Features lost across versions of macOS | Hacker News Reader

Features lost across versions of macOS

talk.tidbits.com

154 pointszdw70 comments

I would add: A useable System Preferences app. It's been renamed "Settings" and some idiot tried to make it look like iOS.

It's the absolute worst part of modern MacOS IMHO. As a Mac user measured in decades, it's the thing most likely to drive me back to Linux.

[edit: I am curious why this topic has been flagged]

Also a Mac user for nearly 2 decades. I don't care too much about most of the things mentioned in the article but I absolutely agree with you about the new System Prefs.

Another thing terrible about the Settings app is you cannot navigate it with the keyboard only (at least I have not figured out how). So if your Bluetooth mouse fails (which happens at least once a week for me) you can’t use a keyboard alone to correct it. Nope you have to fish out a wired mouse, plug it in, and then reset Bluetooth or whatever it takes to get the BT mouse working again. Madness.

Settings -> Keyboard -> Turn on "Keyboard Navigation"

Why on earth would that be off by default though?

Best guess is Apple finds it slightly unaesthetic and considers it more of an assistive function rather than strictly necessary for everyone.

I think its been this was as long as OS X has existed, maybe even earlier versions of Mac OS were the same?

For simple users, perhaps because it might be confusing (press some keys accidentally, something suddenly happens in the UI).

For some power users, perhaps because if you don't need it, it hijacks a lot of key combinations that you could use as custom keyboard shortcuts.

Isn't the only way to navigate it now by using the search bar to find the thing you're looking for?

I jest, but there was a time when I could find my settings in under a minute or two.

New macOS Settings app is an insult to everything Mac.

Sadly, while many here on the Orange Website may miss this, the numbers would (probably) show an overwhelming number of iOS -> macOS users.

I have never had an issue with the new Settings app. Could you go into why you think it's so terrible?

I'd add Apple Music as a horrorshow. iTunes was bloated garbage. Music is somehow much worse.

I can't even get padded date formatting in MacOS these days (leading 0s) in GB/NZ locales without manually running command line things to update defaults, which means the recently-added support for fixed-width fonts in the Size and Date columns in Finder is somewhat pointless...

The new MacOS "list" System Preferences has been a total downgrade in both use-ability and functionality IMO...

Oh that iPadOS System Preferences is garbage. They also need to stop burying stuff in nested modals in there, good god.

Also, while on the topic of their desire to merge iPadOS with macOS, Stage Manager fits neither on the iPad (I own a Pro) nor on a desktop. Give it up, Apple.

I actually like Stage Manager for certain workflows (on both my Mac and my iPad Pro). I don't leave it on most days, but it is actually something I'd miss if Apple removed it.

I've never used Stage Manager and barely remember its discussion during the hype videos from the mother ship. Do you mind briefly describing your certain workflows to see how an actual person is using it IRL?

I use it mostly in situations where I rapidly need to switch back and forth between 2 or 3 windows. For example developer documentation and an IDE, or Procreate and a photo I'm taking inspiration from.

I'll admit I used it a lot more before I upgraded to a dual monitor setup on my Mac. I still use it a ton on my iPad, since I only have one screen to work with.

The animation lag drives me up a wall. Cannot abide.

Can you describe that workflow? For myself, real estate on an iPad Pro screen is a premium and apps are self-contained; on macOS, I want full control over size and position on all three axes.

Another aside though, why can’t I scroll the app list vertically on iPadOS rather than be constrained to just 4 ‘recent apps’. The moment I have to reach for something not of those 4, I have to go to the exposé view and scroll horizontally to find it but that also requires I relinquish my current app window focus. Why not just grant us the ability to scroll the app list in Stage Manager vertically, the 4 recent apps it shows now is just a stack, so let me scroll the whole stack.

See my other reply for the workflows that I use Stage Manager with. I agree with you about the scrolling, that would be a nice improvement!

On MacOS, it’s less buggy than the multiple workspace feature (green maximize button), and still sort of provides multiple desktops.

That reminds me: I should check to see if I can switch to Asahi Linux and literally any other window manager yet.

What is this third axis of which you speak

Stage Manager is great!

OK, it’s objectively terrible compared to every other window manager I’ve used except one.

However, the one it beats is the default MacOS implementation of alt-tab and multiple desktops.

Apple's PMs removed a feature that was very useful on my MBP: system font size adjustment. Now I must wear my glasses all the time I use the computer. This is not comfortable or fun. I could increase the display pixel size, but then everything looks like garbage when I do wear my glasses.

Apple has lost its user-focus. Its products will only get worse and worse. Fortunately, this creates opportunity for new companies.

Coming from Linux with X11, I really can’t get used to fractional scaling for the same reasons you mention.

Sadly, the Linux world decided to go with Wayland, which explicitly copies this brain damage from MacOS.

MacOS implemented it for backwards compatibility reasons, not because it makes any technical sense. Linux + X11 started where MacOS wished it could be, but then they somehow forgot the history.

Anyway, I’m hoping one of the *BSD’s gives me another 10 years of being able to set the font size without blurring/fisher pricing everything else.

> Sadly, the Linux world decided to go with Wayland, which explicitly copies this brain damage from MacOS.

Linux being what it is X11 will stay around for a long time. There is no Wayland on my systems (nearly all Debian) and I have yet to find a reason for wanting to change that. We are legion, X11 will persevere.

It seems to still be there?

System Settings > Accessibility > Display > Text

Text Size and Menu Bar Size may allow you to do this adjustment?

You know, as a new Mac convert I've been looking for this, and could never find it (I guess I expected it to be in Displays, not Accessibility). Thanks!

One thing I have noticed is that Apple puts a lot more things in Accessibility, but they all are accessibility features when you think about them. (I especially noticed this with my Airpods Pro.) So instead of being the settings that people with major disabilities use, it's the settings that a lot of people use to make their computer more accessible to them, and by being in there they're more likely to find other settings that make their computer more accessible to them.

Which version of macOS are you using?

I'm using macOS Ventura 13.6.3 on a 2018 Macbook Pro and there is no "Text" section under "Settings > Accessibility > Display".

can confirm it exists on my mbp running 14.2.1

ditto on M2 Air, Sonoma 4.3.1 (23D60)

> Apple has lost its user-focus. Its products will only get worse and worse. Fortunately, this creates opportunity for new companies.

Apple has never focused on the users, it was always their interpretation of what the user wanted.

For the most notorious example of this:

> You're holding it wrong

Using Apple means you adjust to what Apple decides the UX should be like. And if you do, you enjoy a mostly uniform interface with good vertical integration across devices.

If you can't or don't want to, then you shouldn't use Apple products. It's as simple as that

I don't know if you've tried 'scroll to zoom' https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mchl779716b8/...

That was a huge plus to me as an occasional reading glasses user. Which I only discovered after about five years of mac useage.

One they missed that I got burned by and am still bitter about: a few years ago (I believe macOS Big Sur) they just up and removed support for 1080i displays. No hardware change, one day 1080i works, you “upgrade”, and then 1080i is suddenly gone. No explanation, just because fuck you, user, I guess.

Thank you, whoever you are on the Graphics & Displays team, for your excellent contribution to the code.

Interesting, I hadn't heard of anyone using 1080i displays recently. Do you use one, and if so why?

Some ancient TVs only support up to 1080i instead of 1080p.

Yep that’s my use case. My home theater TV is from 2007 (not ancient) and supports either 720p or 1080i. Thanks to Apple’s helpful “up”grade now I’m stuck with 720p.

> My home theater TV is from 2007 (not ancient)

That 17 years old tv almost reaches adulthood!

Must have been flagged by Apple's marketing team :D

I do find my Macs increasingly difficulty to use, but like many things, Apple would consider quite a few of these features 'lost' as upgrades or part of the natural evolution of platforms. For example, getting rid of kexts is probably a good thing while the Settings app is straight garbage.

On the internet, and especially on Hacker News, any change to anything is automatically bad. There was a lot of complaining about the new settings app, and in the betas it was genuinely buggy.

But then, if you don’t choose to get hung up on it, it’s fine. Layout and location of things might be a bit different than before, sure, but it’s fine.

Why is this flagged and unvouchable?

Because it is considered to be blasphemous by the true believers. This is only half in jest and all the more remarkable for the frequency with which the apostles of Apple need to defend user-hostile changes.

It looks like a combination of Effort Justification [1], some form of Confirmation Bias [2] and some form of Learned Helplessness [3] to me: given the money, time and effort spent in buying into and learning the ways of the Apple world and also due to the way that world creates a visible distinction between those inside the walls and those outside - blue and green text bubbles etc - some users get caught in a vicious circle of gettin the latest Apple thing, finding out about a user hostile change - ports gone from laptop necessitating a herd of dongles, 'butterfly' keyboard breaking due to unavoidable common contaminants, drives and memory soldered to mainboards making user-upgrade impossible, spare parts serialised making user or third party repair impossible as well as the software devolution described here - and needing to decide to either go with the flow or jumping ship, again. They choose to go with the flow but feel the need to defend the change to suppress the feeling they are at the whim of the company.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effort_justification

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness

The "Save As" feature isn't lost. And the modern document model (auto save etc) can be opted out. You can still let the system ask you whether you want to save a document. And the "Save As" menu item can be assigned a custom shortcut that's the same as what it was in Snow Leopard to protect your muscle memory. Instead I appreciate features like having unsaved documents be preserved across reboots.

Sure for the average user who doesn't customize their system, the feature is lost. But is a feature lost if it's really hidden?

I probably would have started a bit earlier, though admittedly the features I remember and care(d) about are only of interest to retrocomputing enthusiasts anymore.

- 10.5 Leopard: Classic mode removed (can no longer run Mac OS 9 apps), won't run on G3 processors or install on systems under 867MHz (though not difficult to circumvent).

- 10.6 Snow Leopard: AppleTalk removed. Can no longer create HFS volumes. Removed support for all PowerPC processors.

Cover Flow disappeared somewhere along the line. I found it helpful when trying to find an image.

That calculator widget in the sidebar was my favourite. One swipe & it's exactly where it's supposed to be, was hoping it would be back since widgets came back now, but no.....

> One swipe &

and I'm frustrated that my gesture/swipe to have my browser navigate suddenly is interrupted by this OS side panel that intercepted the gesture instead and is displaying something nobody wants to see right now arghhhh!!!!! yet, when i try to intentionally get that side panel, nothing happens

One of the first setting I change on macOS is swipe to go back with three fingers instead of two.

haha, it needs some finesse to start swiping in from outside the trackpad

one annoying one that's notably missing: There's no way to get rid of the Music.app, and the play/pause hardware button on my M2 macbook is always mapped to that app.

I inadvertently press this button all the time and it launches Music.app, taking about 1/4th of the 8gb of shared memory

That’s weird. On mine, I can’t delete that app but the buttons control my Spotify just fine.

They’ll control Spotify if it’s running, but if it’s closed, Music will auto-open.

> the play/pause hardware button on my M2 macbook is always mapped to that app

This annoyingness actually started with Snow Leopard, IIRC. (Though of course it was iTunes and not Music, but still hardcoded)

I noticed this most recently when having selected "restart and update" for a system upgrade, and seeing the white apple on a black background with a progress bar, I bumped the play/pause key.

Sure enough, music.app launched in the background somehow and started playing!

One of the first things I install on macbooks is this app that prevents iTunes or Apple Music from launching

https://github.com/tombonez/noTunes

as someone who just launched Apple Music by accident yesterday... thank you.

Ventura removed PostScript. I used it for reading man pages with proportional fonts.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/108775

HN should have a feature to unflag content.

I remember being at the office showing a new hire how to do some revisions in preview. I had a great system down for speeding through a process. As I was explaining, they were having trouble with my process. I was still using my old macbook and it turns out that the functionality I had been using had been removed from the newest version of finder, which the new hire had on their computer.

If you're running an older version of Mac OS X, then you should try reading the "user manual" or "help guide" from your Mac.

Amazing to see Microsoft can manage decades of tech knowledge (for the most part) but Apple breaks stuff because it's the future

Why is this flagged

moving to zsh was not a bad move

They removed Secure Delete because it doesn't work with SSDs due to the way they work at the hardware level (wear leveling).

couldn't they just immediately issue a "TRIM" afterwards or am I missing something?

No, it doesn’t work reliably, which is why they removed it. It’s better not to have a tool than having a security tool that might work.

Also IIRC secure delete is useless on APFS volumes as they are always fully encrypted, even when FileVault is not enabled.

> It’s better not to have a tool than having a security tool that might work.

This is what I don't get about SMS apps that may or may not send encrypted messages. (Like Apple's own)

In that case the button changes color before sending, making it clear whether the message will be encrypted or not. (I have disabled the SMS fallback, which is indeed problematic.)

TRIM isn't really a command so much as it is a performance hint.

Even at the drive level, deallocating the space used by a file is not the same as erasing it, and actually erasing every flash block that may still contain data from the file would be very expensive for SSDs to implement (both in terms of performance overhead, and in terms of burning out the flash sooner).

Also screen recording with audio capture went away with Mojave.

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