macOS Ventura is now available

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/10/macos-ventura-is-now-available/

by anuragsoni • 4 years ago

383 495 4 years ago

apple.com

atfzl• 4 years ago

Resident Evil Village is launching on 28 Oct with Apple Silicon support!

Cyberdog• 4 years ago

Any word on No Man's Sky?

terracatta• 4 years ago

For IT/Security folks looking for a good rundown of what's new we put this together, talks about Passkeys, RSR, Gatekeeper improvements, and Lockdown mode.

https://www.kolide.com/blog/the-security-and-it-admin-s-guid...

highwaylights• 4 years ago

Passkeys is a bit of an odd one.

They’ve been listing it as a Ventura upgrade, and all the marketing (more or less) points to this as a Ventura-and-later feature, but it’s on Big Sur and Monterey too.

jshier• 4 years ago

It's really a Safari 16.1 feature, and 16.1 was released with Ventura, so I guess they're capitalizing on that publicity to drive the feature.

ajkjk• 4 years ago

What's the best place to read technical details about new Mac releases? This has a bit, as do other sites like https://www.macrumors.com/roundup/macos-13/, but I wonder if there's something with a more exhaustive list -- something that reads like actual "patch notes".

crummy• 4 years ago

The answer is undoubtedly https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/10/macos-13-ventura-the...

cstuder• 4 years ago

The Ars Technica reviews are always pretty thorough: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/10/macos-13-ventura-the...

agumonkey• 4 years ago

some things never change :)

anigbrowl9• 4 years ago

What is with that extended scrolling thing though. I want to look at the scrollbar to know how long a document (including a web page) is, not have it keep changing as I move farther into it.

'Oh people don't like looking at long documents' - then they're not your target customers and you should just ignore them and stop listening to the ad sales person who is paid by commission.

kccqzy• 4 years ago

They stopped being thorough after John Siracusa stopped writing them.

Seriously, back in the days John Siracusa would dive into internal details. For example in 10.7 Lion (in 2011) Apple introduced full disk encryption. John didn't just stop at the usual description of the functionality, screenshots and performance metrics. He described Apple's then-new logical volume manager implementation to get this feature to work. He then speculated on Apple's future plans for the technology (pooled storage aka a single logical volume group spanning multiple physical drives) which became the reality in 2012 with Fusion Drive. This is the kind of review I wanted to read.

concinds6• 4 years ago

The Ars Technica review is thorough, and acts as a good set of "release notes", but it's published upon release, and obviously doesn't cover the stuff that devs and users discover throughout the following year.

I recommend the excellent EclecticLight blog (by H. Oakley). He doesn't try to do a comprehensive overview (you have Ars for that), but has done many technical deep-dives covering changes that haven't been talked about anywhere else, and I can't praise him enough for that.

Michael Tsai also has a great blog (mjtsai.com/blog/) that functions as a news agregator for Apple stories and commentary, and though his blog's not dedicated to only macOS, you'll find regular stories on technical details there.

lelandfe4• 4 years ago

Six Colors is also good: https://sixcolors.com/post/2022/10/macos-ventura-review-a-wo...

(I miss John Siracusa's reviews for ArsTechnica)

jron2• 4 years ago

Lockdown mode looks very usable despite the messaging that it is "designed for the very few individuals." Users can even exclude applications from Lockdown mode.

When Lockdown Mode is enabled, some apps and features will function differently, including:

Messages - Most message attachment types are blocked, other than certain images, video, and audio. Some features, such as links and link previews, are unavailable.

Web browsing - Certain complex web technologies are blocked, which might cause some websites to load more slowly or not operate correctly. In addition, web fonts might not be displayed, and images might be replaced with a missing image icon.

FaceTime - Incoming FaceTime calls are blocked unless you have previously called that person or contact.

Apple Services - Incoming invitations for Apple Services, such as invitations to manage a home in the Home app, are blocked unless you have previously invited that person.

Shared albums - Shared albums are removed from the Photos app, and new Shared Album invitations are blocked. You can still view these shared albums on other devices that don’t have Lockdown Mode enabled.

USB accessories - To connect your device to a USB accessory or another computer, the device needs to be unlocked. Configuration profiles - Configuration profiles can’t be installed, and the device can’t be enrolled in Mobile Device Management or device supervision while in Lockdown Mode.

Phone calls and plain text messages continue to work while Lockdown Mode is enabled. Emergency features, such as SOS emergency calls, are not affected.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212650

_jal2• 4 years ago

Yep, much like on the phone, Lockdown is really attractive to me to just run all the time.

- I never want executable content sent to me via messages.

- I already block web fonts everywhere I can. I do want to know what other "complex web technologies" are blocked.

- I don't care about Facetime.

- I don't use Apple services or Icloud.

- Ignoring USB when locked should be a default.

sjtgraham• 4 years ago

I do want to know what other "complex web technologies" are blocked.

JIT compilation, WASM, WebGL, Speech Recognition API, and the Web Audio API

kayodelycaon2• 4 years ago

Ignoring USB when locked should be a default.

And if you plug your laptop into a docking station while the lid is closed...?

alwillis7• 4 years ago

Lockdown mode looks very usable despite the messaging that it is "designed for the very few individuals.”

Apple said at the rollout that relatively few people should need this, which is likely correct. The vast majority of people don’t have a state-level attacker going after them.

Also it makes sense that the UI/UX is accessible; many of the people who need this aren’t necessarily tech experts. And even if you are a tech expert, you don’t want a complex UI when you’re under attack.

jron2• 4 years ago

catch

{

state-level attack

targeted attack

mass targeted malware/rootkits

}

If it works some of the time for state-level, it should work almost all of the time for anything below.

galoisscobi• 4 years ago

I’m usually excited about macOS releases but this one is an underwhelming update and don’t see any reason to update any time soon.

Stage manager seems like a half measure to introduce better window management in macOS and it doesn’t help that it doesn’t support a keyboard only workflow, from what I can tell from the demos.

Coming from i3wm, I found Yabai to be an excellent keyboard-first window manager. I do wish something like Yabai was built into macOS.

vbezhenar5• 4 years ago

One big feature for me is much improved Virtualization framework. I'm eager for https://github.com/docker/roadmap/issues/384 to be closed. Must solve some QoL issues for me.

naikrovek• 4 years ago

same. this is huge for me.

ohCh6zos• 4 years ago

I've played around with stage manager and it has left me scratching my head. It seems to have so much weird whitespace.

terhechte• 4 years ago

With Ventura there's Rosetta support in Linux VMs. This is something I'm a bit excited about.

rz2k• 4 years ago

Historically, the uninspiring and underwhelming major releases of OS X and macOS have ended up being the ones that users ended up having the most positive feelings about over the long term. They have tended to focus on faster performance, refining past features, and security improvements without the simultaneous introduction of fresh annoyances.

However, since you aren't really missing anything in terms of new features, it also doesn't hurt to wait for a couple point releases to let other people find remaining bugs first.

dewey• 4 years ago

Based on the reviews and the public betas this isn't the "Snow Leopard" release that everyone is always waiting for.

alin238• 4 years ago

I've been testing Stage Manager since the first developer beta of Ventura and it did feel awkward, as it had no keyboard control, and I feel slower when pointing and clicking to switch apps.

But after adding support for it in my rcmd app (https://lowtechguys.com/rcmd), and tuning yabai's grid a bit, I found it quite useful for my workflow.

Here's a video on how I use Stage Manager with the keyboard shortcuts in rcmd, if you'd like to see if the same workflow would be useful for you: https://youtu.be/dlwjSf7aIy8

I'm also giving out some promo codes for rcmd to give people a chance to try this functionality and see if they like it:

    *previous codes redeemed*

EDIT: Dang, you guys are fast. Here are 10 more codes, and if you want more, there's also a Twitter giveaway here: https://twitter.com/lowtechguys/status/1584596195326177281

    RHKWKLML7YHA
    9HL7XALHANL6
    XP7N6N7PFJRP
    AWA37JJLA9LJ
    3FR6JR4LPPAF
    93TFMMX6KM6M
    7K4YLM6H3P6E
    36MWRHWF7TM7
    RTM9HEEAHTA7
    AEMNXEX6WFPK

mrtksn• 4 years ago

I didn't know I needed this but it is surprisingly pleasant to switch apps this way, thanks.

ps: I used the YP33H9AP9NFH code, so try the other ones.

flutas• 4 years ago

To save everyone else: All the codes seem to have been redeemed.

selectodude• 4 years ago

So nobody else has to waste time trying all of these codes - they're all burned up. Sorry folks :)

ValentineC• 4 years ago

Managed to snag 36MWRHWF7TM7. Thanks for the giveaway!

phildenhoff• 4 years ago

Grabbed one of the codes — thank you! Excited to try out rcmd

JadeNB2• 4 years ago

How do you redeem a promo code? The app store just asks me to buy, and the trial doesn't have any obvious place to enter a promo code.

mescalito• 4 years ago

All codes (new ones too) have been redeemed, interesting app! I personally like Contexts (https://contexts.co/) but it has been barely supported.

ezfe6• 4 years ago

I'm updating for these features: better iMessage (editing / unsending / mark as unread), Shared iCloud Photo Library, duplicate detection in Photos, Continuity Camera, Weather app, multi-stop Maps routing

gnicholas• 4 years ago

Does Mark As Unread affect whether it shows as read by the sender?

alwillis7• 4 years ago

Continuity Camera

I’ve been on the betas all summer; Continuity Camera is probably the most Apple-like feature in Ventura. It seems almost magical in how it “just works”.

kevinpet• 4 years ago

duplicate detection in Photos

What? Finally!

jedberg3• 4 years ago

If they put a bunch of new features in the OS, everyone complains, "Why don't they focus on stability!!"

If they focus on stability, everyone says, "Not enough new features to be worth the upgrade".

I guess no one can be happy. Or they expect a ton of new instantly stable features...

eastbound• 4 years ago

Why can’t we have no features AND unstability? If the rumor spreads that Apple doesn’t succeed to fine enough OS-level programmers, it’s precisely because all of usability + stability + innovation are going down at the same time. Gone are the days where you’d expect Apple to launch a new APFS, encryption, or a general SSO solution for employees across all Apple devices.

Which is sorely needed.

Because honestly I’m afraid of paying $12 to $24 per device per employee and per month for an SSO+MDM solution that would make me depend on a dodgy Windows-style UI (Jamf) or worse, all my employees’ ability to login would depend on Okta.

Terretta5• 4 years ago

Or perhaps only half of 'everyone' feels compelled to comment each release.

sbf5012• 4 years ago

For a lot of us, complaining is fun. It has a long tradition in human culture. A good kvetch lets off steam, especially when its a group kvetch.

behnamoh10• 4 years ago

Coming from i3wm, I found Yabai to be an excellent keyboard-first window manager. I do wish something like Yabai was built into macOS.

For those on Windows, there is an equivalent app called bug.n that mimics dwm.

drexlspivey• 4 years ago

The feature that made me jump into beta is that Shortcuts now appear in the share sheet so it’s the same experience like iOS. Much easier to create/test shortcuts on the mac

antipaul2• 4 years ago

For keyboard control, I've gotten into using "Hide <app>" or "Hide others" cmd(-option)-h

This keeps the workspace nice and clean

For switching apps, either cmd-tab or cmd-` or with Alfred App

Indeed, for moving windows to left/right/etc, you may need an app like Rectangle

You _could_ add custom shortcuts in Settings - Keyboard for menu items like Zoom or "Move Window to Left Side of Screen" but it's a bit limited.

What is missing? I guess some people like live preview in cmd-tab, but I've been ok without it.

10729287• 4 years ago

I replaced Cmd-tab shortcut to launch https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/, who fix every issue with macos feature. Couldn't be happier.

concinds6• 4 years ago

Wouldn't it be awesome if Apple added window-snapping, and i3wm-like keyboard support? They'd leapfrog every other OS in an area where they've been behind for a while, and gain tons of praise from power users. There's so much low-hanging power-user-fruits that Apple's bizzarely not picking, like uBlock Origin support in Safari, better window management, and a Homebrew-like package manager.

rpastuszak4• 4 years ago

Check out Rectangle for window snapping. I found it good enough and not overly complicated.

gloosx5• 4 years ago

Guys, which freaking keyboard-only window management yall looking for so hard? My daily workflow is jumping between 10 apps on different spaces, some of them are full-screen, some are just piled on one desktop, and the CMD+Tab just works perfectly all the time, you just press the CMD+Tab, select the app you need, jump to it, no focus lost, only distraction is the damned sliding animation (which everyone wants to turn off for 10 years). What other damn bicycle you need to jump between apps lol

rpastuszak4• 4 years ago

FYI You can turn off the animation and make most of the screen transitions less jarring using the Accessibility settings.

(Reduced motion iirc, I don’t have my Mac with me now)

swishman• 4 years ago

I agree with you but take it further, what's the point of different spaces? Just put all apps to full screen size (not "fullscreen") on the first screen and alt tab instantly

dzhiurgis3• 4 years ago

Window management gurus, is there alternatives to mission control? I’d love something that doesn’t waste space and is faster than default.

diroussel• 4 years ago

  Cmd-Tab -> switch apps, in most recently used order, keep Cmd held down and repeatedly tap Tab to cycle though the switcher bar
  Cmd-` -> switch windows of current app
  Cmd-H -> hide current app
  Cmd-Opt-H -> hide other apps

They all work very fast

If you want more options, try Alt-Tab app: https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/

jillesvangurp• 4 years ago

Actually, can't recall any recent release of Mac OS that excited me. It's mostly updates to apps I don't use or don't plan to use plus minor tweaks and window dressing. I usually just wait a few months until they fix all the "oops we bricked your hardware bugs" or "oops, this stuff is now broken" bugs.

Safari, Mail, Messages, Photos, I don't use any of it. So couldn't care less about that. This is not an OS update but a list of app updates. Other than that it's mostly window dressing. Some tweaks to settings and a new stage manager thing to replace the launcher thing that I also don't use.

What intrigues me is the ios webcam support and the fact that they use mac book pros without a notch in the mockups of that. Yay to no notch. But does that mean they are removing the web cam in future macs? Kind of relevant because I have an Android phone and no interest in switching to IOS. And I do use the webcam. If not, what's the point of this? Maybe they should just put better cameras in their screens and laptops? Also, what holds up the phone here? This looks very gimmicky to me. Anyway, absolutely nobody I know uses Facetime (I live in Europe, just not a thing here; same with iMessage) and I bet it doesn't work outside of that. I use macs at work, so things like Zoom, MS Live, Meets, Webex, etc. are where I use a webcam.

So, short, stage manager thingy, spotlight tweaks, some deckchair rearranging in the settings and metal 3.

gw992• 4 years ago

Updated already. Seems stable and they fixed a few annoying bugs in reminders.

sramsay3• 4 years ago

Ventura and iPadOS 16 dropped (along with iOS 16.1), but not Xcode 14.1 (which is still RC). I don't recall them ever not releasing Xcode at the same time as an OS update.

rcarmo4• 4 years ago

Well, I certainly hope the command-line tools are up to date. Otherwise upgrading brew and all its ecosystem might be somewhat of a pain.

sramsay3• 4 years ago

Right now, homebrew is refusing to compile packages from source:

  Error: Your Xcode (14.0.1) is too outdated.
  Please update to Xcode 14.1 (or delete it).
  Xcode can be updated from the App Store.

frankjr3• 4 years ago

And iOS 15.7 seems to be already abandoned.

ehutch79• 4 years ago

So no security updates or anything?

alwillis7• 4 years ago

iOS 15.7 got a bunch of security updates [1] last month; it’s still a supported operating system. There’s no reason to believe there won’t be future security updates if they’re necessary.

Apple released a security update for iOS 12 a couple of months ago [2], an operating system released a little over 4 years ago. I think you’re good.

[1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213445

[2] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213428

satysin6• 4 years ago

The RC will most likely be promoted to release within the next 24 hours like with Xcode 14 and 14.0.1

sramsay3• 4 years ago

Except not this time. RC 2 was just released.

faluzure• 4 years ago

Very curious to know if Venture + VM + Linux + Steam is a setup that'll work with the new VM support.

I kind of want to play some old school windows games, but I don't want to pay for parallels.

sbuk3• 4 years ago

Try UTM https://mac.getutm.app

rubyist5eva6• 4 years ago

Not OP but offering perspective: I've tried it and it's so painfully slow that I just coughed up the money for parallels.

zestyping4• 4 years ago

Countless person-years of engineering effort, and Spotlight is still mostly useless.

All I want is to hit Command-F to quickly search the filenames in the current folder (not start a sluggish scan of my entire hard disk). There used to be workarounds for this, but then they removed "Find by Name..." from Finder just to make our lives harder. Does anyone know a workable alternative?

coldpie• 4 years ago

Like in a Finder window? I just start typing a filename and it jumps to the letters I typed. In the column view, you can use tab and shift-tab to switch between columns, allowing quick navigation into a directory tree. I may be misunderstanding you?

chongli• 4 years ago

Finder -> Preferences -> Advanced.

When performing a search:

Search the current folder

orpheansodality• 4 years ago

wow - how is this not the default? It's always the behavior that I expect to happen, and I'm pretty much always surprised and disappointed when it does a global search instead.

kennend35• 4 years ago

Thanks!! Having it search my mac by default was a mild annoyance (you can click search current folder once the search starts). But this is helpful

seanp2k2• 4 years ago

also `mdfind whatever` if you prefer the CLI

satysin6• 4 years ago

If you have a setup script add the following to set this automatically:

    defaults write com.apple.finder FXDefaultSearchScope -string "SCcf"

insane_dreamer4• 4 years ago

Agreed. Its an embarrasment.

Use Alfred; I've been using it for years (10 maybe?) -- solves this problem and is extremely useful in general

ideamotor• 4 years ago

Hilarious this is not default. Thanks.

LeoPanthera• 4 years ago

Well yes but in Ventura "Preferences" is now "Settings".

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

behnamoh10• 4 years ago

Why isn't this the default setting? I mean, who searches their entire machine when they're inside a folder?

zestyping4• 4 years ago

That searches the _contents_ of the files in the current folder. I just want to search the names (the way Cmd-F works in, you know, every other application: it searches what you see in the window).

ggandhi• 4 years ago

Check this: https://github.com/ospfranco/sol

dorian-graph• 4 years ago

Having grown tired of the design of Alfread and not wanting to commit to VC-backed Raycast, this is a nice discovery! Edit: A plugin system is on the TODO and that'd be the clincher.

artificialLimbs• 4 years ago

Basic file search is broken. Still nothing like VoidTools Everything-like SMB share indexing either. Maybe Spacedrive will have these things when released? *crosses fingers

lilyball2• 4 years ago

No they didn't. Find by Name… still exists. It's ⌃⇧⌘F (ctrl-shift-cmd-F). You might have missed it because it's a dynamic menu item (Find turns into Find by Name… once you press ⌃⇧).

Tip: Use the Help menu to search menu items. I just pressed ⌘? and typed "Find" and Find by Name… popped up.

sitzkrieg2• 4 years ago

very intuitive /s

cromka• 4 years ago

I just pressed ⌘? and typed "Find" and Find by Name

Damn, been using macOS for 9 years now and just found out about this :o Thanks!

zestyping4• 4 years ago

Ctrl-Shift-Cmd-F? Are you forking kidding me? I know sometimes you can press Option to show secret menu items (which I bet <10% of Mac users know) but Ctrl and Shift too? So now you have to press 7 different combinations of modifier keys just to discover what menu commands are available. Just wow.

Thank you for showing me that menu command! That'll be a lifesaver going forward. Usability achieved despite Apple design, not because of it.

vvilliamperez• 4 years ago

I'm still on Monty, does this work? https://imgur.com/a/ExV2wrP

rcarmo4• 4 years ago

What I typically do is remove _anything_ (web suggestions, etc.) that is not related to files. Usually fixes Spotlight across the board.

alin238• 4 years ago

I still wish for something like Everything on Windows (https://www.voidtools.com/)

I wrote my own solution using fd + sqlite + fzf but it's nowhere as fast as Everything, and it also requires me to focus the Terminal to use it.

MuffinFlavored• 4 years ago

Everything is only fast because of an index, right?

How it catches all file writes to update that index near instantaneously, I have no idea.

jks• 4 years ago

Happy user of Finda here: https://keminglabs.com/finda/

Don't know if it works on Ventura, not upgrading until I know.

dirkg• 4 years ago

sometimes I think MSFT should buy Everything and replace Windows search with it. There are some plugins that use it for other file managers.

But then again, they will almost certainly screw it up, given that Windows Search still can't search my start menu reliably without pauses. And their history with acquisitions and integrating tech isn't very good.

warning26• 4 years ago

I continue to not understand this -- The Everything app was capable of instant search on Windows in like 2008, and yet on modern devices, with SSDs, far more RAM, and faster CPUs, I have to wait a good 2-3s for results to appear.

How did one dev managed to achieve what, apparently, no corporate entity ever has?

kayodelycaon2• 4 years ago

You can do name:searchitem and it'll find by name.

tambourine_man• 4 years ago

No workaround needed, just poorly placed settings and toggles:

• Finder -> Preferences -> Advanced -> “When performing a search: Use the Previous Search Scope”

• On any Finder window, CMD-F -> Search: This Mac / [ FolderName ]

• On the loupe: “Filename” instead of “Everything”

Enjoy

max_hammer• 4 years ago

I started using Alfred app recently on my work laptop. It's far superior than `Spotlight`

https://www.alfredapp.com/

lelandfe4• 4 years ago

It should be embarrassing how much faster Alfred's search is. Using Alfred to just search feels like using a Ferrari to pick up groceries, but it really is just better – and has been for as long as I can remember.

samlader• 4 years ago

I recommend checking out Raycast as an alternative.

https://www.raycast.com/

jbverschoor2• 4 years ago

Raycast is great. imo better than Alfred. Love the menu-search functionality.

But I still use both, because Raycast doesn't support "folder search". I use folders in general because they don't change, and I usually know what I'm looking for. It (should be)/is also faster than searching all files.

When I'm looking for a file or it's contents, I'll fall back to spotlight

behnamoh10• 4 years ago

I think Apple should just buy Raycast.

insane_dreamer4• 4 years ago

Or Alfred, been around much longer.

viktorcode• 4 years ago

Just start typing the name. Not in the search field of Finder. You'll get focus on a file or folder that starts with whatever symbols you just typed. Very convenient and fast. Having "sort by name" by default in every folder helps a lot too.

wyuenho2• 4 years ago

You can just start typing in Finder, prefix search will Just Work.

mcfedr• 4 years ago

What's crazy, is that presumably, this is the default because some definition of "most people" just randomly save files all over the place

wingworks4• 4 years ago

Yep, most non tech people I've met often have files saved everywhere and anywhere. They don't know where stuff goes half the time.

natch2• 4 years ago

in Terminal:

find . -type f -name “somestring”

but yeah that seems like more typing than one might want compared to a simple text entry field in the GUI.

wlonkly2• 4 years ago

For what it's worth, the terminal interface to the Spotlight database is "mdfind". It still doesn't solve GP's "only this directory" problem though.

(But your "find" will search in and below the current directory for files that exactly match "somestring".)

m0002• 4 years ago

What do you mean "still mostly useless"? Is there anything more usable on any other OS?

I moved back to Windows a couple of years back. Spotlight is the second thing I miss most from macOS, with the first being Preview.

mehrshad• 4 years ago

Microsoft's PowerToys has a great answer to Spotlight on Windows if you're so inclined to try it out.

[0] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/

fake-name• 4 years ago

Mentioned elsewhere, Everything search by voidtools: https://www.voidtools.com. It does funky things with monitoring some component of the NTFS filesystem to maintain a up-to-date index of every filename on your computer, and makes them searchable literally as fast as you can type.

(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33321000)

There seems to be two kind of searching people do. Some people want a search tool that searches in documents. Some people want a search tool that searches filenames.

Everything search is exclusively the second. I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've wanted to search inside documents in the last 10+ years (and for those cases, grep has worked fine, even on windows!).

For some reason, searching inside documents seems to be the default for both windows and os x search, and it's super annoying.

yodsanklai• 4 years ago

Spotlight is still mostly useless.

I use it all the time to run binaries. For instance, "cmd-space mail". I wouldn't know the names of the files I want to search anyway.

singularity2001• 4 years ago

after many years I still often type "⌘space email" and find nothing.

tacker2000• 4 years ago

Indeed. Also, Outloook for Mac also uses Spotlight to search emails and this seems to break for a lot of people.

The only way to fix it is to do some command line mumbo jumbo like rebuilding the Spotlight index and deleting index folders.

yawnxyz• 4 years ago

Spotlight is great for those lone cold weather nights: whenever I feel down, it will start indexing and spin up all the fans and make a lot of heat and noise, making me feel warm and loved

sbf5012• 4 years ago

I still use it as fast calculator. And sometimes it can convert units ... sometimes. That's it. I don't think it has EVERY found the file I'm looking for, but Windows search ain't much better. As someone who develops on all three OSes daily, nothing beats `find | grep` or `find | xargs grep`.

dwaite• 4 years ago

One trick is to know that spotlight indexes content and metadata separately, and most search interfaces default to content. Typing in "README.md" in system spotlight will look for documents that contain a reference to that name, while "name:README.MD" will look for ones marked as _having_ that name.

The search interface in finder has a builder for predicates (start a search then hit the plus on the right side of the search bar). There you can start to see some of the friendly prefixes for filesystem items such as extension:, kind:, date:, tag:.

You can also see the mass of file specific metadata - like width, audio bit rate, city, genre.

I have not, however, found a handy way to translate between English description, friendly prefix, and the internal query names like kMDItemContentType.

Fun aside - some of these used to work in the Mac app store - for instance, you could search for listed applications which could open exotic document types.

The "uselessness" IMHO is mostly in that it exposes the most simplistic interface possible, and people just don't know where to go from there (other than terminal users going `man mdfind` I suppose). That gap is only widened by how different it is from other filesystem-based mechanisms for power users, which have more established commonalities like regex and filesystem globbing.

zestyping4• 4 years ago

I know you can specify these predicates; the problem is the absolutely terrible choice of default behaviour.

cr4nberry3• 4 years ago

Imo grep and fd are the most consistent way, all these GUI apps do is get in the way and reinvent the wheel

d12bb2• 4 years ago

As you're already using fd for find, you may like ripgrep for replacing grep.

garyclarke27• 4 years ago

Finder and File organization is the worst part of Mac experience, it's terrible - I still can't get used to it after 3 years. Windows Explorer is so much better. Aswell as not searching the current folder, I find it so infuriating that Save-As does not default to the Current folder, just picks a random one!!

mellavora• 4 years ago

https://github.com/sharkdp/fd#installation

assuming you are "in the current folder" in the terminal...

chatmasta• 4 years ago

Personally I have Spotlight indexing completely disabled, except to index items in `/Applications` so I can use it as a quick-launcher. This was not easy to configure, and I'll probably have to do it again next time I update the OS. But it did seem to help with performance - Spotlight was often the cause of unpredictably high CPU usage spikes.

boesboes• 4 years ago

If I'm recall correctly, it was pretty much perfect in the first few releases. It got worse and worse over the years when they added smart features.

But maybe that more nostalgia than actual memories ;)

bdlowery• 4 years ago

There’s one simple solution… buy Alfred.

dev_tty013• 4 years ago

not start a sluggish scan of my entire hard disk

A Spotlight search never starts a scan of your disk. The disk is always fully indexed and returns results out of the index very fast. The only exception is typically when the system is updated (or some other big event) and it reindexes everything.

That being said, as others have pointed out, there is a setting to make a Finder window search apply only to the directory in the current window.

jjav• 4 years ago

Does anyone know a workable alternative?

Terminal and /usr/bin/find

yegle• 4 years ago

My friend has some issues with using the `scp` command on Ventura to copy files to a Synology NAS.

It turns out the `scp` has been updated to use sftp protocol since OpenSSH 8.9 and Synology seems to use a different port for sftp, causing some hard to understand errors.

https://lwn.net/Articles/835962/ for context.

behnamoh10• 4 years ago

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

This applies to Ventura, Windows 11, Android 12, and iOS 16. I tried updating to some of these, only to regret it later and downgrade.

thelibrarian• 4 years ago

This was an upstream change in OpenSSH, not an arbitrary change by Apple.

Also, scp was in fact broken, and they fixed it by changing it to use the SFTP protocol under the hood.

gjvc2• 4 years ago

Snow Leopard was the peak

doodpants• 4 years ago

And Mavericks was the peak of GUI look-and-feel, before they went with the all-flat look.

AA-BA-94-2A-562• 4 years ago

The flat look is good, but the regression in UX is not

gjvc2• 4 years ago

I really loved Aqua (especially without the pinstripe backgrounds)

The flat look and feel is exactly that.

f0ld• 4 years ago

This. Double tap dragging felt great. I don't understand why they killed it. BTT revived it. They killed it too :) Why? \(??)/

rado2• 4 years ago

Stage Manager is wonderful, because I can finally group an iOS simulator with the Safari inspector window that inspects it.

Toutouxc3• 4 years ago

How is that different from putting the two in a separate space? Honest question, I'm still failing to see a single problem that Stage Manager solves.

rado2• 4 years ago

Quickly switch between the code editor and the simulator/inspector group

rcarmo4• 4 years ago

All those improvements and the Mail experience is still lousy when you need to quickly move messages to folders. I have been relying on MsgFiler[1] for years, but it's been over two decades and Mail.app has not improved much (and mind you, I still prefer using Mail.app over anything else on a Mac). Thank goodness we still have plugins.

[1] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/msgfiler/id418778021?mt=12

pbreit• 4 years ago

12GB download?

pornel2• 4 years ago

Only 50% larger than Xcode.

sergiotapia2• 4 years ago

I can't help but wonder how Steve Jobs would have flipped out if he saw something like this on his devices. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/product/availability/A...

outsidetheparty• 4 years ago

I'm so confused by that photo. Are you supposed to just duct-tape your phone to the laptop?

anigbrowl9• 4 years ago

Expand your digital world while your apartment shrinks to the size of a closet

killjoywashere• 4 years ago

They are preparing us for when they put phone grade cams in the MacBook: “We compressed everything you love about the iPhone camera, and it’s entire ecosystem, into this tiny, adorable little bump on the lid” complete with a $5M, 30 second video intro. And then it will be the coolest wart ever.

ekzy2• 4 years ago

It’d be cool if they used the iPhone built in magnets, and then display your phone stuff in the OS

howinteresting5• 4 years ago

Given that Steve Jobs actively colluded with Eric Schmidt to depress worker wages, maybe he was just a bad person and should be memory-holed. We can build a better world without him.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/time.com/42322/steve-jobs-chill...

sergiotapia2• 4 years ago

A real prick move but irrelevant to what I'm talking about. I'm talking about Steve's relentless pursuit of design perfection.

thebitstick• 4 years ago

AMP

iammjm• 4 years ago

wtf is this foto, like how is this iphone half the size of the mac? also, is it taped to the mac? I bet it would actually just drag the lid down with its weight. so it stands on something?

bombcar• 4 years ago

_big.jpg.medium.jpg is a nice touch

Liquid_Fire• 4 years ago

like how is this iphone half the size of the mac?

That part looks correct to me?

I don't have an iPhone to compare, but my phone is easily half the size of a 14" MacBook Pro when placed like that... and Google tells me that some iPhones are basically the same size as my phone.

rahen• 4 years ago

Very excited about the ability to run x86 VMs through Rosetta. This will make x86 virtualization a lot more straightforward on Apple Silicon (no more reliance on qemu).

waz0wski• 4 years ago

Can Ventura run x86 VMs on M1/M2?

I thought it was only able to run ARM VMs which can _utilize_ rosetta to run x86 code?

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/run...

saagarjha• 4 years ago

You're correct, there is no support for directly running non-ARM VMs.

dev_tty013• 4 years ago

You ended up with bad information. You can not run x86 VMs through Rosetta. They do support Linux ARM VMs running x86 Linux binaries within the VM.

sbdaman3• 4 years ago

"We've been putting the same 720p webcam in our laptops for 10 years so just go ahead and use your phone instead"

Hamuko2• 4 years ago

lolno, Apple laptops definitely did not have 1080p webcams 10 years ago.

sbdaman3• 4 years ago

Hah, meant 720p.

barkingcat• 4 years ago

you mean 720p.

sbdaman3• 4 years ago

Yes. Oops.

jedberg3• 4 years ago

"We could increase the BOM cost putting a bigger camera in but the thickness of the laptop lid is so thin it would never be as good as the phone you most likely already own, so we made it easer for you to use that".

It's all a matter of perspective. :) I love the ability to use my phone as a webcam.

kennend35• 4 years ago

Perspective really is everything.

I think that most would be surprised to see a company selling a laptop for $1700 (CAD) in 2022 with a 720 webcam

https://www.apple.com/ca/macbook-pro/

Doing this, then advising you can use your phone's camera seems like an ugly hack.

It is also really awkward to be on a conf call using your phone as a webcam, then needing your phone because something important has come up.

howinteresting5• 4 years ago

Well it only works with Apple phones so

cantSpellSober• 4 years ago

It's nice to have the option of buying and using a single brand of smartphone to use as your laptop's webcam; but I'd prefer to use the laptop's webcam as the laptop's webcam, or use my phone as a webcam. It's all a matter of perspective. :)

buu700• 4 years ago

And yet they insist on putting a notch on all new MacBooks. Seems like adding a webcam-free option and expanding Continuity Camera support to Android would be a pretty easy win.

mikestew2• 4 years ago

That doesn't explain why the $3K 27" iMac on my desk has a 720p camera. Big expensive Mac, with a camera off an off-brand Windows laptop.

behnamoh10• 4 years ago

"Stay tuned for our $100 phone holder for Macs. It has never been done before."

Terretta5• 4 years ago

$24 on Amazon:

https://smile.amazon.com/Continuity-Ventura-MagSafe-Laptops-...

Or $19:

https://smile.amazon.com/Continuity-MacBook-Compatible-Magsa...

They work quite well with the Magsafe iPhones.

EugeneOZ• 4 years ago

$30: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/HQ642ZM/A/belkin-iphone-m...

jacobsenscott• 4 years ago

Now that we are all on video calls all day, the lower rez the laptop camera the better. Nobody uses their laptop camera for anything else.

dev_tty013• 4 years ago

This! Why does everyone think that other people in the meeting need to see them in high rez? The lower rez also uses less network bandwidth.

duffyjp2• 4 years ago

This is actually the feature I upgraded for this morning. I always use a USB webcam on a stand in front of my 43" display. The laptop positioned usefully would block a huge part of my view. Now one less cable cluttering my desk and much higher quality (it's night and day honestly vs the Logitech I was using).

rodgerd• 4 years ago

I want to see if they'll roll it out to AppleTV. Not being able to use an AppleTV for FaceTime, Zoom, etc just seems silly.

rubyist5eva6• 4 years ago

I can use my iphone as a webcam now? This is great, I can just get rid of my actual webcam which is hot garbage anyway.

ezfe6• 4 years ago

MacBook Air/Pro use 1080p webcams

jbverschoor2• 4 years ago

Stagemanager is very nice. I could see a "touchbar" right next to the trackpad. That would be very nice to switch apps

lelandfe4• 4 years ago

And the legions of System Settings, Control Center, and Share Panel accessibility problems remain intact. I don't even understand the point of filing bugs during these betas anymore; macOS seems destined to be an unusable quagmire.

This stuff was noticed months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31669950

vbezhenar5• 4 years ago

They have fixed date to release. They can't postpone release because of bugs they don't consider critical. Any mature and big project has thousands of known bugs which will never be fixed as it makes no financial sense. Sad but true.

Some bugs probably will be fixed in the upcoming patches. Some will not.

ngrilly4• 4 years ago

To switch to another window, we already had Command-Tab, Mission Control, Expose (now part of Mission Control if I understand correctly), and also clicking on the icons in the Dock. And now we have Stage Manager. I had to use Windows 10 as my main workstation for a few weeks at work, and I'm starting to think windows management is – perhaps – one of the rare things Windows does better than macOS. But of course I should probably try Stage Manager before ranting about it here :)

samuelstros5• 4 years ago

I concluded that Windows has a better window management too. It is no coincidence that Mac users have hundreds of windows open while Windows users stay relatively organized.

I tried out uBar for Mac OS https://ubarapp.com/. Too buggy though.

tinus_hn4• 4 years ago

Windows has such great window management its users have much less windows open and thus manage much less windows than the MacOS, which has such bad window management its users manage hundreds of windows.

It does not make a whole lot of sense.

rubyist5eva6• 4 years ago

It is no coincidence that Mac users have hundreds of windows open while Windows users stay relatively organized.

Personally, I leave tons of windows open because I feel no need to keep things "organized". I rarely feel the need to constantly micro manage things that are running because cmd+tab and cmd+` along with mission control/expose/spaces makes it pretty simple to find what I'm looking for. My individual windows go into pretty specific positions and they rarely move, and I also rarely fully close applications.

CubsFan1060• 4 years ago

I still feel like this will be their unified desktop across all products, including AR/VR glasses.

If you take away the background, the way that it's arranged feels very AR-y to me.

rcarr2• 4 years ago

Great shout. Just sounds like typical marketing nonsense naming on iPad/Mac and also doesn’t seem to immediately bring much to the table but makes total sense if this is the case. Fits in with Shakespeare’s famous observation that “all the world’s a stage”.

behnamoh10• 4 years ago

This. It's unacceptable that macOS still doesn't support basic window management and users have to install Tiles/Spectacles/Magnet/etc.

e12e• 4 years ago

I feel I've regained some sanity with https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai - even without messing with System Integrity Protection. It's a shame there's no real Api to enable proper screen/desktop/wm on macos though.

chrisseaton• 4 years ago

Those sound like advanced or niche window management tools - not ‘basic’?

dabernathy89• 4 years ago

Completely agree. I use Rectangle, largely for the most basic thing that MacOS gets wrong: maximizing windows. It shouldn't be the same as "full screen". I know that you can double tap a window's top bar to maximize, but this should be swapped with the full-screen toggle. And cmd+shift+f should maximize the window instead of going to full-screen.

sbuk3• 4 years ago

Is it? I mean really "unacceptable"? Inconvenient, perhaps, but "unacceptable"? Sounds pretty first-worldy to me...

pedrogpimenta• 4 years ago

Well, the new Mission Control is the same as the old Exposé, just a rebrand with a few changes. But you forgot Command-` (backtick) which cycles windows from the same (current) app.

trenchgun• 4 years ago

Windows and KDE in linux do the window management best. They use essentially the same model for it.

kawsper• 4 years ago

Don't forget CMD+` that switches to another window of the same application.

wortelefant• 4 years ago

option + < on german systems/keyboards. keyboard shortcuts are not very accessible to the beginner user though. When my older relatives open youtube videos in fullscreen mode, they do not find their other browser window anymore

GeekyBear2• 4 years ago

Honestly, where Mac Window management has always shined is through the use of gestures on a touchpad.

wyuenho2• 4 years ago

I think you've forgotten about Spaces.

I've been maximizing the windows for every app on the built-in screen since forever. More recently I've been using Rectangle when my MBP is connected to my new 27" screen. It works quite well but the layouts require a bit of nannying, I guess it's just a matter of me familiarizing myself with the keyboard shortcuts.

[1] https://rectangleapp.com/

heavenlyblue• 4 years ago

And Linux does even better

GeekyBear2• 4 years ago

A fairly good description of what's (optionally) new and what hasn't changed at all.

Apple wisely takes an ain't-broke-don't-fix-it approach to macOS's standard multitasking model in Ventura by turning Stage Manager off by default and making people go hunting for it if they want to use it. You can't change your Mac's UI in a major way by accident.

If you haven't used it, Stage Manager differs from standard macOS multitasking by offering a column of recently used apps on the side of your screen (it's the left-hand side by default, but it will switch if you've got your Dock set to use the left-hand side of your screen instead). 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.

Within a given stage, app windows work exactly as they do anywhere else on your Mac. You can move, resize, and rearrange them any way you want, including shoving them all the way to the edges of the screen. The recent apps column will persist on the side of the screen by default, but it will get out of the way if you move an app window over it; you can bring the apps back up by moving your cursor to the right edge of the screen.

Stage Manager integrates seamlessly with macOS's other window management systems. Do you still want to use some apps in Full Screen mode? Great—they don't appear in your recent apps tray, and you can access them with a trackpad swipe, the same as you could before. Do you like Mission Control? Also cool. Apps in your tray slide gracefully up into Mission Control mode, along with any open apps that aren't in your tray.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/10/macos-13-ventura-the...

hhjinks• 4 years ago

I disagree. Nothing beats macOS's multiple desktops that you can swap between by swiping with three fingers. I know exactly where my windows are, exactly how to get to them from anywhere, and their order is never changed. Leagues better than alt+tab.

AA-BA-94-2A-562• 4 years ago

Just to add, I don't use a trackpad and I still use multiple desktops using the key shortcut ^ + Arrow Keys.

Scharkenberg4• 4 years ago

One can swipe between virtual desktops on Windows 10 and 11 too, provided one has a Touchpad model from the last 10 years.

kitsunesoba2• 4 years ago

That's definitely subjective.

For my usage/preferences, the Windows taskbar and alt-tab switcher scale extremely poorly. They drive me to keep no more than 3-4 windows open, because any additional windows beyond that make my desktop progressively more difficult to manage which feels utterly absurd on a tower with a 5950X and 32GB of RAM which I should feel empowered to heavily multitask with.

ngrilly4• 4 years ago

Good point. Never thought about it. Probably did not use Windows long enough. What is not scaling well with that model? The miniatures are taking too much vertical space when hovering an app icon in the task bar?

russellbeattie2• 4 years ago

My ability to accidentally hit Command-Q instead of Command-Tab, even after years of doing it astounds me. You'd think muscle memory, or at least the size of the keys would give my fingers and brain a clue, but nope. Some apps will give you quit prompts but many just disappear instantly, leaving me befuddled about what the hell I just did.

I assume some Chrome product manager is as clumsy as I am (bless their heart), so it will insist you hold down the Q key. If only that was the default.

justinator2• 4 years ago

macOS Ventura takes the Mac experience to a whole new level with groundbreaking capabilities that help users achieve more than ever.

Now there's a nothing burger sentence to start us off.

mastercheif• 4 years ago

Well to be fair the macOS PM's probably didn't give the marketing team anything to work with. Likely told them to just file radars/feedback if they had any questions.

justinator2• 4 years ago

Honestly I have higher standards for Apple telling me why I should upgrade and not just a rehash of ZOMBO.

Terretta5• 4 years ago

whole new level with groundbreaking capabilities

So, ground level?

skohan2• 4 years ago

This is like a placeholder sentence which should have been replaced with actual content.

EGreg• 4 years ago

When will Safari include Push Notifications on iOS? This SEEMS to say iOS 16.1 will, but I am not sure

https://webkit.org/blog/13399/webkit-features-in-safari-16-1...

Nextgrid3• 4 years ago

Can't wait for all my non-technical friends to sign up for spam notifications. I moved them off Android for similar reasons.

diebeforei485• 4 years ago

No, it says Safari 16.1 for macOS.

Web Push won't come to iOS until a mid-cycle release, probably by March, maybe a bit sooner.

Personally I hope they have some sort of scoring to alert people if they are subscribed to notifications that others have reported as being scammy. They hopefully learned from the Calendar spam problems.

It's listed on this page (search for "2023"): https://www.apple.com/ios/ios-16/features/

diimdeep• 4 years ago

Could anyone please share emoji file, do not want to get 12gb only for this :D `/System/Library/Fonts/Apple Color Emoji.ttc`

nvm, https://0x0.st/oxdZ.ttc

Apple Color Emoji

Version 18.0d4e1

Glyph count 3 574

addandsubtract• 4 years ago

What's the proper way to use/install these? Just copy it into `/Library/Fonts`?

ezfe6• 4 years ago

You don't lose 12GB, since it's replacing existing data

neilv• 4 years ago

The Mac (historically being known for desktop publishing) should know that Ventura was someone else's brand.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corel_Ventura

anigbrowl9• 4 years ago

It's OK to double up trademarked brands as long as it's in a different market. But you have to pretend to be upset about it in court to avoid claims that you have abandoned your trademark, which is why Apple sues every company with a name like 'Apple fruit company'.

behnamoh10• 4 years ago

The Weather and Clock apps come to Mac with all of the features users know and love from iPhone, and do things like check local forecasts, create alarms, set timers, and more.

And yet there is no Apple weather app for iPad!

kylehotchkiss2• 4 years ago

What? They just launched Apple Weather for iPad alongside this.

behnamoh10• 4 years ago

I didn't know that. IDK why it took Apple 12 years to add a weather app to iPad.

wingworks4• 4 years ago

Noooooo, we finally get the weather app, and iPadOS 16 (needed for the app) drops my iPad (iPad Air 2)

bxparks• 4 years ago

It looks like Ventura drops support for the 2nd generation (Late 2010 to 2017) MacBook Airs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBook_Air). So let's figure one more year for Big Sur, then another year for (edit) Monterey, then I guess they will need to migrate to Linux.

insane_dreamer4• 4 years ago

Still on Catalina here, yikes

(Concerns about potential VirtualBox issues held me back though I suppose I can/should at least upgrade to Monterey now.)

jmiserez• 4 years ago

Ventura even drops support for the 2016 (Touchbar) Macbook Pros which is frustrating. The machines are certainly powerful enough. But support for Intel Macs will probably be dropped sooner rather than later.

OttPeterR• 4 years ago

I’m specifically peeved about this. My personal 2016 mbp has nearly identical specs to my work 2017 mbp but my personal one is being left behind. Maybe there’s some minuscule hardware issue they couldn’t be bothered to work out but 5-6 years of OS updates is upsettingly short. I’d expect that for an android phone but not a high end laptop…

There does seem to be a dev working on porting over the OS if anyone has an earlier mac and really wants the new OS.

YmiYugy• 4 years ago

It's macOS alright. The addition of a weather app is great. Otherwise I feel like macOS has mostly regressed since the redesign with Big Sur. I still miss the old design and performance has steadily declined with each version. Stage manager feels like this years version of "What if instead implementing window snapping we make up a new clunky way to disimprove multitasking.

jerrygoyal• 4 years ago

how a better windows management looks like:

- show all windows of an app when switching windows (cmd+tab). currently only one window from each app is shown.

- transition period when switching windows via three fingers gesture is too long. make it snappier.

lwouis• 4 years ago

munificent• 4 years ago

Apple used to feel to me like a company that sold user experiences and the hardware was a means to that end. Now it feels like an electronics company that sells consumer hardware, and the user experience is just a necessary cost to be minimized.

city17• 4 years ago

There's a few nice quality of life features in Ventura, but MacOS really seems way down Apple's priority list nowadays.

They're using all software building resources for iOS and then just slap any reusable features on their desktop OS whenever possible. Great when it works for apps that are quite similar (e.g. messages), terrible for things that simply work very differently on a desktop OS (system settings, stage manager is pointless etc.).

Good opportunity for Windows to finally beat MacOS in UI/UX, since they don't have a mobile OS to worry about?

imbnwa• 4 years ago

Windows hasn't even ported all their Win2K GUIs to whatever their current UI framework is

VancouverMan• 4 years ago

Those tend to be the most usable parts of modern Windows releases.

rollcat• 4 years ago

I agree with most of your assessment, however:

Good opportunity for Windows to finally beat MacOS in UI/UX, since they don't have a mobile OS to worry about?

Given how much of a step back every Windows release is, starting after Win2k, in terms of *consistency* of the user experience - I would argue both companies are their own worst enemies here.

anigbrowl9• 4 years ago

The update is cool but the update process was not.

  -Update available, wanna install?
  Sure
  -OK don't mind me I'm gonna need a while
  OK
  -HA HA I LIED I"M READY TO TERMINATE EVERYTHING BYEEEE
  WTF
  5 reboots with just an Apple icon and a progress bar
  The progress bar also moves backwards sometimes
  I guess it's a metaphor for life, which is how long this seems to be taking
  -OK hello I am back but I need 10 minutes of alone time
  -Here is some unfamiliar wallpaper but you can log in I guess
  -Oh it's you again, do you want to share analytics with us
  -OK here is your familiar desktop, I am not telling you what has changed
  Um preferences
  -Oh hai I'm called Settings now and I reorganized everything
  Yikes but OK this is sorta well laid out I guess
  -Hello I am Stage Manager, I put a desktop on your desktop so you can work while you work
  Sorta neat, can I configure some things differently though
  -No

Funnily enough I had just started reading the Ars Technica review when the upgrade took place so that helped with navigating the changes but it was an oddly jarring transition. I get that Apple doesn't like burdening users with too much technical information (as in 'any') but given how significantly the Settings app has changed I'm surprised there was no Release notes or feature tour of any kind.

yamtaddle• 4 years ago

Um preferences -Oh hai I'm called Settings now and I reorganized everything

Oh good. I find it by typing "settings" 100% of the time because I can never remember what it's called ("System Preferences", evidently) but that works less-well than it might since that's not the name—it doesn't fully match until I've typed the whole word.

zitterbewegung• 4 years ago

I’ve used macs since system 7 and it went from oh I know what to click to basically me typing in the search bar for what to find.

perryizgr82• 4 years ago

Now I have to rewrite my automator script for dealing with the bug where macos keeps forgetting to put my external monitor into 144 Hz mode.

deergomoo• 4 years ago

I got a Windows PC for the first time in over a decade recently and I cannot understand why MacOS updates are so damned slow

runjake2• 4 years ago

Because on newer Macs, it’s rewriting the whole OS partition with a new firmware image, much like iOS and IPSW files.

Windows, on the other hand, generally does incremental upgrades.

ar_lan3• 4 years ago

My previous experience with Windows (~3 years ago) was that every single update took ~2 hours to complete, and they were asking to update weekly.

I used to game weekly with my friends, and because of the above problem, I would have to turn on my computer the night before and start the update so I would be able to reliably play a game the following day - otherwise, there was an extremely good chance that they would start gaming at 8pm and I wouldn't be able to join until roughly 10pm due to the Windows updates.

At the time, this was Windows 10. I eventually just switch to an old Xbox (ironically, still Microsoft), which was far more reliable (although XBox updates take forever too), because we could cross-play Apex Legends. But that is an 8 year old XBox One and it finally has crapped out on me.

I'm currently finishing up getting parts for a new PC build, which will have Windows 11, and I really dread it. I wish Apex was for Linux because I just want to have a Linux-based gaming environment.

Anyway - all this to say... macOS major updates might be slow, but they happen so infrequently, that it's not nearly a big deal. Minor security patches are almost never that slow for me, especially compared to Windows.

gw992• 4 years ago

Wait until you buy a NOS Windows PC for the first time. I had a T495 take nearly two hours to run all updates in. About 20 minutes of that was it fannying around working out what to do.

My MBP took 10 mins to update earlier. That's fine.

g_p• 4 years ago

There doesn't seem to be a good reason for the slowness, but a reasonably good technical write-up on the update mechanism is available at [0]. The time spent rebooting does seem excessive, especially when using image-based updates.

[0] https://eclecticlight.co/2022/03/19/explainer-macos-updaters...

anigbrowl9• 4 years ago

Windows does frequent incremental updates and makes them pretty painless, but has a bad habit of just letting the installation files pile up and fill your storage. If you or your PC supplier have the habit of having a small-medium boot disk (or partition) for just your OS and applications this can yield unwelcome surprises.

Razengan3• 4 years ago

Windows updates when you don't want it to and does that often. Tons of horror stories out there. macOS updates much less frequently and never "surprises" you (at least it hasn't done to me)

acdha2• 4 years ago

This is only about 5-10 minutes on modern hardware. Historically a lot of developers saw it as slow because it moved the contents of /usr/local in a naive loop which meant that systems using something like Homebrew spent 90% of the total time moving a million files one by one.

wyan• 4 years ago

Last time I checked the logs after an update, what I understood had happened was that the installer was installing the new files one by one, and logging each one of them. Which is a lot of files. I've no idea if this is still done this way, but I suspect it's part of the reason for the slowness.

husamia2• 4 years ago

updates are fast but downloading takes longer to complete

macjohnmcc• 4 years ago

I did the upgrade without issues but when it rebooted the final time it signed me on and automatically started everything I had running before and I didn't even realize it had completed until I checked the OS version in the about. Probably the least noticeable difference in OS upgrades in a while.

jxy• 4 years ago

People like to complain, don't they? I let it upgrade while having dinner. When I came back I had forgot about the upgrade and was surprised that my background changed!

anigbrowl9• 4 years ago

I am ethically obliged to supplement my original summary

  [hours later]
  -Ha ha just kidding of course there's a feature tour do you want to see it now
  Hmm OK
  -Have you ever wished I was a phone? (8 slides)
  Really? Let's have a talk about Preferences
  -They are Settings
  OK, let's have a talk about Settings
  -No

shpx• 4 years ago

I do wish I could put a SIM card in my Macbook and not have to buy a phone.

Yhippa• 4 years ago

This is one of the finest comments I've ever read on HN.

anigbrowl9• 4 years ago

Sometimes technology, procrastination, and caffeine combine in a perfect storm.

unilynx• 4 years ago

5 reboots to update?

So that’s why parallels kept throwing up the password screen while updating the last beta. I guess the VM can’t autologin and I was about to give up thinking it was permanently stuck in reboot

bradgessler• 4 years ago

You forgot the part where macOS "restores all the windows", which it never gets right, so you get pop-ups from Notes, Maps, Music, etc. telling you at the same time "Here's what's new".

savoytruffle• 4 years ago

Plus if any audio was playing, it attempts to resume it during the final restart even though you can't mute it for several minutes since it is finally into the user login.

skhr0680• 4 years ago

.0 OSX releases have been hairy for as long as I can remember. There was one a few years back that spammed security pop ups

JoachimS3• 4 years ago

Strange. I started the update, had breakfast and after saying no to analytics could get back to work with everything looking basically the same. Yes, there are a boatload of new things. No, they don't pop up in your face and force you to change how you work.

kergonath2• 4 years ago

Particularly not Stage Manager, which needs to be explicitly activated, right?

BurningFrog• 4 years ago

Stopped reading at

With Continuity Camera, Mac users can leverage the powerful camera system on iPhone to unleash a groundbreaking webcam experience

I don't have the energy to parse a lot of text like this...

laundermaf• 4 years ago

Hasn't 2000s+ Apple always talked that way in their marketing copy?

bredren2• 4 years ago

Wow, clamshell to external monitor support is vastly improved. I couldn't believe it when it happened the first time.

I have a MBA M2 going USB-C -> HDMI on a 4k Dell monitor. You can open and close the laptop and it switches the external from secondary to primary and back almost instantaneously.

I'd describe this as a major improvement over every prior MacOS.

DavideNL4• 4 years ago

I wonder if it's also possible to just leave the Macbook "opened", but disable only the Macbooks display and not the external display (so you'd get the same result as clamshell)...?

alin238• 4 years ago

Lunar's Blackout feature can do that: https://lunar.fyi/#blackout

There's no built-in way to do it.

abalaji• 4 years ago

Wow! This alone is enough to convince me to upgrade.

antipaul2• 4 years ago

I think this is an Apple Silicon feature.

Did this _not_ work on the same M2 laptop while on Monterey?

(I've had this on Monterey from the beginning on M1 MacBook Pro)

vbezhenar5• 4 years ago

I own M1 MBP16. While closed laptop technically works... One nasty bug makes it unusable. I can't reliably switch keyboard layouts using globe button. This bug is absolutely weird and ridiculous and I have no idea how it's even possible. When laptop is opened, I press globe button and my keyboard layout is switched. Actually it does not work 100% reliably, but it's OK. With laptop closed it works like 20% of time.

Have no idea about ventura, will not update before first patch, I guess.

bredren2• 4 years ago

It supported clamshell and open, and has for as long as I remember.

But the toggle between the modes had been this slow experience that seemed similar in delay to switching resolutions.

Now it is this blip—-this is your main display, and you can toggle it if you rapidly open and close it, which I can’t really recommend except to cement in your mind that this is the new normal.

It seems wholly different.

ubercow132• 4 years ago

My M1 Macbook Pro did this already when I bought it last year, but it stopped working on a minor OS update. I wonder if this update will make it work again.

ubercow132• 4 years ago

I updated and it does work again! Although it didn't at first when I plugged in my monitor. After about a minute the screen flickered off and on and then after that it supports the instant switch again... Strange

nsxwolf2• 4 years ago

I ended up skipping Monterey on my 2013 Mac Pro entirely because it wouldn't let me install it because my original SSD broke and I replaced it with a non-Apple SSD. Starting with Monterey, that's not cool anymore because reasons.

Supposedly if you install the original SSD it will update some firmware somewhere and you'll be able to use the 3rd party SSD after that. But, like I said, mine's broken. You can supposedly also buy a used genuine SSD off eBay, but that seems a slightly expensive way to do a free OS upgrade.

Interesting story, Apple will not sell you a replacement or upgrade SSD for your 2013 Mac Pro - not for any price. They're only available for warranty replacements, and these computers haven't been under warranty for a long time.

Another thing I assume is still not fixed: The ability to permanently disable VRR for monitors that don't behave well with Apple's VRR implementation. That one's been annoying me with Monterey on my work laptop. Every time the computer sleeps, it turns VRR back on, and my screen blinks and flickers away until I manually turn it off again.

rubiquity2• 4 years ago

Apple's playbook is to use hardware support as a reason to drop software support to encourage (nudge?) customers to buy more hardware. Recently it has been dropping new macOS versions for non-metal GPUs and now (Monterey) not supporting SSDs without T2/Secure Enclave, and there are other examples before those. You get bit by this and decide if you want to stay on that train or get off. I was one-and-done with that ecosystem and my Late 2013 MacBook Pro.

Also you can still update that Mac Pro of yours to Monterey if you use the Open Core bootloader. It just requires going off the beaten path.

CharlesW• 4 years ago

Apple's playbook is to use hardware support as a reason to drop software support to encourage (nudge?) customers to buy more hardware.

I mean, Apple was making new versions of macOS that supported the 2013 Mac Pro until literally today. If that's their playbook, they're not doing great.

DavideNL4• 4 years ago

Fyi, perhaps this is useful to you: https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/

mrpippy• 4 years ago

That problem has been solved, Ventura doesn't run on the 2013 Mac Pro :P

cr4nberry3• 4 years ago

Interesting story, Apple will not sell you a replacement or upgrade SSD for your 2013 Mac Pro - not for any price. They're only available for warranty replacements, and these computers haven't been under warranty for a long time.

This is bullshit. Think about all the PR they have about eco-friendliness, yet they do this

mikae1• 4 years ago

Is there anything there for people like us? Can't remember the last time I got excited about upgrading macOS.

matai_kolila• 4 years ago

Did this update add an "archive" feature to Messages? I can't directly tell from this summary ("powerful" isn't all that descriptive, turns out).

satysin6• 4 years ago

Installed fine on my 2018 15" MacBook Pro. Still a good machine that I use as my main machine. Took about 20 minutes I guess, didn't time it but was ready quicker than I expected.

None of the changes are life changing but oh well, isn't often a desktop OS really surprises me with something new these days. Hopefully it is as stable as Monterey was for me which didn't have a single crash in the whole year.

Stage Manager is interesting but a very minimal effort by Apple. They really need to work on better overall window management in macOS. Snapping and tighter keyboard management for moving and resizing windows is badly needed. Either that or they need to relax their accessibility restrictions for apps so that we can get some good third-party options without needing to disable SIP.

Overall it seems to be mostly quality of life improvements, a few related to their primary services (such as Photo Library sharing) which will obviously be handy for up-selling iCloud/Apple One paid upgrades.

I am interested to see the new virtualisation framework stuff. Wondering if things like Distrobox (podman) can make use of it.

SamuelAdams• 4 years ago

I’ve been using Rectangle for window management. Works well for my workflow since I’ll usually just pin two apps side by side, and jump them around different screens.

It would be nice to have this feature natively though.

https://rectangleapp.com/

satysin6• 4 years ago

Yeah I have been using Magnet since longer than I can remember. It is limited though. It's fine for basic snapping side by side or in quads but can't do multi-resizing (i.e. resizing two windows snapped side by side that are not fullscreen), doesn't have layouts, can't place a window when it is opened (e.g. auto snap terminal to bottom left if first Terminal window opened), etc.

I would love to see a full manual or dynamic tiling window manager for macOS that didn't require disabling SIP like yabai does and wasn't super janky.

jensenbox• 4 years ago

I cannot help but see a visual of Jim Carrey saying "Alrighty then" every time I read the name.

tnmears• 4 years ago

Did anyone else get a Safari window after the update with a iCloud page to setup family sharing?

agoddard• 4 years ago

yep, it opened to this page https://setup.icloud.com/family/cacheMugshotMarquee?aaaction... which responds with a HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request

seems like a bug, weird that it didn't get picked up before GM as it was also noticed during the beta: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/712858

Some discussion of it from today, but no definitive answers yet https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/strange-safari-open-tab...

ezfe6• 4 years ago

It doesn't happen when you update each beta in a row so it probably wasn't noticed. I didn't get it on my beta machine, just on my work machine.

russellbeattie2• 4 years ago

I don't use Safari, Mail, Photos, iCloud or Spotlight (except to start apps - I deselect all the other options), and only activate the sidebar/widgets on accident (out of sight, out of mind). Nor do I own an iPad or play games on my Mac. I'm sure I'll never use Stage Manager and hope it's something I can turn off.

In short, this upgrade is simply an hour or so of annoyance, but Apple is Apple. You take the good with the bad. I have a dream - which will never happen - of a "MinMac" setting on install where you just get the least amount of cruft possible.

Maursault• 4 years ago

Was anyone able to resist upgrading from 12.6.1 to 13.0?

I've never been enthusiastic about Apple's annual upgrade schedule for macOS, biannual was far more comfortable. When responsible for users' desktops, I tend to wait for months after at least .1 is released and even then only start with one lucky user for weeks of trial period, and I do the same with application updates. Invariably, users ask for upgrades, and I make them tell me what new features or security enhancements they can't do without, and that usually calms them down.

At home, I'm still holding out on 10.14.6, but this old mini is only supported up to 10.15.7, so I figured I might as well freeze upgrading on Mojave so I can still run legacy 32-bit software if I want it. I may even downgrade to 10.13 so I can build Basilisk II and other 32-bit only software, but I suppose I can still use binaries, so not absolutely necessary. I just don't need new hardware yet, so I have the luxury of waiting until after Apple stops selling M1 minis. They're so reasonable to begin with, my hope is they can soon after be found for a song. I really want a 2018 Mini, also, but they'll take longer to come down in price, unfortunately and for no particularly great reason.

shepherdjerred2• 4 years ago

I'm surprised they released this. I try to participate in every macOS beta I can. This is by far the most unstable release I've experienced.

- Settings app has a lot of weird bugs and performance issues. After a restart I have to wait a few minutes before the Settings app actually functions. Overall the Settings app has felt like a step back in terms of UX and performance

- Lots of weird issues with Docker (might be on Docker's side though)

- My screen goes black after disconnecting my external monitor and requires a restart to fix the issue

- Strange networking issues

Scharkenberg4• 4 years ago

I just upgraded my Mac and holy cow, is the new System Settings app buggy... and it's also fixed-width for whatever reason.

Also, it seems to think - for a few moments after every restart - that my Wifi connection is to a hidden network, when it actually isn't. Welp.

concinds6• 4 years ago

System Preferences was always fixed-width; it's Windows's Settings app that's not.

pornel2• 4 years ago

Performance of the Settings app is disappointing. Most of its views are just a handful of basic controls with a fixed layout, and yet switching to not-yet-cached views has a noticeable lag.

I'm flabbergasted that Apple's latest UI struggles to beat web apps not just on design (RIP Aqua), but also performance.

cr4nberry3• 4 years ago

Lots of weird issues with Docker (might be on Docker's side though)

Thanks for the heads up on this

ezfe6• 4 years ago

I've been running in the beta since the spring too and I haven't seen any of these problems

js23• 4 years ago

Note: it's possible to install Ventura side-by-side with Monterey:

https://eclecticlight.co/2022/10/04/how-to-keep-monterey-whe...

jaimex2• 4 years ago

Gaming on Mac Reaches New Heights

I laughed in real life.

shepherdjerred2• 4 years ago

I've actually had a decent experience on my M1. You're not going to be playing AAA games, but League of Legends, Civ, Minecraft, Factorio -- all play pretty well at medium-ish settings.

thomasjudge• 4 years ago

Is it possible to run this on a VM?

nuker2• 4 years ago

I hope they fixed Night Shift. It was always turning off when it was supposed to turn on. Whatever checkboxes checked. Like 6pm screen goes blueish, wtf.

sirwhinesalot• 4 years ago

Some very nice additions, specially in the backend (like improvements to the virtualization framework and metal 3). But I still despise this new iOS-inspired UI. They should make iOS prettier and more usable not macOS uglier and less usable.

gloosx5• 4 years ago

How about fixing the damn MIDI server which is crashing since Yosemite? Seriously, another big update feels like a pack of minor changes which could fit in a small patch, marketed as "whole new level with groundbreaking capabilities"

antirez• 4 years ago

So they keep providing updates mostly focusing on people that heavily rely on the Apple ecosystem (iPhone, Mail & Safari, ...), without seriously improving the fundamental features of the OS. Well: very disappointed, again.

Razengan3• 4 years ago

Focus on Mac could be so much better, but sadly like file tags, it remains half-baked.

I'd love to be able to set, say a "Programming" Focus, and have everything else disappear: All my desktop spaces would change, including their wallpapers (replaced by the Matrix green rain) and only the apps that I allowed would be visible, and even the files/folders and websites which I didn't include in that Focus should not be accessible (from the GUI or Terminal at least).

Basically it should be sort of like logging into a different user account, without logging into a different user account (i.e. keeping all your data and state, just temporarily filtering it).

In fact I think all operating systems should adopt the notion of a "focus" as a fundamental sub-level under the user account: Bob may have a social networking focus, office focus, or no focus, and so on.

Toutouxc3• 4 years ago

Trying to achieve some of that with Shortcuts, AppleScript and some shell scripting could be a fun weekend project.

There's quite a lot of stuff in macOS (iOS and iPadOS too!) that's surprisingly scriptable.

Razengan3• 4 years ago

Yes, the out-of-the-box extensibility/scriptability of macOS is often overlooked by people coming from Windows thinking uglier==smarter && prettier==dumber.

8fingerlouie2• 4 years ago

Updated my MacBook Pro, worked well (as expected), then proceeded to upgrade my M1 Mini headless "server". Update in itself went OK, though it doesn't respect that i have user accounts on an external SSD, so i had to ssh in as my "admin account", delete the /Volumes/Homes mount and reboot.

Now, my mini mirrors our cloud data locally for backups, and as such every user is signed in, and one way of doing that is simply a remote desktop and "switch user". It's cumbersome, and i wish it would just "magically" synchronize data once the user had registered on it, but it only needs to be done every time it restarts, which is when i new patch/version is released.

Anyway, i clicked "switch user" and poof lost connection. Following tries gave an "invalid desktop size 0x0" error, or it simply produced noise on the remote desktop window.

Logging in the user directly through remote desktop worked, but just be aware there may be dragons.

concinds6• 4 years ago

Here's a good write-up on Stage Manager: https://eclecticlight.co/2022/09/12/why-venturas-stage-manag...

What I didn't know, is that you can hide "Recent Apps" (the app thumbnails on the left) in System Settings. It supplements Mission Control & Spaces, and makes it quite easy to switch between apps. You can also group multiple windows together to switch to them in one tap. Pretty neat.

gorbypark• 4 years ago

I never checked before but just assumed my MBP from 2016 would be supported. It’s not. Really sucks since the current latest version works really well and the machine was maxed out (i7, 16gb ram) and is more than capable of handling Ventura. Apple seems to be aggressively dropping support for x86 macs, quicker than historically they did.

replwoacause2• 4 years ago

Be aware anyone using Parallels 17, it isn't compatible on Ventura so you will have to upgrade to the latest version for $70:

https://forum.parallels.com/threads/did-anyone-else-on-17-ge...

replwoacause2• 4 years ago

So for what its worth, I just upgraded to Ventura and was able to continue using Windows 11 on Parallels 17, so I'm not really sure what is going on with their confusing messaging.

foxandmouse• 4 years ago

I'm eager to try this, but can someone please confirm if virtual-box is working without issue?

kderbyma• 4 years ago

wow.....nothing I want....and lots I don't like.....good job......:/

husamia2• 4 years ago

download takes forever to complete. It's faster compiling it from source.

markdog12• 4 years ago

Every time I get a notification, Notification Center pegs to 100% CPU and locks up. Can't even get rid of the notification. Gotta kill the process.

macOS Ventura is now available

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