This thread is laughable, quite honestly. There is nothing wrong with the new Settings.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Do you like the MacOS Ventura System settings? [MERGED]
- Thread starter the8thark
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
it's different (which some people find threatening), and life isn't perfect (but some expect an operating system to be... perfect, and on their terms...) 🙄
I only got using it "properly" for the first time this week even though I have been running Ventura for a month or so. I think it is an improvement, the old System Preferences was nice from an eshtetics point of view, but navigation was clumsy at best, in particular with all the pop up panes.
I saw some comments about Stage Manager, don’t use it and it’s not in the way. Ventura appears to be one of the better releases.
Edit: formatting.
I saw some comments about Stage Manager, don’t use it and it’s not in the way. Ventura appears to be one of the better releases.
Edit: formatting.
I really don't like it, and now speaking to apple tech support, they don't really know it yet either
stuff is just all over the place!!
To me its a disaster, was so much quicker before, now stuff is all over, buried in menu and menu
just like file sharing for instance
now its
settings, general, settings, sharing, then you click on the I
really ........
stuff is just all over the place!!
To me its a disaster, was so much quicker before, now stuff is all over, buried in menu and menu
just like file sharing for instance
now its
settings, general, settings, sharing, then you click on the I
really ........
The easiest way I've found to find things quickly is put System Settings in the dock then right click the icon. If I can't find it there then I hit the search function. Used it on beta for a good while and now that I'm used to it I like it a lot better than the old preferences.
Or @fisherking people expect change to be justified, then to work and then to make sense without introducing new bugs when a slew of more important things needed addressing rather than wasting even more precious workflow time by navigating around the yearly drama that is now Mac OS.
Furthermore Linux and Windows have set out product development and support cycles versus Apple who treat the OS like an yearly software patch.
Also, many people are not blinded by their 'fandom' and can provide critical and useful feedback because they want to see Apple do well and want MacOS to be a great OS to get stuff done. It's not a matter of fearing change. Critical thinking is welcome, 'fanboy do as your told and don't question' (which you seem to do or suggest we just accept) simply isn't smart.
Furthermore Linux and Windows have set out product development and support cycles versus Apple who treat the OS like an yearly software patch.
Also, many people are not blinded by their 'fandom' and can provide critical and useful feedback because they want to see Apple do well and want MacOS to be a great OS to get stuff done. It's not a matter of fearing change. Critical thinking is welcome, 'fanboy do as your told and don't question' (which you seem to do or suggest we just accept) simply isn't smart.
I think I like the system preferences. My only problem is that it is slow on my Mac (2018 MacBook Pro) and the text is a bit too small for my eyes. If I had to spend a lot of time using it, I wouldn't like it. I do suspect it will get better over time with user feedback.
I particularly like the search feature; it's easy for me to find things related to a few keywords.
I particularly like the search feature; it's easy for me to find things related to a few keywords.
Yearly drama? For whom? Who are these "people" that you claim to speak for? Just you, maybe?
Harden up. The relentless whining every time a new macOS release comes out is such a drag and all round time waster. So go ahead and jump, put your money where your mouth is and switch to windows or linux. Best of luck with that
Last edited:
I really must learn to moderate myself. Getting worked up is not good for me or anyone else. I apologize for my previous comments on this thread. Have a great day y'all.
I think that's something they'll eventually fix with user feedback (I hope). "i" has always meant "info" in applications I've used and written. I clicked on one of those while looking for some setting and was completely surprised to find some settings there.
I just had a magical system preferences moment.
My watch stopped unlocking my mac (cuz Apple). I went to System Preferences and didn't even bother looking for the setting. I just typed "Watch" and the single setting showed up. It was a fabulous thing. (I actually only got through "w", "a", "t" before the setting showed up.)
It's pretty amazing. I figured I'd try something random and expected to be disappointed. I typed "smb" and like magic, a bunch of network settings showed up. Also, just picking one of them even opened the extra popup that got me to the setting. And, it wasn't just a text search; the letters "smb" didn't appear anywhere in the titles or contents.
I guess it depends on how people work. This new preferences really suits me. It's possible the old system preferences did something like this, but I only remember having it pick the top level icon when I typed a search.
If it just responded more quickly (VERY sluggish on my machine) and had slightly bigger type, I'd have actually paid a developer (< $5.00) if they had introduced such a tool themselves.
The app does seem to be caching pages, since revisiting a setting tab opens it more quickly than when first going there. Sometimes, the initial visit to a setting tab takes about .5 seconds (approximate). Later visits seem much, much faster.
My watch stopped unlocking my mac (cuz Apple). I went to System Preferences and didn't even bother looking for the setting. I just typed "Watch" and the single setting showed up. It was a fabulous thing. (I actually only got through "w", "a", "t" before the setting showed up.)
It's pretty amazing. I figured I'd try something random and expected to be disappointed. I typed "smb" and like magic, a bunch of network settings showed up. Also, just picking one of them even opened the extra popup that got me to the setting. And, it wasn't just a text search; the letters "smb" didn't appear anywhere in the titles or contents.
I guess it depends on how people work. This new preferences really suits me. It's possible the old system preferences did something like this, but I only remember having it pick the top level icon when I typed a search.
If it just responded more quickly (VERY sluggish on my machine) and had slightly bigger type, I'd have actually paid a developer (< $5.00) if they had introduced such a tool themselves.
The app does seem to be caching pages, since revisiting a setting tab opens it more quickly than when first going there. Sometimes, the initial visit to a setting tab takes about .5 seconds (approximate). Later visits seem much, much faster.
Responding to myself...
But, it's also not perfectly implemented. When the search result is a page that scrolls and the actual result is not visible, it does not scroll into view. Nor does it highlight the particular setting that is the match. Oh well.
Generally I think Apple does C-level work on user-facing software. I give them a solid B on this. I bet they'll get to A- eventually.
I don't like it. It is very difficult to find what you need. No need to break things that worked well.Do you like the MacOS Ventura System settings?
Or do you prefer them as they are now?
Personally I am not a fan of Apple iOS-ifying MacOS but what are your thoughts?
try the 'search' window in settings. then, once you see where something is, it will be there the next time you want to find it. soon you'll see that 'settings' works just as well as 'preferences'.
if you've followed mac OS development over the years, you know that apple changes things up sometimes. then we adapt 👍
This, I believe, falls under the "if it ain't broke, why fix it" category. So, would have to believe this is being driven by marketing and the desire to turn the Mac into a clone of the iPhone to appease mobile users.
I’ve been reading about all this back-and-forth for several months, and it brings to my mind a way to make this issue way more Mac-like from everyone’s viewpoint: have Apple give us users choices in the matter. I’ve been a Mac user for over 25 years, ever since System 7. Apple’s user interface was always easier to use than any Windows version, and that alone made it preferable, even to newcomers to computers.
So here we are in a new century, and Apple has come a long way in hardware and UIs since. And a lot of new users to Macs have come from phones. Their experience makes it easier to navigate Settings across the hardware spectrum. But a long-time Mac user has had to re-adjust with Ventura’s Settings UI. Why not make it so we can choose between two UIs going forward on desktop Macs? If us old dogs liked the System Preferences navigation on a Mac as opposed to the Settings on the iOS devices, why can’t we have the option?
So here we are in a new century, and Apple has come a long way in hardware and UIs since. And a lot of new users to Macs have come from phones. Their experience makes it easier to navigate Settings across the hardware spectrum. But a long-time Mac user has had to re-adjust with Ventura’s Settings UI. Why not make it so we can choose between two UIs going forward on desktop Macs? If us old dogs liked the System Preferences navigation on a Mac as opposed to the Settings on the iOS devices, why can’t we have the option?
if you've been a macuser since system 7... think of all the changes you've adapted to. this is just one of those.
where's the cutoff point, where one determines that something is fine as it is and should never change? wouldn't we all have different opinions about that?
we're not still on system 7 because apple moves forward, and not everyone will like every change. so it goes.
Not a fan, but at least the search function works pretty well. Also, I realized recently that the View menu shows all setting alphabetically. I was so used to browsing visually (and generally knowing where stuff was) that I never ever bothered looking at the menu bar for this.
I'm a Mac noob. Ventura is the only thing i know
The settings app is... fine. My problems are
1) font not adjustable
1b) window width fixed
2) too many categories? Like the emperor in Amadeus, don't ask me which categories to cut, just too many categories. Well, ok, do screen time and focus, each with like one item, have to be two separate categories?
3) you search for something, then it brings you to a category with a long scrolling list of items and you have to visually scan the list. Thanks for the help, bud. How about highlighting the result(s)? Scroll to the first result at least.
4) often i choose something on the left side but the right side is unresponsive. Have to close app and restart
5) i try to change a kbd shortcut and it tells me no can do, shortcut already used for something else. And that's it. Come on man. The right response is: the shortcut A is already used for X. Do you want to assign A to Y anyway? Then bonus point if: X now has no shortcut key assigned, do you want to assign a shortcut key for X now? At the very least, tell me where the conflict is so i can go and change it if i want
But my problem isn't with the app, but the general lack of customizability. There's an option to make menu bar larger, but it's still not large enough. I have to get into the (also limited) scaling options. Or: I want to prevent device x from waking the computer up. In windows, sure you have to dig through the ugly device manager to do it, but you can. On Mac, you Google then go down rabbit hole of solutions that may or may not apply any longer, eventually getting to a brew utility that may or may not still work, or an app that costs 10$.
People say Mac is *nix, but with Linux, if you're determined you'll find a solution. With Mac, you don't know. The end result could be: no Apple won't let you do it, sorry
The settings app is... fine. My problems are
1) font not adjustable
1b) window width fixed
2) too many categories? Like the emperor in Amadeus, don't ask me which categories to cut, just too many categories. Well, ok, do screen time and focus, each with like one item, have to be two separate categories?
3) you search for something, then it brings you to a category with a long scrolling list of items and you have to visually scan the list. Thanks for the help, bud. How about highlighting the result(s)? Scroll to the first result at least.
4) often i choose something on the left side but the right side is unresponsive. Have to close app and restart
5) i try to change a kbd shortcut and it tells me no can do, shortcut already used for something else. And that's it. Come on man. The right response is: the shortcut A is already used for X. Do you want to assign A to Y anyway? Then bonus point if: X now has no shortcut key assigned, do you want to assign a shortcut key for X now? At the very least, tell me where the conflict is so i can go and change it if i want
But my problem isn't with the app, but the general lack of customizability. There's an option to make menu bar larger, but it's still not large enough. I have to get into the (also limited) scaling options. Or: I want to prevent device x from waking the computer up. In windows, sure you have to dig through the ugly device manager to do it, but you can. On Mac, you Google then go down rabbit hole of solutions that may or may not apply any longer, eventually getting to a brew utility that may or may not still work, or an app that costs 10$.
People say Mac is *nix, but with Linux, if you're determined you'll find a solution. With Mac, you don't know. The end result could be: no Apple won't let you do it, sorry
Search is super useful, but it’s nothing new. It was introduced in System Preferences days. You can even launch Settings panes from Spotlight.
This is of course implying that Settings app on iOS is already so good that people would be disappointed that they couldn’t use the exact same app on the Mac.
But it’s not. Even on iOS, the Settings app has been criticized for being not very intuitive and easy to use. You and others sharing this same opinion are trying so hard to rationalize something that is nothing more than Apple making things easier for themselves, not the end users.
This "one UI to rule them all" approach has been tried many times before, and it always failed. It will fail again.
Last edited:
i have no problem with settings on the phone (since ever), and no issues with settings on ventura. and, if we're talking about the internet, everything is criticized... somewhere.
i make my observations based on my experiences, not on what people on forums (cough), or youtube (lol) tell me. and settings on the mac is fine, am used to it now, and when i (not that often!) need to get to something... it's right where it was previously ☺️