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Comment by donatj | Hacker News Reader

See: System Settings

System Preferences I could pretty intuitively find anything I was looking for. The newer System Settings is basically unusable outside of search

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System preferences was a really poor design tbh. It just felt so easy because it had been there so long and everyone had the muscle memory.

The new one is not much better I agree. But the old one was objectively not great in terms of UX Design.

The main problem with the new one in my opinion is that they're shoehorning a mobile experience on the Mac. Something Apple does more and more (and not just Apple, gnome does it too)

>The main problem with the new one in my opinion is that they're shoehorning a mobile experience on the Mac. Something Apple does more and more (and not just Apple, gnome does it too)

A cost effectiveness measure over a well-thought out one, methinks

The old System Preferences showed large, easily differentiable icons, front and center in a nice big grid. The new Settings app shows tiny, barely differentiable icons, hugging the left-most edge of the app. With the old System Preferences, I could immediately tell you where the "Display" and "Privacy & Security" icons could be found. In the new Settings app, I challenge you to tell me where they are in the list without looking.

Does this include the use of cmd+spacebar? Personally, I feel like I haven't had to open it outside of my search.

My work laptop recently started having issues with the keyboard so I got a loaner, an unopened M1 Pro. It was still on an older version of the Mac OS, and I am so bummed that they want it back.

The UI that you're referring to is malpractice.

Honestly, I'm not even sure that this is a problem that can be solved. There are too many settings you could access, with no obvious single way to categorize them all. Search is probably the best you can do.

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