app. I have always loathed that iOS 1.0 idea that you had to go to a different place to find the settings for the apps.
You are not alone, it drives me nuts to have to scroll through the settings for every dumb joke app I have when I'm looking for something.
I use KDE now as main driver which has a ton of options compared to macOS and they use the same format. What I do find myself using a lot more is the search. Part of the reason I didn't have to do this with the old macOS preferences was just my muscle memory (only slightly thwarted by Apple's changing of the icons). And the other part was that there's simply less to find there.
But essentially I think the scrolling left and right panes are not a bad idea. The old format consisted of a non-scrolling and non-resizable(!) window that would be replaced, and this caused some issues on really low-res screens in the past, at 800x600 pixels (or even 800x480 like the eeePC) it was impossible to reach all the settings on the old preferences.
At least this is now fixed to a format where more controls don't need to be crammed into the same space, it can simply expand. And the number of "menu" options is now also dynamic and no longer constrained by screen space.
But it's going to mess up decades of muscle memory which is not fun :)
Those of us who remember the old tree-based layout from before Kirigami took over were about as happy about the change as macOS users are about the new Preferences layout in Ventura. It used to look like this a long time ago: https://fedoranews.org/krishnan/review/kde3.2/fullsize/contr... -- it was a lot more space-efficient and going into one sub-section didn't automatically hide all other sections, so it was a lot easier to look for things.
I don't recall if the window in Plasma-era releases was resizable but it certainly replaced one that was both scrolling and resizable. Early 5.x releases still supported the tree-based layout IIRC but it hadn't been the default since the 4.x days, which used that awkward icon-based layout, eek!
Until touch/mouse inputs have a widespread support for horizontal scrolling by default, like they do for vertical scrolling (scroll wheels or two-finger drags), I think they are going to remain a bad idea: you have to move your pointer from the thing you are looking at to the scrollbar and then back.
One could say it's a chicken and an egg problem, but displays are already much wider than they are taller, and if you do need them even wider, you are failing miserably IMO.
I totally agree about horizontal scrolling by the way, it's horrible. I used to use Siebel 6 which used that heavily. And Microsoft's Azure portal does it too Though in Azure it's more like a 'breadcrumb' thing to go back, you don't normally need it. In Siebel you actually needed it to get to some important fields.
Didn't expect a mess like that from Apple.
I want something that make life easier, not harder!!
: ((
Seems to me like your reaction is rather out of proportion.
I really like the version that shipped: I love the much more reachable address bar and use the quick tab switching by swiping (and also the quick tab creation) all the time.
I also like it much more visually – but even if you don’t, it‘s clear that the design is different for functional reasons, not visual appeal. There is a clear purpose behind the changes (moving the address bar to the bottom is the obvious change, making the address bar look draggable and providing the hint of the other tabs to the left or right is also quite important and very much function first.
I didn’t care for the first iteration. I do like the final design. The only thing that‘s weird is that they kept the old variant around as an option. Maybe because the discussion turned toxic and people became unable to evaluate the design based on its merits?
https://photos5.appleinsider.com/gallery/48776-95249-001-Sys...
At least the Ventura/iOS multiple menus has a hierarchy. Ultimately I use "search" for such large settings to find stuff like 90% the time.
Trying to step people through this convoluted app over the phone or text is really going to be a chore. I had the old System Panes memorized.
Computer Name
Network Name
Login Name and Password
VLAN
...As it stands System Settings now looks different from every other preference panel on the system. I helped ship a sidebar+search design in IINA and we do a far better job that System Settings does. Go take a peek if you'd like to see how this could've been done. (Personally, I think most apps should stick with top tabs, but we–and Apple–are constrained by how many preferences we can show on screen at once.)