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My Controversial Opinion: Ventura Is Apple’s Worst macOS Yet

88 points by behnamoh 4y ago

anm89 4y ago
Why would this be flagged?
- acdha 4y ago
  It’s low-information clickbait and HN doesn’t have down votes for stories so people flag them.
worthless-trash 4y ago
Not like its opensource so you can fix it when you need to.
- worthless-trash 4y ago
  Keep on keeping on HN.
acdha 4y ago
His first gripe is the prompt for USB HID devices, where he even has been told the correct answer but attempts to pretend it away. Unfortunately, Apple is right whether or not he appreciates how many people have tried clever attacks – see https://github.com/topics/hid-attacks https://github.com/topics/hid-attacks – but my favorite write up is this one: https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/plasma_globe/ https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/plasma_globe/
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- goosedragons 4y ago
  How common is it though? This was my beef with Apple too, they add security to the point it was actively getting in my way. I'm sure my house would be more secure if I auto-locked every room and they all had seperate keys but it would also be incredibly annoying. I don't use a Mac anymore but does Apple also prompt you for plugging in say a Magic Mouse or Keyboard for pairing?
  - mwint 4y ago
    They do.
  - AdamN 4y ago
    Magic Mouse and Keyboard do not prompt once the relationship has been created over Bluetooth. Once they are disassociated, then you have to re-pair to get them on again.
  - acdha 4y ago
    They definitely do prompt, because it’s not uncommon. There’s an entire cottage industry selling tools: https://shop.hak5.org/products/usb-rubber-ducky https://shop.hak5.org/products/usb-rubber-ducky More importantly, it puts you one hack away from arbitrary code execution. That device is a dedicated testing tool but there are tons of USB devices which have vulnerable firmware, and the OS vendor can’t know whether you’d pick up a USB key you find on the ground, buy a gadget off of Craigslist, or maybe you care about security but not enough to stop using Google Chrome and it turns out that one of your attached devices is exploitable via WebUSB/Bluetooth/MIDI/etc. but you won’t learn that until the next time you plug it in to charge it. Apple does prompt their devices, and if memory serves that’s for the same reason: USB isn’t authenticated so they can’t easily tell that a device claiming to be an Apple keyboard actually is.
    - eviks 4y ago
      But how would the prompt help if the user plugging the off-the-ground USB key would just click yes?
      - acdha 4y ago
        It’s not foolproof but it gives people the opportunity to notice a problem and ask why something which isn’t a keyboard is trying to be one. The long-term fix is securing the USB protocol but when the deployed device count is measured in billions even a stopgap is useful.
        4y ago
- nixpulvis 4y ago
  I feel dumb, but how do you ever setup a mouse/keyboard on a brand new macOS desktop?
FrostKiwi 4y ago
<offtopic>Since when does medium require an account to read blog articles? Don't think that used to be the case, or are my memories gaslighting me? I'm interested in this article, but don't wanna create an account for medium.</offtopic>
- entelechy0 4y ago
  load it up in a private tab my dude and thank me later!
  - LeoPanthera 4y ago
    It's weird that this works. What are they using to prompt you to sign up? Edit: OK, I just answered my own question. At the top it says: "You have 2 free member-only stories left this month. Sign up for Medium and get an extra one" You only get ONE more story to read after signing up? That's very misleading.
    - reeckoh 4y ago
      Probably cookies and javascript. Lots of sites would like to make the paywalls immediate, but they won't get ranked highly on search engines if they don't show the article's content to a web crawler. So the usual approach is to load the content, then hide it as quickly as possible if an unauthorized human is viewing the page.
      - midoridensha 4y ago
        Exactly, which is why extensions like Bypass Paywalls Clean can easily bypass these paywalls just by changing some Javascript.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
wolverine876 4y ago
Critical, hyperbolic judgements like this one, and also calling yourself 'controversial', are commonplace, mundane, cliches on the Internet. Why are people still taken in by this form of rhetoric? I'd expect people to be immunized by now.
- rhaway84773 4y ago
  Ignoring the title of the piece, every point is specific and clear about the criticism it’s making. You may disagree with the points, but this is a well presented critique.
- eastbound 4y ago
  Because we agree with the result and enjoy someone pulling Apple into the furnace. Unfortunately, like tweeting “No to war”, it has zero effect.
Apocryphon 4y ago
The framing is not much less clickbaity, but I liked this other article by the same author that dives into the HIG issues of Ventura a little deeper: https://medium.com/@aplaceofmind/5-reasons-macos-ventura-design-change-is-the-end-of-the-sane-ui-as-we-know-it-c34d6c347552 https://medium.com/@aplaceofmind/5-reasons-macos-ventura-des...
- hjkl0 4y ago
  There’s another important point about switches vs checkboxes in macOS. On an iPhone, most people will use their right thumb to toggle a switch, so switches are aligned to the right, for easier reach. On the Mac you’ll use some kind of pointing device to toggle a checkbox, so they are aligned to the left, next to the label, for easier scanning. But switches in Ventura are aligned to the right, removed from their label. This is purely for aesthetic and consistency reasons, since switches take up much more room. Matching the switch to the label becomes a function of how wide the window is and how many options there are. It makes them harder to work with, both for designers and for users.
daemonhunter 4y ago
wait so under ventura, im going to get prompted everytime i plug in my dock or usb to hdmi adapters for my monitos?
- rattray 4y ago
  Only the first time for each monitor, I believe. It's really fine.
  - Nullabillity 4y ago
    ... but how do you click allow when it's prompting for whether to allow your keyboard and mouse?
    - vulcan01 4y ago
      If you're on a laptop model, you use the laptop's keyboard or mouse. I believe that for desktop models, if there is a keyboard or mouse plugged in at startup, it does not prompt.
      - gbN025tt2Z1E2E4 4y ago
        > I believe that for desktop models, if there is a keyboard or mouse plugged in at startup, it does not prompt. Which just underscores how ridiculous this new "security model" actually is if Apple had to put in an exception just to allow baseline required computer peripherals to work correctly.
RedShift1 4y ago
To me the idea of having to allow devices to connect is completely wrong. I have already undertaken a physical action to connect a device, why would I suddenly change my mind afterwards? The physical act itself IS the permission. What does it help when the OS asks you "are you sure"?
- detaro 4y ago
  see the links acdha posted for what it's supposed to protect against - devices that are not the devices you think they are.
  - eviks 4y ago
    I see the links. They explain nothing - the user will just accept this useless prompt and will not notice the unnoticeable "when you least expected it, typed in a malicious payload right under your nose, ideally quickly enough for you to not even notice."
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- prng2021 4y ago
  Guessing here but maybe it's supposed to be a security measure. What if you're in an office or public space and you have a hub or dock connected. A malicious actor could plug in an unknown device while you step away from the machine. I also have Logitech peripherals that connect wirelessly to a USB receiver. I wouldn't want my receiver and machine accepting a connection from an unknown device.
  - TravelPiglet 4y ago
    Having some kind of device key that will trigger a pop up similar to the SSH host verification on the first connection would be better. No spam every time I connect the phone to charge it and getting a dialog for MITM attempts.
alberth 4y ago
UI inconsistency even pre-venture was getting bad. An post by a former Apple UI employee https://www.corbinstreehouse.com/blog/2021/10/macos-12-monterey-and-user-interface-inconsistencies/ https://www.corbinstreehouse.com/blog/2021/10/macos-12-monte...
siva7 4y ago
I guess such opinion pieces happen if you don't know what you don't know and mix that with arrogance.
roxgib 4y ago
Every tech journalist moans about Macs lacking touch screens, but I really hope it never happens. Touch interfaces and desktop interfaces are fundamentally different and having both just forces a lot of compromise. But it seems like Apple gets that and is just unifying the experience a bit rather than paving the way for touch screen MacBooks, at least I hope.
- vladvasiliu 4y ago
  While I agree with your point, and have never had any use for the touch screen on my work laptops and don't miss it now that I don't have it, some colleagues love it. They do many manual things, comparing lists and whatnot (yeah, I know) and they absolutely love being able to directly click things, or scrolling the contents on one side without moving the mouse pointer from the other. I think the point is that this opens new avenues of interaction with the machine. Of course, there is the risk that things would get overly adapted to touch interactions (even more white space, giant buttons, etc), which I'd hate.
- CharlieDigital 4y ago
  My wife has a Surface laptop and there are a lot of use cases where it's very natural to use touch. Scrolling when reading long documents is one. Looking at maps (e.g Google Maps) is another. Basically anything that has a lot of scrolling, panning, and zooming. Drawing annotations is another. For example Slack screen share, whiteboard apps, and so on. Of course there is the touchpad, but in these cases - especially when we are looking at something together - the touch screen makes more sense as an interface. Gestures on the screen also tend to be 1:1 so there's more precision for these types of gestures.
  - roxgib 4y ago
    For scrolling I've always found a trackpad to be equal, if not better, than a touch screen. They feel nicer and are quicker and more accurate. Obviously not as versatile as a touchscreen though. I'd ben fine with it if it didn't otherwise interfere with the desktop experience, but I can't believe that'll be how it plays out.
  - 4y ago
andy_ppp 4y ago
For me for some reason printers added from the print dialog do not work, printers added from settings work just fine. But generally the update has been pretty good. To be fair compared to this Windows machine I'm forced to use for work, MacOS is so far ahead I cannot believe it. I just had to reboot because the OS seems have the keyboard stop working every couple of days of uptime. Everything is buggy, flakey and un-slick in the extreme (screen flickering and weird UI tearing everywhere, reboots for the most trivial changes). Little things like UX that are just horrible like connecting Bluetooth devices through to the first character you type on the keyboard on the login screen is ignored. I'd think Linux on the Desktop has to be better at this point. I really cannot believe it hasn't improved since Windows XP days in any meaningful way and regressed a lot in quite a few.
- rhaway84773 4y ago
  Honestly, this sounds like you have a hardware issue with your Windows machine.
sethx 4y ago
No controversy in your take. It sucks.
barnabee 4y ago
Not sure about “worst” but I really hate that they’ve made the menu bar taller than the notch on the MacBook Pro— why on Earth would you do that?! I also don’t love the new settings app or the trend toward highly graphical, touchscreen style bundled apps, but I can ignore most of them so it’s not a huge deal.
- ClassyJacket 4y ago
  On that note... why do the MacBooks even have a notch considering: A) FaceID is tiny now, look at the iPhone 14, and B) No Mac has FaceID anyway. What's in there apart from a tiny camera and light sensor? There's no way those two things can take up that much space.
  - satvikpendem 4y ago
    Seems to be for future face ID. Apple uses the same chassis for years as the manufacturing cost of changing out the chassis every year is unnecessary, especially with Tim Cook's operational background.
  - MichaelZuo 4y ago
    It's to allow the fingers someplace safe to apply leverage against when opening the lid. Which is why I think the screen is so much more fragile then the previous model. Lots of users don't care about placing their fingers in the right spot and stress-wear the LCD.
    - cafeinux 4y ago
      That sounds like bad UX.
      - MichaelZuo 4y ago
        Yes, it seems like Jony Ive was the only one in senior management who had the authority to unilaterally block these bad design decisions.
    - 4y ago
rsynnott 4y ago
Hmm, besides the ridiculous settings app, I've found Ventura to be generally a pretty painless update.
- flohofwoe 4y ago
  ...it is quite an achievement to come up with something that's even worse than the previous "icon soup" settings though ;) (at least the settings search bar still works as expected - which is now more important because discovery definitely has suffered)
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > at least the settings search bar still works as expected It actually doesn't. One major difference in usability is that the search field has the focus on launch in System Preferences but not in System Settings. In general, keyboard navigation in System Settings is a massive downgrade. This is what happens when you model desktop software after mobile.
    - cassianoleal 4y ago
      ⌘F puts the focus on the search bar. It is a step back in usability but I would hardly call it a major one. I agree with the rest of your post.
      - lapcat 4y ago
        > ⌘F puts the focus on the search bar. It is a step back in usability but I would hardly call it a major one. The topic was the usability of the search bar specifically: "at least the settings search bar still works as expected" I have to press ⌘F first almost every time I open System Settings, because I'm typically going for a setting that isn't readily in view, so I would reaffirm that it's a major difference in usability of the search field. And arguably of System Settings as a whole too, depending on how you use it; with System Preferences, every preference pane is readily accessible on the launch screen, unlike System Settings, where many panes are buried.
philprx 4y ago
Can you post a reader friendly version of this, medium went from a great platform to painful dirty tricks platform in no time... Thanks
TomMasz 4y ago
I'm staying with Monterey on my iMac and MBP. Ventura offers me nothing I need and lots I don't. The security aspects are appealing but not sufficient to get me to change.
sebazzz 4y ago
Stage Manager is just as weird on the iPad pro. Suddenly I can't have an app full screen without turning stage manager off? So I need to end up switching it on and off all the time.
- mattl 4y ago
  What apps are you using full screen that need you to do this? I don’t use full screen almost ever but I’ve not noticed this.
akeck 4y ago
Ventura has been mostly fine for me. The only real drag is having to restart Finder all the time to force it to pick up SMB file system updates.
onewheeltom 4y ago
My Macbook Pro running Ventura continuously cycles between audio devices until I unplug one of them. Plug it back in, the cycling restarts.
3pac 4y ago
I think that MacOS is terrific and keeps getting better. It's well past time to include Pages, Numbers, Keynote, GarageBand and iMovie in the base install image. Also mkv, ogg, opus codecs for QuickTime. I prefer to do as much as I can from the trusted base install. I do not wish to install Homebrew or anything else. I wish that the base install included a few CLI packages like nmap and bsd-games. Also some public-domain humanities (Snow Leopard included classic paintings) and texts from Project Gutenberg. Networking needs MAC randomization, plus native OpenVPN and WireGuard support. There is a new globe symbol on my keyboard which makes me feel like meta-keys are starting to accumulate. That is going in the wrong direction. I do not want a space cadet keyboard. Why did the full-screen command change from Command-F to Globe-F after decades? iCloud still needs some work. I wish that I could stay logged into iCloud, but disable remote wipe, in case my iCloud account gets hacked.
- 3pac 4y ago
  I forgot Xcode, it should be included, plus all the Dictionary files, considering how much storage is on even the base configurations being sold.
  - willio58 4y ago
    What's the issue with keeping these all free but not installed by default? I haven't used any of those apps in years.
    - 3pac 4y ago
      I do not consider logging into iCloud to be part of "finishing setting up" my computer. In fact, I would like more out-of-the-box visibility into the phoning-home that Mac OS X performs. With Xcode specifically, I think a computer should be immediately programmable, like a BASIC interpreter used to be included. Especially to encourage young people.
      - musicale 4y ago
        Most computing devices include a web browser with a JavaScript interpreter. However, it isn't easy for beginners to discover or to learn to use. But... regardless of any improvements to make programming more discoverable and accessible, I don't foresee a resurgence of interest in end-user programming, because: 1) Apps have made end-user programming obsolete (much like web 2.0 eliminating end-user HTML and JavaScript.) 2) Some computer scientists (Matt Welsh, Bertrand Meyer, et al.) predict that programming will go the way of assembly language as AI systems become capable of writing complex programs. If (2) comes true, we may see a situation where end users provide prompts to AI systems which generate complete custom programs on demand.
brundolf 4y ago
I love the new settings app, it makes better use of space than the old one. The old one had the menu as a separate screen, so you'd have to click "into" a section and then click back out to see others. Now I can see both at once! Even the menu itself is more space-efficient because it's a column of line-items instead of a grid of huge icons, it's great
- lancesells 4y ago
  Interesting. I find the system settings to be one of the worst apps they've ever made. There are a million things wrong with it but one of the craziest is the search bar. Try searching for something like "Camera" or something in the top level like "Displays". I can't even tell what the results are from but they don't come up with what you need. Now I'm just waiting to see some ads in there like they are doing with settings in iOS.
  - brundolf 4y ago
    Searching "camera" gave me results about accessibility and privacy WRT the camera Searching "displays" gave me the main Displays menu, Display Settings, Arrange multiple displays, Turn off display when inactive, etc Those results seem pretty reasonable to me
    - lancesells 4y ago
      Odd. Neither give me anything when fully typed and partially typed I have nothing. I'm on 13.0 so maybe there's an update that's fixed it.
neodymiumphish 4y ago
I actually think it's quite good, especially with the M1 Pro. However, I wish there was some version of FancyZones for Mac that supported the same shift-drag to fill into templated cells.
- JamesonNetworks 4y ago
  If you haven't used it, Rectangle gets close to this. It's what I've been using on Macs in place of FancyZones: https://rectangleapp.com https://rectangleapp.com
ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
https://archive.is/VD3oV https://archive.is/VD3oV
r3dneck 4y ago
> "On Ventura, every time you plug in a new USB device to your Mac, a small box pops up, asking for your permission to connect the device." > "Of course, Apple would tell you that this is for security and safety reasons. BS!" Do you know what ? It is for security reasons, attacks via thunderbolt are a thing, see for example here: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/05/attack_against_2.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/05/attack_agains... I'm also not enthusiast of the latest macOS changes , but your opinion IMHO isn't controversial, is uninformed.

88 points by behnamoh 4y ago

anm89 4y ago

Why would this be flagged?

acdha 4y ago
It’s low-information clickbait and HN doesn’t have down votes for stories so people flag them.

worthless-trash 4y ago

Not like its opensource so you can fix it when you need to.

worthless-trash 4y ago
Keep on keeping on HN.

acdha 4y ago

His first gripe is the prompt for USB HID devices, where he even has been told the correct answer but attempts to pretend it away. Unfortunately, Apple is right whether or not he appreciates how many people have tried clever attacks – see https://github.com/topics/hid-attacks https://github.com/topics/hid-attacks – but my favorite write up is this one: https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/plasma_globe/ https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/plasma_globe/

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
goosedragons 4y ago
How common is it though? This was my beef with Apple too, they add security to the point it was actively getting in my way. I'm sure my house would be more secure if I auto-locked every room and they all had seperate keys but it would also be incredibly annoying. I don't use a Mac anymore but does Apple also prompt you for plugging in say a Magic Mouse or Keyboard for pairing?
- mwint 4y ago
  They do.
- AdamN 4y ago
  Magic Mouse and Keyboard do not prompt once the relationship has been created over Bluetooth. Once they are disassociated, then you have to re-pair to get them on again.
- acdha 4y ago
  They definitely do prompt, because it’s not uncommon. There’s an entire cottage industry selling tools: https://shop.hak5.org/products/usb-rubber-ducky https://shop.hak5.org/products/usb-rubber-ducky More importantly, it puts you one hack away from arbitrary code execution. That device is a dedicated testing tool but there are tons of USB devices which have vulnerable firmware, and the OS vendor can’t know whether you’d pick up a USB key you find on the ground, buy a gadget off of Craigslist, or maybe you care about security but not enough to stop using Google Chrome and it turns out that one of your attached devices is exploitable via WebUSB/Bluetooth/MIDI/etc. but you won’t learn that until the next time you plug it in to charge it. Apple does prompt their devices, and if memory serves that’s for the same reason: USB isn’t authenticated so they can’t easily tell that a device claiming to be an Apple keyboard actually is.
  - eviks 4y ago
    But how would the prompt help if the user plugging the off-the-ground USB key would just click yes?
    - acdha 4y ago
      It’s not foolproof but it gives people the opportunity to notice a problem and ask why something which isn’t a keyboard is trying to be one. The long-term fix is securing the USB protocol but when the deployed device count is measured in billions even a stopgap is useful.
      - 4y ago
nixpulvis 4y ago
I feel dumb, but how do you ever setup a mouse/keyboard on a brand new macOS desktop?

FrostKiwi 4y ago

<offtopic>Since when does medium require an account to read blog articles? Don't think that used to be the case, or are my memories gaslighting me? I'm interested in this article, but don't wanna create an account for medium.</offtopic>

entelechy0 4y ago
load it up in a private tab my dude and thank me later!
- LeoPanthera 4y ago
  It's weird that this works. What are they using to prompt you to sign up? Edit: OK, I just answered my own question. At the top it says: "You have 2 free member-only stories left this month. Sign up for Medium and get an extra one" You only get ONE more story to read after signing up? That's very misleading.
  - reeckoh 4y ago
    Probably cookies and javascript. Lots of sites would like to make the paywalls immediate, but they won't get ranked highly on search engines if they don't show the article's content to a web crawler. So the usual approach is to load the content, then hide it as quickly as possible if an unauthorized human is viewing the page.
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      Exactly, which is why extensions like Bypass Paywalls Clean can easily bypass these paywalls just by changing some Javascript.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

wolverine876 4y ago

Critical, hyperbolic judgements like this one, and also calling yourself 'controversial', are commonplace, mundane, cliches on the Internet. Why are people still taken in by this form of rhetoric? I'd expect people to be immunized by now.

rhaway84773 4y ago
Ignoring the title of the piece, every point is specific and clear about the criticism it’s making. You may disagree with the points, but this is a well presented critique.
eastbound 4y ago
Because we agree with the result and enjoy someone pulling Apple into the furnace. Unfortunately, like tweeting “No to war”, it has zero effect.

Apocryphon 4y ago

The framing is not much less clickbaity, but I liked this other article by the same author that dives into the HIG issues of Ventura a little deeper: https://medium.com/@aplaceofmind/5-reasons-macos-ventura-design-change-is-the-end-of-the-sane-ui-as-we-know-it-c34d6c347552 https://medium.com/@aplaceofmind/5-reasons-macos-ventura-des...

hjkl0 4y ago
There’s another important point about switches vs checkboxes in macOS. On an iPhone, most people will use their right thumb to toggle a switch, so switches are aligned to the right, for easier reach. On the Mac you’ll use some kind of pointing device to toggle a checkbox, so they are aligned to the left, next to the label, for easier scanning. But switches in Ventura are aligned to the right, removed from their label. This is purely for aesthetic and consistency reasons, since switches take up much more room. Matching the switch to the label becomes a function of how wide the window is and how many options there are. It makes them harder to work with, both for designers and for users.

daemonhunter 4y ago

wait so under ventura, im going to get prompted everytime i plug in my dock or usb to hdmi adapters for my monitos?

rattray 4y ago
Only the first time for each monitor, I believe. It's really fine.
- Nullabillity 4y ago
  ... but how do you click allow when it's prompting for whether to allow your keyboard and mouse?
  - vulcan01 4y ago
    If you're on a laptop model, you use the laptop's keyboard or mouse. I believe that for desktop models, if there is a keyboard or mouse plugged in at startup, it does not prompt.
    - gbN025tt2Z1E2E4 4y ago
      > I believe that for desktop models, if there is a keyboard or mouse plugged in at startup, it does not prompt. Which just underscores how ridiculous this new "security model" actually is if Apple had to put in an exception just to allow baseline required computer peripherals to work correctly.

RedShift1 4y ago

To me the idea of having to allow devices to connect is completely wrong. I have already undertaken a physical action to connect a device, why would I suddenly change my mind afterwards? The physical act itself IS the permission. What does it help when the OS asks you "are you sure"?

detaro 4y ago
see the links acdha posted for what it's supposed to protect against - devices that are not the devices you think they are.
- eviks 4y ago
  I see the links. They explain nothing - the user will just accept this useless prompt and will not notice the unnoticeable "when you least expected it, typed in a malicious payload right under your nose, ideally quickly enough for you to not even notice."
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
prng2021 4y ago
Guessing here but maybe it's supposed to be a security measure. What if you're in an office or public space and you have a hub or dock connected. A malicious actor could plug in an unknown device while you step away from the machine. I also have Logitech peripherals that connect wirelessly to a USB receiver. I wouldn't want my receiver and machine accepting a connection from an unknown device.
- TravelPiglet 4y ago
  Having some kind of device key that will trigger a pop up similar to the SSH host verification on the first connection would be better. No spam every time I connect the phone to charge it and getting a dialog for MITM attempts.

alberth 4y ago

UI inconsistency even pre-venture was getting bad. An post by a former Apple UI employee https://www.corbinstreehouse.com/blog/2021/10/macos-12-monterey-and-user-interface-inconsistencies/ https://www.corbinstreehouse.com/blog/2021/10/macos-12-monte...

siva7 4y ago

I guess such opinion pieces happen if you don't know what you don't know and mix that with arrogance.

roxgib 4y ago

Every tech journalist moans about Macs lacking touch screens, but I really hope it never happens. Touch interfaces and desktop interfaces are fundamentally different and having both just forces a lot of compromise. But it seems like Apple gets that and is just unifying the experience a bit rather than paving the way for touch screen MacBooks, at least I hope.

vladvasiliu 4y ago
While I agree with your point, and have never had any use for the touch screen on my work laptops and don't miss it now that I don't have it, some colleagues love it. They do many manual things, comparing lists and whatnot (yeah, I know) and they absolutely love being able to directly click things, or scrolling the contents on one side without moving the mouse pointer from the other. I think the point is that this opens new avenues of interaction with the machine. Of course, there is the risk that things would get overly adapted to touch interactions (even more white space, giant buttons, etc), which I'd hate.
CharlieDigital 4y ago
My wife has a Surface laptop and there are a lot of use cases where it's very natural to use touch. Scrolling when reading long documents is one. Looking at maps (e.g Google Maps) is another. Basically anything that has a lot of scrolling, panning, and zooming. Drawing annotations is another. For example Slack screen share, whiteboard apps, and so on. Of course there is the touchpad, but in these cases - especially when we are looking at something together - the touch screen makes more sense as an interface. Gestures on the screen also tend to be 1:1 so there's more precision for these types of gestures.
- roxgib 4y ago
  For scrolling I've always found a trackpad to be equal, if not better, than a touch screen. They feel nicer and are quicker and more accurate. Obviously not as versatile as a touchscreen though. I'd ben fine with it if it didn't otherwise interfere with the desktop experience, but I can't believe that'll be how it plays out.
- 4y ago

andy_ppp 4y ago

For me for some reason printers added from the print dialog do not work, printers added from settings work just fine. But generally the update has been pretty good. To be fair compared to this Windows machine I'm forced to use for work, MacOS is so far ahead I cannot believe it. I just had to reboot because the OS seems have the keyboard stop working every couple of days of uptime. Everything is buggy, flakey and un-slick in the extreme (screen flickering and weird UI tearing everywhere, reboots for the most trivial changes). Little things like UX that are just horrible like connecting Bluetooth devices through to the first character you type on the keyboard on the login screen is ignored. I'd think Linux on the Desktop has to be better at this point. I really cannot believe it hasn't improved since Windows XP days in any meaningful way and regressed a lot in quite a few.

rhaway84773 4y ago
Honestly, this sounds like you have a hardware issue with your Windows machine.

sethx 4y ago

No controversy in your take. It sucks.

barnabee 4y ago

Not sure about “worst” but I really hate that they’ve made the menu bar taller than the notch on the MacBook Pro— why on Earth would you do that?! I also don’t love the new settings app or the trend toward highly graphical, touchscreen style bundled apps, but I can ignore most of them so it’s not a huge deal.

ClassyJacket 4y ago
On that note... why do the MacBooks even have a notch considering: A) FaceID is tiny now, look at the iPhone 14, and B) No Mac has FaceID anyway. What's in there apart from a tiny camera and light sensor? There's no way those two things can take up that much space.
- satvikpendem 4y ago
  Seems to be for future face ID. Apple uses the same chassis for years as the manufacturing cost of changing out the chassis every year is unnecessary, especially with Tim Cook's operational background.
- MichaelZuo 4y ago
  It's to allow the fingers someplace safe to apply leverage against when opening the lid. Which is why I think the screen is so much more fragile then the previous model. Lots of users don't care about placing their fingers in the right spot and stress-wear the LCD.
  - cafeinux 4y ago
    That sounds like bad UX.
    - MichaelZuo 4y ago
      Yes, it seems like Jony Ive was the only one in senior management who had the authority to unilaterally block these bad design decisions.
  - 4y ago

rsynnott 4y ago

Hmm, besides the ridiculous settings app, I've found Ventura to be generally a pretty painless update.

flohofwoe 4y ago
...it is quite an achievement to come up with something that's even worse than the previous "icon soup" settings though ;) (at least the settings search bar still works as expected - which is now more important because discovery definitely has suffered)
- lapcat 4y ago
  > at least the settings search bar still works as expected It actually doesn't. One major difference in usability is that the search field has the focus on launch in System Preferences but not in System Settings. In general, keyboard navigation in System Settings is a massive downgrade. This is what happens when you model desktop software after mobile.
  - cassianoleal 4y ago
    ⌘F puts the focus on the search bar. It is a step back in usability but I would hardly call it a major one. I agree with the rest of your post.
    - lapcat 4y ago
      > ⌘F puts the focus on the search bar. It is a step back in usability but I would hardly call it a major one. The topic was the usability of the search bar specifically: "at least the settings search bar still works as expected" I have to press ⌘F first almost every time I open System Settings, because I'm typically going for a setting that isn't readily in view, so I would reaffirm that it's a major difference in usability of the search field. And arguably of System Settings as a whole too, depending on how you use it; with System Preferences, every preference pane is readily accessible on the launch screen, unlike System Settings, where many panes are buried.

philprx 4y ago

Can you post a reader friendly version of this, medium went from a great platform to painful dirty tricks platform in no time... Thanks

TomMasz 4y ago

I'm staying with Monterey on my iMac and MBP. Ventura offers me nothing I need and lots I don't. The security aspects are appealing but not sufficient to get me to change.

sebazzz 4y ago

Stage Manager is just as weird on the iPad pro. Suddenly I can't have an app full screen without turning stage manager off? So I need to end up switching it on and off all the time.

mattl 4y ago
What apps are you using full screen that need you to do this? I don’t use full screen almost ever but I’ve not noticed this.

akeck 4y ago

Ventura has been mostly fine for me. The only real drag is having to restart Finder all the time to force it to pick up SMB file system updates.

onewheeltom 4y ago

My Macbook Pro running Ventura continuously cycles between audio devices until I unplug one of them. Plug it back in, the cycling restarts.

3pac 4y ago

I think that MacOS is terrific and keeps getting better. It's well past time to include Pages, Numbers, Keynote, GarageBand and iMovie in the base install image. Also mkv, ogg, opus codecs for QuickTime. I prefer to do as much as I can from the trusted base install. I do not wish to install Homebrew or anything else. I wish that the base install included a few CLI packages like nmap and bsd-games. Also some public-domain humanities (Snow Leopard included classic paintings) and texts from Project Gutenberg. Networking needs MAC randomization, plus native OpenVPN and WireGuard support. There is a new globe symbol on my keyboard which makes me feel like meta-keys are starting to accumulate. That is going in the wrong direction. I do not want a space cadet keyboard. Why did the full-screen command change from Command-F to Globe-F after decades? iCloud still needs some work. I wish that I could stay logged into iCloud, but disable remote wipe, in case my iCloud account gets hacked.

3pac 4y ago
I forgot Xcode, it should be included, plus all the Dictionary files, considering how much storage is on even the base configurations being sold.
- willio58 4y ago
  What's the issue with keeping these all free but not installed by default? I haven't used any of those apps in years.
  - 3pac 4y ago
    I do not consider logging into iCloud to be part of "finishing setting up" my computer. In fact, I would like more out-of-the-box visibility into the phoning-home that Mac OS X performs. With Xcode specifically, I think a computer should be immediately programmable, like a BASIC interpreter used to be included. Especially to encourage young people.
    - musicale 4y ago
      Most computing devices include a web browser with a JavaScript interpreter. However, it isn't easy for beginners to discover or to learn to use. But... regardless of any improvements to make programming more discoverable and accessible, I don't foresee a resurgence of interest in end-user programming, because: 1) Apps have made end-user programming obsolete (much like web 2.0 eliminating end-user HTML and JavaScript.) 2) Some computer scientists (Matt Welsh, Bertrand Meyer, et al.) predict that programming will go the way of assembly language as AI systems become capable of writing complex programs. If (2) comes true, we may see a situation where end users provide prompts to AI systems which generate complete custom programs on demand.

brundolf 4y ago

I love the new settings app, it makes better use of space than the old one. The old one had the menu as a separate screen, so you'd have to click "into" a section and then click back out to see others. Now I can see both at once! Even the menu itself is more space-efficient because it's a column of line-items instead of a grid of huge icons, it's great

lancesells 4y ago
Interesting. I find the system settings to be one of the worst apps they've ever made. There are a million things wrong with it but one of the craziest is the search bar. Try searching for something like "Camera" or something in the top level like "Displays". I can't even tell what the results are from but they don't come up with what you need. Now I'm just waiting to see some ads in there like they are doing with settings in iOS.
- brundolf 4y ago
  Searching "camera" gave me results about accessibility and privacy WRT the camera Searching "displays" gave me the main Displays menu, Display Settings, Arrange multiple displays, Turn off display when inactive, etc Those results seem pretty reasonable to me
  - lancesells 4y ago
    Odd. Neither give me anything when fully typed and partially typed I have nothing. I'm on 13.0 so maybe there's an update that's fixed it.

neodymiumphish 4y ago

I actually think it's quite good, especially with the M1 Pro. However, I wish there was some version of FancyZones for Mac that supported the same shift-drag to fill into templated cells.

JamesonNetworks 4y ago
If you haven't used it, Rectangle gets close to this. It's what I've been using on Macs in place of FancyZones: https://rectangleapp.com https://rectangleapp.com

ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago

https://archive.is/VD3oV https://archive.is/VD3oV

r3dneck 4y ago

> "On Ventura, every time you plug in a new USB device to your Mac, a small box pops up, asking for your permission to connect the device." > "Of course, Apple would tell you that this is for security and safety reasons. BS!" Do you know what ? It is for security reasons, attacks via thunderbolt are a thing, see for example here: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/05/attack_against_2.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/05/attack_agains... I'm also not enthusiast of the latest macOS changes , but your opinion IMHO isn't controversial, is uninformed.