macOS Ventura Tidbits: 'About This Mac' Redesigned, New Game Controller Menu, Background Sounds, and More

[bluecoast]

The reskins are most likely being done because Apple is slowly switching different views in macOS to be built with SwiftUI (rather than UIKit), giving Apple an additional reason to also update the UI at the same time.

Rather technical, but underlying it's helping Apple to move SwiftUI forward by eating its own dog food via macOS updates.

For those unfamiliar with the term "eat your own dog food"...

Eating your own dog food is a phrase that refers to the internal use of a company's own products or services in its day-to-day operations. The idea is that if the product is good enough for consumers, it is good enough for its employees to use on the job.

I get it. With the 'advanced app features' that are now available to apps in iPadOS 16, I suspect it won't be too long before the iPadOS builds of Mail, Pages etc. become the foundations of these apps on MacOS too i.e. with the old Objective-C App-Kit/Cocoa derived apps retired (I'm not a dev so apologies if I've missed something here!).

 

[PsykX]

I have some serious storage issues with my M1 iMac, to the point where I think I'll have to sell it and buy something else.
That brings two questions :
1. Can we install macOS Ventura on an outside partition with M1 machines ? It's currently impossible with Monterey, Apple prevents it.
2. Can we store the iCloud Library on an external drive ?

 

[VictorTango777]

Can this new System Settings be configured to display in alphabetical order? I always set System Preferences to display by name instead of arbitrary groups. Every company has their own idea of what settings should be in what group: iPhone/iPad settings, Microsoft Windows settings, Synology NAS control panel, etc. When working with different devices, it is irritating having to look in different groups to find the same setting. That’s why I always choose alphabetical arrangement when possible. Hopefully every literate person of a particular language should agree on the order of the alphabet.

 

[svish]

Not much difference in ‘About this Mac’. Background sounds may prove useful. Happy to see Weather and Clock apps on macOS.

 

[deputy_doofy]

Don't understand why they put background sounds in Accessibility. You don't need to have additional needs in order to benefit from some choice of background noise, they should have put into Control Centre (unless it's been overlooked).

Fully agree. Hopefully this feedback is given during the public beta. As a side note, I had no idea my iPhone could do background sounds until just now.

 

[VictorTango777]

Fully agree. Hopefully this feedback is given during the public beta. As a side note, I had no idea my iPhone could do background sounds until just now.

Same here. I don't look in Accessibility because I don't consider myself a special needs user. Apple should stop trying to use Accessibility to score political points and start putting things in the appropriate places.

 

[jagan]

Much less focus on macOS in "About this Mac" now.
I think they're gonna stop using names soon and only use numbers.