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Comment by nixass | Hacker News Reader

How do you explain iOS' settings app then?

And once every iOS user was sufficiently confused about their settings, to the point where they where afraid to touch the settings app, out of fear that they might change something and never be able to figure out how to change it back, Apple replaced the macOS settings app with the iOS one. Thereby allowing desktop users to experience the hardship and mind numbing confusion that is the iOS settings app.

I hate settings on iOS so much. What a horrible broken shitshow that is.

The only way to use any Apple settings app now, IMHO is to search for what you want. Even if it's something you have visited countless times before it's faster than squinting at the long, long column of tiny icons. I miss the big friendly grid of icons so much.

I genuinely don’t understand this sentiment. It seems perfectly fine to me. I can understand how a non-technical user would get confused, but I appreciate the granularity.

My mother-in-law came by, her phone has switched to "dark mode", because she accidentally did something in settings. There is no way for any regular user to find out that that was not what had happened. She accidentally switched an accessibility feature, but you have to know that that is a thing to even begin to locate it and there are multiple feature that does something similar.

The granularity isn't the issue, the discoverability is.

Is this interface that much different from "classic" OSX preferences? The old panel with horizontal icons was replaced with sidebar tree which loads sections withouth need to return to main screen - that is pretty much convenient.

But I do agree - settings panels not only in OSX become too complex and often featuring stuff that should stay on mobile devices. It's been years but I'm still not fond of all sorts of notification centers and destkop applications being able to nag you with their stuff.

On top of the list vs grid, it was reorganized into multiple layers, universally understood controls were replaced with new ones never used on macos before, universally appreciated design elements like containment boxes were removed, native controls were (at least in some places) replaced with web-based look-alikes, recognizable ucons were replaced, decades-old terms were replaced...

I have a hard time understanding this.

I can agree that things in macOS/iOS settings may be broken or unintuitive or whatever (I have no examples but I'll believe you).

But a shitshow? No. Window's Control Panel is a shitshow.

What I'd like to know from you is, if macOS/iOS settings isn't the closest thing to perfect, what is? My Gnome settings control panel on my main desktop is a certified shitshow. But macOS/iOS? Nah

The old macOS settings wasn't perfect, but it was much better. On iOS, I don't know, I think it's just a very hard problem. iOS has a ton of settings, but honestly the only way to fix the settings app on iOS is perhaps to start removing features.

Admittedly the iCloud section is confusing, otherwise it's the least worst OS settings app I've seen.

Well, there’s only one settings app at least, which is also different than what Microsoft does.

I had no idea iOS had Settings (New), Settings (Classic), and Apple Preferences - all competing for user share just like Outlook (New), Outlook (Classic), and Windows Mail are.

Un-sarcastically though, you're also describing the windows 11 settings pane. Which arguably has settings (new style) control pannel (old style) and various *.msc management consoles for managing things like users and local security policy

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