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System Settings App in macOS Ventura Beta Still Riddled With UI Issues
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Apple pulling a Microsoft. Change for the sake of change, forcing users to relearning something.
Have Beta 13.5 on my MBPro 14" M1 Max. Connected the first of two new Studio Displays (shipped at same time but staggered delivery). Wanted to see the version of the OS on board the Display. There was no way to upgrade from15.4 to 15.5.
So I connected the Display to my 2019 `16" Intel on Monterey 12.5. Found that the Display was on 15.4 so clicked on Software update and the transition to 15.5 took just under five minutes. The second Display came the next day and after plugging it in, I had the update done quickly. Less than ten minuted from plugging into the wall to upgrade completition.
The Studio Displays were released in the March. Lots of chatter about issues that were supposedly "resolved" by upgrading the Display OS.
The Software Beta program states it is not for production machines. My experience bears that point out. Not mentioned is that there is similar program in place for hardware. Early adopters get to debug issues that R&D should have fixed before the new items were even released.
Thus I waited many months to order the Studio Displays and the Studio M1 Ultra that will arrive 11 October. The wild card for the Studio M1 will be which MacOS will installed on it. Monterey works because it was the initial MacOS installed on the release date of the Studio M1 hardware. So it could be possible to revert back from Ventura if necessary......
So I connected the Display to my 2019 `16" Intel on Monterey 12.5. Found that the Display was on 15.4 so clicked on Software update and the transition to 15.5 took just under five minutes. The second Display came the next day and after plugging it in, I had the update done quickly. Less than ten minuted from plugging into the wall to upgrade completition.
The Studio Displays were released in the March. Lots of chatter about issues that were supposedly "resolved" by upgrading the Display OS.
The Software Beta program states it is not for production machines. My experience bears that point out. Not mentioned is that there is similar program in place for hardware. Early adopters get to debug issues that R&D should have fixed before the new items were even released.
Thus I waited many months to order the Studio Displays and the Studio M1 Ultra that will arrive 11 October. The wild card for the Studio M1 will be which MacOS will installed on it. Monterey works because it was the initial MacOS installed on the release date of the Studio M1 hardware. So it could be possible to revert back from Ventura if necessary......
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They really made it terrible. It’s like amateur hour in system settings.
Looks like they need more time on this release. They didn’t need to ship this with Ventura. They could have punted it to the next MacOS release. And they really don’t need to have annual releases with all new features every year. Release stuff when it’s ready, really ready. And do some proper quality control like years ago.
To be fair, 10.0 Mac OS X Cheetah was riddled with many issues and had a lot of missing features. 10.2.7 (or was it 10.3.8?) had a terrible bug with FireWire external drives, and 10.6.0 had the guest user bug, a serious bug that caused data loss. Those are all bugs/issues with the highly vaunted Mac OS X. Not to mention classic Mac OS, where if you looked at the OS wrong, it'd crash on its knees and you'd have no recourse but to force reset. You should look at the forums from back then—everyone was saying that Apple had lost its way, that Mac OS X was a hot mess, that Apple wouldn't last for another year. A lot of people hated Tiger at its first x.0 inception, now everyone looks fondly back onto Tiger as one of the best OSes (along with Snow Leopard).
What I'm trying to say is, yes, System Settings has some issues. However, it's not as bad as some of those bugs back in the day, and everyone is looking back into the past fondly. There were always bugs, there are always bugs, and there will always be bugs. Does System Settings cause data loss? No. Does System Settings prevent you from using your computer properly? Subjective, but I'd say no. Does System Settings have some UI and other issues? Yes, but those can be corrected.
My two cents is to give it time. Remember FCPX in 2011? Everyone hated it. Look at FCPX now. It's came a long way. I'm confident Apple will listen to the feedback given for System Settings and fix it, although 13.0 might not have it fully "baked", but it will happen within time.
What I'm trying to say is, yes, System Settings has some issues. However, it's not as bad as some of those bugs back in the day, and everyone is looking back into the past fondly. There were always bugs, there are always bugs, and there will always be bugs. Does System Settings cause data loss? No. Does System Settings prevent you from using your computer properly? Subjective, but I'd say no. Does System Settings have some UI and other issues? Yes, but those can be corrected.
My two cents is to give it time. Remember FCPX in 2011? Everyone hated it. Look at FCPX now. It's came a long way. I'm confident Apple will listen to the feedback given for System Settings and fix it, although 13.0 might not have it fully "baked", but it will happen within time.
That depends on whether the released version of Ventura has the default Settings window size set to show half of the last visible item in the side bar.
This is not a bug, it's a complete UI disaster.
Just looking at the application reminds me of how much GNOME ripped off of Apple from iOS.
Edit:
This is Ubuntu 22.04 which uses GNOME 42.
Edit:
This is Ubuntu 22.04 which uses GNOME 42.
Honestly this kind of stuff is indicative of a bigger problem IMO, leetcode interviews. They heavily favor college grads vs the people who do the real work all day every day and often those younger grads get handed UI work which is often quite complicated.
But that's exactly the issue - by trying to adapt a macOS design language to SwiftUI, Apple has effectively put itself into a corner, and to correct such will take longer than had they simply used the macOS native kit.
To be clear I am not against the concept of a sidebar and input pane, since the persistence of the sidebar does indeed give you quicker access to all the setting categories. But what is frustrating is that Apple chose not to let the Mac be a Mac and execute something that fit the product itself, that took advantage of the minimum Mac screen size (13") and touchpad, and which was befitting the type of command/setting actually on-screen.
SwiftUI was designed for basic user interfaces, specifically with touch and scroll interactivity. Fine, but when you have to go to the extent of removing useful UI elements just because they are not part of SwiftUI, there is clearly a problem with the decision making of this project - or lack of.
Fair arguments, for sure.
Question: Wasn't SwiftUI designed for the Mac first, with the ultimate goal for Swift to replace App/UIKit, in both engineering and UI components? If so, why wouldn't Apple add in the missing features from App/UIKit (ie, tabs) to SwiftUI? I'm not too familiar with the depths of SwiftUI, so pardon my lack of knowledge here.
If SwiftUI was designed for iOS first, then I stand corrected and Apple should hold off using SwiftUI for most Mac applications until SwiftUI gains more Mac features.
The old settings contained several web views, which (while skilfully implemented) hopefully was part of the reason they decided to rewrite it. Many of the old panes were were built once and hardly ever changed, which is the downside of building each pane by hand.
I'm sure they could have kept on building the new version in secret for another year, but why not get it out and gather feedback. So far the feedback seems to be unanimous, and I'm sure they hear it. Might even accelerate improvements to SwiftUI.
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Well, they have a “crack team” working on picking names for macOS releases, maybe after witnessing their success they assembled such team for UI design, too 🤔
The real worry is that it has bugs that won’t, or can’t be fixed. Management seems to have made a decision that SwiftUI should be “dogfooded” in the Settings app, but this is going to result in a clunky buggy app no matter what. SwiftUI just isn’t ready, and at this point, maybe it never will be?
I’m an iOS developer and I’ve given SwiftUI a solid try several times over the last few years. It’s always been terrible, and it doesn’t seem to be getting much better.
Perhaps it’s time Apple just admitted that SwiftUI is a failure, and came up with something better?
You just don't know it, but you REALLY want ads. Apple knows best. Please stop dissenting and go stand in line for iPhone 14 Pro Max Ultra Edition Air pre-orders. Only two months away from delivery, hurry!
Since Beta 1, when I noticed that they revamped it to match iOS, I knew that it would not be polished enough for release by the Fall and why I made up my mind that I am also NOT going to be updating to Ventura in the Fall. The other nify features just don't justify the upgrade, IMHO. Maybe by macOS 13, it will be polished enough, but in Ventura, yeah, I just don't see them fixing it by Sept or even Oct...just too many changes happening too quickly on that front. Give it another year and with that time, it will be mostly fixed, I believe.
