from Hacker News

macOS 13 Ventura review

by BaldricksGhost on 10/25/22, 12:23 PM with 179 comments

  • by kossTKR on 10/25/22, 2:43 PM

    Is there any legit reason Apple is hastening the drop of support for older computers when they can be upgraded just fine with the OpenCore Legacy Patcher?

    It seems wrong to me in an age of excessive e-waste that seemingly arbitrary thresholds is set that has zero hardware links.

    I generally really like Apple, and is planning on retiring my 2014 Macbook Pro for an M2, but it's still working absolutely great. But i could only upgrade to Monterey with the legacy patcher like many others, seemingly problem free.

    It's the same thing with older iPads, i wanted to use one as a "hub" for homekit, but you can't because it can't update ios beyond 9 (regular browsing + video + 99% of apps is also broken), so people just throw it in the dumpster with a great battery, a fine screen and a processor that could easily be used as a server, video player, browser etc.

    I know other companies are often worse but we really need legislation around this; something ala if the biggest players drop support for some hardware let the user upgrade anyway even if performance will be worse, otherwise release all drivers so that you can at least install linux or alternatively release some "trimmed down versions" of the OS for legacy systems that can still run basic functionality.

  • by orr721 on 10/25/22, 3:03 PM

    Anyone else noticed that the Preview app was tinkered with again? Now it lost the ability to open PostScript files. This feature worked from the very beginning of Mac OSX up till Monterrey. The command line PostScript tools are still present though.

    Also all Ruby gems with native extensions stopped working for me, even the pre-installed system ones.

  • by Scharkenberg on 10/25/22, 1:39 PM

    I tried Stage Manager and turned it off within 10 minutes. It does seem somewhat better than the iPad implementation, but that bar is so low that this feature at the current state deserves no praise whatsoever.

    The new System Settings app is kind of buggy, which makes me think that 13.1 is coming sooner (by the end of the year?) rather than later.

    Other than that, there isn't much I can personally say about Ventura. It's more or less what one would expect from mac OS as of late - a subtle continuation of Big Sur and Monterey. Aside from the hardware compatibility list, there is nothing disruptive about it, which I am sure many will like.

    For better or for worse, it seems like 80% of the software engineering effort at Apple goes towards iOS.

  • by pwinnski on 10/25/22, 5:39 PM

    I hate System Preferences, have hated System Preferences for years and years. I cannot seem to get used to where things are, no matter how often I use it. The order doesn't make sense to me, the grouping doesn't make sense to me, and the icons aren't visually distinct enough for me. I might be the only one, but it's hard to imagine any overhaul of System Preference not resulting in an improvement.

    I'm sure it's just me. I'm the only one struggling to understand why "Desktop & Screen Saver" is so far from "Displays" and whether what I'm looking for is in one of those or maybe "Dock & Menu Bar."

    It could be that the new System Settings won't resolve my lack of memory when it comes to this one particular area of MacOS, but I can't imagine it getting worse. I use search for most things now as it is.

  • by luuuzeta on 10/25/22, 4:43 PM

    >But unlike minimizing or maximizing an app from the Dock, each "stage" can contain multiple app windows from multiple apps; switch from one stage to another, and every window on that stage will pop back up on your screen in exactly the arrangement you were using before.

    How does this new feature perform with external monitors? One of my gripes with macOS is how awful it's at managing windows. For example except for Slack, Outlook, Zoom, and a Brave window for listening to music on YouTube that stay in the MB's display, all the other apps go into my external monitor. However every time the computer goes to sleep, I must move a bunch of windows back to the external monitor. I was using Stay [1] and it was doing a decent job, however I couldn't justify paying $15 after the trial ended.

    [1]: https://cordlessdog.com/stay/

  • by za3faran on 10/25/22, 3:36 PM

    Does anyone else dislike the "phonification" of desktop UIs? Desktop and phone use are very different, with very different screen real estate.
  • by bryanlarsen on 10/25/22, 2:50 PM

    This upgrade is going to cost me a lot of money. They've dropped support for my beefy 2016 MBP. Soon enough the latest version of XCode is going to require Ventura and I won't be able to build my app.

    Meanwhile, Linus is only just starting the discussion to drop the 486 from the Linux kernel.

  • by dev_daftly on 10/25/22, 2:52 PM

    Have they separated scroll direction for mouse and trackpad yet? I don't understand how a shared flag like that has not been fixed yet, does nobody at apple use a normal mouse?
  • by mttjj on 10/25/22, 2:45 PM

    >The good

    >Orange color scheme is fittingly Halloween-y for late October

    Lol what? Are we to the point now where OS updates are so mundane that a highlight of the release is that the primary color scheme is "holiday relevant" for at most two weeks out of the year?

    Not bashing Ventura - I haven't used it - I just feel like this is a weird thing to put in the "pro" column for a review of an operating system. Not that putting it in the "con" column would be any less weird...

  • by CobaltFire on 10/25/22, 1:42 PM

    So on the topic of color space on iPads (that reference mode):

    I commented the other day that though all my recent Apple products have excellent color space they are all out of calibration. I decided to TRY calibrating my iPad Pro 11 (first gen) during Sidecar. The results were... not good. ~91% sRGB and ~71% DCI-P3. It's noticeably desaturated compared to running native. Likely some USB compression; I'm wondering if they got around that by implementing the "reference" link via Thunderbolt, or just created a specific pairing and are doing something akin to FRC in the compression. I'd be interested to know, but likely they aren't going to tell us.

  • by haskaalo on 10/25/22, 4:48 PM

    I'm French Canadian and because of this I have two keyboard languages. French Canadian and English (Canada).

    Before, when I'd press FN to change my keyboard language, I used to see "French Canada" and "English Canada". Now I just see "Canada" and "Canada - CSA".

    This is a weird change.

  • by behnamoh on 10/25/22, 2:38 PM

    > it does feel like the software side of the Mac is lacking its own unique direction and identity lately. Overwhelmingly, new features for macOS merely help it keep pace with what is happening on the iPhone and iPad. That feels doubly true in Ventura

    This. macOS is now a second class citizen in Apple’s ecosystem. If it weren’t, simple and basic features that users actually want would be implemented long ago, such as a window management so that we don’t need to install Tiles/Magnet/…

  • by pcurve on 10/25/22, 2:17 PM

    Reduction in installed sizes in something to celebrate. Makes you wonder how they cut it down from 20gb to 15 for laptop install
  • by whatsthatabout on 10/25/22, 4:42 PM

    I'll just update to 12.6.1 for now and wait... Seems like there's nothing new exciting enough for me to upgrade right away - I want stability on my machine.
  • by TwoNineA on 10/25/22, 2:42 PM

    Had to flush com.apple.Spotlight.plist file to get Spotlight working properly. After upgrade, Spotlight couldn't find 3d party apps that were installed already.

    Also, stage manager is a UI/UX nightmare, I will stick to Rectangle app.

  • by whywhywhywhy on 10/25/22, 3:02 PM

    Kinda need the Siracusa take, to be honest.
  • by dwrodri on 10/26/22, 4:12 AM

    Absolutely blows my mind that they wouldn't have a keybind for swapping between "stages" in Stage Manager. What furthers the confusion is that they did put some keybinds for things like merging applications into a single stage, but just... didn't take it all the way.

    Are keybind-heavy users a dying breed? It blows my mind that Apple would wise up to returning SD Card / HDMI ports to the Macbook, only to follow that up with increasingly taking away my ability to navigate my computer with just keybinds.

    I'm preaching to the choir on HN, but I think just about every piece of software aimed at creative/technical professionals (Blender/Adobe CC/Maya/Autodesk/Vim/Ableton/etc) is packed to the brim with keybinds because it allows you to do things fast.

    Oh well, I guess I'll be sticking with my ^+▲, ⌘+TAB, Spotlight/Alfred, and all the binds I get from the Magnet app[1].

    1: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/magnet/id441258766?mt=12

  • by arran-nz on 10/25/22, 4:01 PM

    Still waiting for Display Port MST support over USB-C to enable monitor daisy chaining.
  • by togs on 10/25/22, 2:08 PM

    Update was pretty painless. Everything else is the same.
  • by kristo on 10/26/22, 8:20 AM

    Insane to me that finder opens in like 10 different possible views depending on… what I have no idea
  • by julienreszka on 10/27/22, 9:45 AM

    Stage manager is great if you have the latest MacBook
  • by pram on 10/25/22, 2:16 PM

    Anyone know if Wacom/Cintiq drivers are working on Ventura?
  • by anonymouse008 on 10/25/22, 2:21 PM

    To everyone who worked on System Settings, you put in a ton of work, and you're all very talented to ship something in a new framework (SwiftUI) that has gone on to millions of devices.

    I only have one question: who was in charge of the thumbs up / thumbs down on this new design? Was it Craig Federighi?

    You all did amazing work with the tools offered - SwiftUI makes the side bar navigation and simple cell table views the easiest to iterate and create - and you all achieved that. Someone should have stepped up though and waited till next OS release for a change like this (with the new SwiftUI layouts, etc) - or potentially not touched it -

    or explain in depth why a side bar makes sense for settings, the most cognitively demanding part of an OS now with superfluous information on the side? That's critical real estate to lose, then doubly hurtful with visual clutter / something were expected to ignore.