System Settings App in macOS Ventura Beta Still Riddled With UI Issues

[Reason077]

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.

Only some of the newer panes, introduced in recent macOS releases, were using webviews. The older ones were written in native code using traditional AppKit APIs. I guess the army of college grads that Apple has on their macOS teams now didn’t know how to update or maintain them.

 

[darngooddesign]

Only some of the newer panes, introduced in recent macOS releases, were using webviews. The older ones were written in native code using traditional AppKit APIs. I guess the army of college grads that Apple has on their macOS teams now didn’t know how to update or maintain them.

Every college grad knows that updating something as crucial as the Settings app without being assigned that work is a great way to get fired.

 

[KoolAid-Drink]

Only some of the newer panes, introduced in recent macOS releases, were using webviews. The older ones were written in native code using traditional AppKit APIs. I guess the army of college grads that Apple has on their macOS teams now didn’t know how to update or maintain them.

Screen Time (introduced in Big Sur) and Passwords (introduced in Monterey) use native APIs. I checked. I believe only Apple ID and all the associated "panes" (family sharing, payments, etc) use webviews.

 

[xgman]

To me, the new System Settings it is a cluster f of an interface with so many graphical and operational issues as well as bizarre placement of many of the items, and things that just don't work when you click on them in there. Personally I hate it and wish they would go back to what was fine to begin with.

 

[dschmitty-o]

What?? Beta software has bugs? So weird.

 

[Reason077]

Every college grad knows that updating something as crucial as the Settings app without being assigned that work is a great way to get fired.

Of course they got assigned that work!

Presumably, management said something like: “Welcome to Apple, new recruits. Now, we’ve got to dogfood all this SwiftUI stuff that nobody is using. So go and rewrite all the macOS system preferences panes. Use SwiftUI.”

 

[DailySlow]

It seems Apple's redesigned macOS Ventura System Settings app, which replaces the System Preferences found in macOS Monterey and earlier versions, is still not without its problems five betas in, as catalogued by developer Niki Tonsky on Twitter.

For those unfamiliar with it, the new System Settings app looks more akin to the Settings app on the iPhone and iPad than it does to the earlier macOS preferences panels, with settings placed in a sidebar for supposedly easier access.

However, Tonsky's thread highlights several bugs and issues with the interface layout in developer betas 4 and 5 of macOS Ventura, including inconsistent use and erratic behavior of basic UI elements like dropdowns and buttons, misaligned text and poorly sized windows, menu titles that are cut off by menu windows, misplaced content, and more.

The System Settings app is built using SwiftUI, Apple's cross-platform user interface layer that works across iOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS. Another complex app written in SwiftUI, Shortcuts, has also drawn criticism for similar UI and performance bugs on both macOS and iOS.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1557357661171204098

Linking to and commenting on Tonsky's tweet thread on his own website, Daring Fireball's John Gruber said there is "something deeply wrong with SwiftUI that, even while in-progress, so many little layout details are apparently hard to get right."
In an interview with Gruber on The Talk Show Live at WWDC 2022, Craig Federighi said that despite what some may think, ‌macOS Ventura‌'s System Settings redesign was not largely inspired by iOS. Federighi insisted that the development team's main goal was consistency for users, and said System Settings on ‌macOS Ventura‌ is a "great interface."

Despite the lingering issues, there's still time for Apple to correct them, as macOS Ventura isn't likely to be scheduled for release until October, or perhaps even early November. Have you had similar experiences interacting with System Settings in the latest beta? What do you think of the new look? Let us know in the comments.

Article Link: System Settings App in macOS Ventura Beta Still Riddled With UI Issues

Garçon, more popcorn.

 

[darngooddesign]

Of course they got assigned that work!

Presumably, management said something like: “Welcome to Apple, new recruits. Now, we’ve got to dogfood all this SwiftUI stuff that nobody is using. So go and rewrite all the macOS system preferences panes. Use SwiftUI.”

You were talking about college grads not updating Web View panes in the existing Settings app, not Swift UI in the new app.

 

[Reason077]

Back in the day, Steve Jobs would have served as the ultimate arbiter of crappy quality in Apple products. He wouldn’t have allowed glitchy UIs to ship in that state - they either would have to be fixed or they would have been rolled back to the previous version for release.

But Apple no longer has a Steve. Tim Cook isn’t interested in pokey little product details and I guess nobody else has the authority and balls to put their foot down on this stuff.

 

[Reason077]

You were talking about college grads not updating Web View panes in the existing Settings app, not Swift UI in the new app.

Actually I was talking about the classic AppKit panes. Even the WebView ones are probably better than the SwiftUI horrors!

 

[darngooddesign]

Someone said "Steve Jobs would never..."; everyone take a drink.

 

[ponzicoinbro]

I did not try to install Wacom drivers on Ventura.

I figured the system preference pane will not be compatible with the Ventura Settings app.

The Wacom preferences layout won’t fit in that.

So I didn’t bother.

 

[ackmondual]

It, just, works. :\

WHOA! Someone from Apple replied to you in the Feedback app? luckeeeeeeee

To be fair to my comment above, I would like to give a shoutout to Apple customer service. I had problems activating my free trials of ATV+ and AA. Somebody on the chatline was able to get that resolved, in a timely manner!

 

[fuzzy76]

I mean, Music.app is still a trainwreck that feels like a halfhearted Electron-app breaking every single UX guideline three years after launch.

So no, I would not count on Apple fixing all of this before release.

 

[lee27]

Horrible new system settings layout for macOS Ventura
I'm hopping there will be an option to revert back to the old layout.

 

[Billrey]

To those who say that Apple will merge their OS's into a single operating system:

Well, that is already the case, and has been the case since the orignial iPhone debuted in 2007. iOS uses the same operating system as macOS, and always has. They are both based on Darwin, the open-source Unix-like operating system.

What Apple are merely working towards now, is to make it so developers, and themselves, can share more of the higher level UI code between platforms.

But iOS, macOS, iPadOS - even tvOS and watchOS - are all already the SAME operating system.

 

[ponzicoinbro]

To those who say that Apple will merge their OS's into a single operating system:

Well, that is already the case, and has been the case since the orignial iPhone debuted in 2007. iOS uses the same operating system as macOS, and always has. They are both based on Darwin…

Just call my name and I’ll be there.

 

[femike]

Reason: Under Tim Cook there has been a massive culture change and emphasis as to what is important. And Cook alot of staffing changes have taken place. Experienced people, that should of taught the younger folk are no longer there. Apple has replaced experienced staff, who have left under Tim Cook, with younger people who have little experience and who have not been brought up on caring for quality and attention to detail, a problem not only with Apple. The experienced staff remaining who do care don't have the influence to make them change course.

 

[Rkuda]

I went through that twitter guy's bitch thread and most of his issues weren't reproducible on the current beta of Ventura.

So I guess yeah you can chalk up a lot of the issues to it being beta.

Also he was so busy being a smug twitter hot-take hipster he apparently doesn't know that there are both pull-down and pop-up buttons - both of which he of course mislabels as 'dropdowns'

Pull-down buttons | Apple Developer Documentation

A pull-down button displays a menu of items or actions that directly relate to the button’s purpose.

developer.apple.com

Pop-up buttons | Apple Developer Documentation

A pop-up button displays a menu of mutually exclusive options.

developer.apple.com

These have both been in macOS forever and both even show up in the same screen in the immaculate pre-Ventura System Preferences

 

[imnotthewalrus]

I went through that twitter guy's bitch thread and most of his issues weren't reproducible on the current beta of Ventura.

So I guess yeah you can chalk up a lot of the issues to it being beta.

Also he was so busy being a smug twitter hot-take hipster he apparently doesn't know that there are both pull-down and pop-up buttons - both of which he of course mislabels as 'dropdowns'

Pull-down buttons | Apple Developer Documentation

A pull-down button displays a menu of items or actions that directly relate to the button’s purpose.

developer.apple.com

Pop-up buttons | Apple Developer Documentation

A pop-up button displays a menu of mutually exclusive options.

developer.apple.com

These have both been in macOS forever and both even show up in the same screen in the immaculate pre-Ventura System Preferences

THANK YOU! I've watched this thread turn into last month's M2 MBA Drama...always SOMETHING negative to keep those clicks going. I've been on Ventura since the first PB and I've not had ANY difficulties with System Settings app. That's not to say I've had no issues, but nothing that didn't go away after a reboot. That's not me saying that some people aren't having problems; I acknowledge that. But it's just another Beta to me - and I have used every beta since Public Betas have been offered.

 

[dwaite]

Agree to disagree. SwiftUI for Mac has some very rough edges that cut into the user experience. Things that AppKit has been doing right all along.

Eventually we will see AppKit being a compatibility layer on top of SwiftUI, not the other way around.

 

[dwaite]

It won't be long before you can only install apps from the Mac App Store and have only limited access to the file system. All in the name of privacy and security.

Its been 15 years since the original iPhone, but yes any day now this will happen.

"We are not working towards a single OS for all devices" -Apple all the time

As I look at the new setting app....hard not to see where this is going eventually.

The look and guidelines for macOS and iPadOS are both changing to become more aligned, as a result of/in line with the goals of releasing Mac Catalyst.

People are writing native iOS and iPadOS apps and ****** Electron desktop apps, so Apple wants to make it easy for the mobile team to also be the Mac team and produce native apps for all their platforms.

At the same time, bringing UI primitives more in line and adding crossplatfrom UI frameworks like SwiftUI means that Apple can have a single codebase for something like Weather across all their devices. Quite frankly, Weather on Mac and on iPad may not have happened without SwiftUI.

We'll continue seeing teams move to SwiftUI inside Apple, while we also see them having a single codebase across iPadOS and macOS (and possibly feature-limited builds of the same codebase for iPhone and tvOS and watchOS).

It's all part of Apple's 10 year plan of eventually having a calculator app on iPad.

 

[imnotthewalrus]

System Settings App in macOS Ventura Beta Still Riddled With UI Issues for some people.​

Fixed it for you.

 

[GCMars]

Login items are a complete mess as for now.

 

[mectojic]

Just bring back Snow Leopard UI, it will be considered 'revolutionary' and everyone will love it.