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If you’re not a spatially-oriented person… of course, those of us spatially-oriented people are messed with every time Apple have rearranged the icon layout in preferences. I’ve started using the search box at this point.
Good idea to help you acclimate to it. The new UI really makes sense if you take a little time with it. I also want to say I'm sorry as I was harsh toward you in an earlier post. I hope you'll accept my apology...
 
I personally like the new Settings, and I am a hardcore Mac user. I think that iOS settings is a lot easier to navigate. Making it look like iOS is a really great step in my opinion.
haven't seen it in person yet, but i don't have anything against how it's working on iPhones / iPads, so i guess i'll be fine here too, unless we're going to loose some of it's actual functionality (meaning less options / dumped options)
 
haven't seen it in person yet, but i don't have anything against how it's working on iPhones / iPads, so i guess i'll be fine here too, unless we're going to loose some of it's actual functionality (meaning less options / dumped options)
As far as I can tell there is no crucial loss in the new UI. I've been a Mac user since OSX Tiger, so I've seen many changes...I don't find the new direction counterproductive at all. That's just me. YMMV.
 
I always set System Preferences to display alphabetically by name because I am tired of every OS manufacturer arranging their settings differently, in groups that are randomly ordered, and items within groups also randomly ordered.
 
I been thinking about installing but I think I will wait, and it's because of this I just got my Macbook 16 inch and I'm still getting use to Monterey. I was running 2012 Macbook with Catalina for pass few years.
 
Isn't that (Vertically scrolling on a horizontally oriented screen) how the majority of the web works (including this very forum)? :D Seriously I don't know if it is that much astep backwards in user-friendlyness. Heck, that has been part of the Finder all the way back to Panther (2003) as shown at the end of this post. Never mind there are parts of the system panel that work like that since Catalina: Notifications, Accessibility, Internet Accounts, Network, Extensions, User and Groups (if you have a lot of them), as well as Security and Privacy.


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That Find screenshot is a great example of my point: it was only vertically scrolling if you added a bunch of stuff. By default Apple made it so everything was visible without scrolling because that's more usable

We are used to vertical scrolling on the web. That's true. It doesn't mean vertical scrolling is more usable when it's not necessary. Vertical scrolling lists hide information. It makes it hard to find things

Look at the mess of iOS's settings app. Tell me you scroll that huge list instead of just using search
 
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That Find screenshot is a great example of my point: it was only vertically scrolling if you added a bunch of stuff. By default Apple made it so everything was visible without scrolling because that's more usable
That is not a "Find screenshot" but how the Finder shows things when you have a lot of features enabled as show by a snapshot of Catalina's Finder at the end of this post.

We are used to vertical scrolling on the web. That's true. It doesn't mean vertical scrolling is more usable when it's not necessary. Vertical scrolling lists hide information. It makes it hard to find things
Having icons all over the place like a puppy that hasn't been taught how to use the paper also makes it hard to find things.
Look at the mess of iOS's settings app. Tell me you scroll that huge list instead of just using search
I only use the MacOS going all the way back to System 3.2.0.

catalina.jpg
 
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Here's another great perspective by Jason Snell about the Systems Settings app and it's changes:


Besides it being built on SwiftUI which is just not ready for prime time, he makes some great points regarding the location of certain options. Default Web Browser listed in 'Desktop & Dock'? And at the very bottom? Not putting this in 'General' seems like a bug, not a choice. That, among a large number of choices with this, make it all seem half baked. And with little time left, it's pretty disheartening.
 
That is not a "Find screenshot" but how the Finder shows things when you have a lot of features enabled as show by a snapshot of Catalina's Finder at the end of this post.

That was a typo. I meant to say Finder screenshot

Having icons all over the place like a puppy that hasn't been taught how to use the paper also makes it hard to find things.

That's black and white thinking. We don't have two options: iOS or Mac way. We have an infinite number of options. The best way would be to make a better way to do it that is specifically tailored for the Mac operating system

The solution to fixing System Preferences wasn't copy the worse design on iOS. Apple should have the talent to fix the problems in both of them instead of thinking "Do it like iOS" is the answer to using a desktop operating system
 
Here's another great perspective by Jason Snell about the Systems Settings app and it's changes:


Besides it being built on SwiftUI which is just not ready for prime time, he makes some great points regarding the location of certain options. Default Web Browser listed in 'Desktop & Dock'? And at the very bottom? Not putting this in 'General' seems like a bug, not a choice. That, among a large number of choices with this, make it all seem half baked. And with little time left, it's pretty disheartening.
Actually they said "Is SwiftUI the reason that System Settings is a rambling wreck? I don’t know, and I don’t care. It just needs to be better. That’s all."

If SwiftUI is buggy it wouldn't be the first time — Apple had assembly compilers that bugged out and the only you way you could fix some problems was to use ResEdit on them (World Builder, a game creation program, case in point)
 
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Actually they said "Is SwiftUI the reason that System Settings is a rambling wreck? I don’t know, and I don’t care. It just needs to be better. That’s all."

If SwiftUI is buggy it wouldn't be the first time — Apple had assembly compilers that bugged out and the only you way you could fix some problems was to use ResEdit on them (World Builder, a game creation program, case in point)
I think Jason's quote there is more of a reference as to who cares how the app is made, just that the app works. Because it's the Settings app.
 
My Mac Studio Ultra was ordered 8 July and was scheduled to arrive 11 October. It arrived on 23 August and had MacOS 12.5 installed. I upgraded to 12.5.1 with no issues.

I am pleased because that allows for the beta MacOS 13 stuff to continue to percolate somewhere else than on my primary computer. I have the latest (as of yesterday) beta on my 14" MBPro Max and System Preferences makes absolutely no sense to me after being a Mac user since 1990.

I dread that I will eventually have to migrate to this new MacOS system. Perhaps age 77 is part of my problem but poor design is still poor design.
 
I’ve spent time with Settings and I find things are just not usefully placed sometimes. I have to resort to using the search functionality, that’s always faster than trying to find it in the menus and submenus
 
I think Jason's quote there is more of a reference as to who cares how the app is made, just that the app works. Because it's the Settings app.
I’ve spent time with Settings and I find things are just not usefully placed sometimes. I have to resort to using the search functionality, that’s always faster than trying to find it in the menus and submenus
The Mac settings have been kind of messed up in terms of placement for a long time. Take the default browser. Knee jerk guess would be Network, right? But it has been in General at least as far back as Catalina (and likely further back)

Heck, you could argue Sharing should be under Network and not its own thing. Java doesn't even behave like a normal control panel and instead more like its own Application.
 
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Take the default browser. Knee jerk guess would be Network, right? But it has been in General at least as far back as Catalina (and likely further back)
If someone put the option to set my Default Browser in Network Settings, that would be the end of it.

Something general, like setting default applications, definitely a ‘General’ Setting. You can organize and sort preferences alphabetically or by category. It’s actually been pretty easy to find things the way the long-standing setup has been. Not some halfa**ed way of shoving things in.

The new Settings app is not alphabetical. Is it categorically listed? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
Not sure if I'm missing something here - but does anyone know if you can still 'padlock' individual sys pref panes?? (eg in monterey you can padlock the network pref pane in the bottom corner)

I can't see anywhere you can padlock pref panes anymore. It's really handy in small SMB environment - when you don't want to setup MDM profiles
 
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