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.
Yeah, I am a little disappointed that this is the first upgrade that I cannot get with my late 2015 iMac. I'd use the legacy patcher perhaps, but I don't see much on this new version that I would want, so i'd rather keep things offical for now, to avoid any issues.
Yes, I get that this machine is 7 years old, but I cannot tell from using it, everything is extremely fast, I upspecced it when I bought it and maxed out a lot of things, it has a decent i7 processor, 32gb of ram and 1tb ssd and the m395x maxed out graphics card, heck it still games well in Windows.
I really see zero reason to upgrade, it runs better than my new work windows laptop except that Apple have decided for some reason I can't get the update.
I had every desire and intention of upgrading my desktop (late 2015 iMac) to the newer hardware, right up until they decided this hardware is somehow incompatible with the newest MacOS.
They've basically just ended 20 years of Mac for me.
Of course, because the more older models you support that don't have the hardware needed for your new features, the more programming you have to do to enable/disable those features in different configurations, the more testing, and the more bugs. It becomes impossible to maintain. At some point you have to draw a line and let go, in order to delete the legacy code holding you back.
But please don't throw your iPad in the dumpster! I don't know why you're saying it could be easily used as a video or browser -- it still can! Tons of people use old iPads running old versions of iOS specifically as video players. They're perfect for that! Don't put it in the dumpster, sell it on eBay or give it to a friend's kid or something.
You can't play video on it because Youtube/Netflix/Hbo + all other video apps don't work anymore on IOS9.
You can't browse the web because certificates don't work anymore in the browser.
I don't know why you guys are attacking me for proposing legislation and retiring my old iPad - i'm a techy with a 2014 macbook pro that has really tried finding a usecase for his my old 2. gen iPad lol, i use stuff for as long as possible.
Most regular non tech people won't be able to stretch their laptops life as long as i did, that's the problem.
Ventura removes all the fallbacks for pre-Haswell CPUs and it now just assumes that AVX2 is available. Even if you can persuade it to boot on older CPUs I'd be pretty surprised if it actually works "just fine".
> so it has to go 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.
Why would it have to go in the dumpster if it still works well? This reasoning is why we have exessive e-waste, not the lack of upgrades...
It works well only in theory. Almost no apps works on ios9 anymore, so you can't run netflix, hbo, even browsers are useless because certificates aren't updated - that's why i wanted to just use it as a homekit server, but you can't do this either.
ie, the processor is just fine for doing all of the above, but slowly all functionality has been lost.
I have a pretty old iPad as well and it simply can't do anything I need anymore. Tons of apps won't install by now, it's insecure since it hasn't received any patches in quite a few years, what would I use it for? I'd like to use it as a Spotify Connect target, but no recent Spotify will install on it. Can't use it as a server for obvious reasons. Can't use it as a Home hub. Can't use it for web browsing, or as a smart home control panel... and I don't know anyone who would have a use for it. It's essentially a very smart paperweight.
If something goes wrong with your machine and you've used OpenCore Legacy Patcher, then oh well, something has gone wrong. If something goes wrong with your machine and you've used the official update channel, then Apple has screwed over older machines on purpose and you can join a class-action lawsuit claiming that.
The security footprint of machines running Ventura using OpenCore Legacy Patcher is going to be much smaller than that of machines officially updated, too.
Seems like maybe a bigger cause of e-waste might be the mindset that a device immediately needs to go in a dumpster the day after some OS upgrade comes out that won't run on it.
I want a Mac. I don't want a Mac and a Chromebook. But maybe someone else would use my old Mac as a Chromebook. Except there are zillions of cheap Chromebooks around already.
> 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?
How do regular OS patches work with OpenCore Legacy Patcher? Do you have to go hoops to update OS for security / feature updates once you set it up?
> I know other companies are often worse but we really need legislation around this
The last thing we need is some crappy poorly written law that is filled with a bunch of unrelated hanger-on pork projects to appease politicians into voting for it.
> 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?
Apart from selling more hardware, which is their one and only goal ?
>Apart from selling more hardware, which is their one and only goal ?
This is probably better stated as two goals: lower costs, higher sales (profit = sales - costs). Dropping support increases the costs line in effect as it's a consumer happiness. But it also decreases it by reducing the support cost (multiple logic paths to support / more code / more bugs etc.)
It's frustrating because I think a lot of people stuck with their 2015 MBPs since it was the last one with a "good" keyboard and solid assortment of ports for quite a while.
Every generation of hardware they support, is another generation they have to test and QA their new stuff on. And then if they're pushing software updates for it that creates the expectation that the Apple Stores will be supporting these old devices as well.
Yup. I fear for my 2019 Mac Pro. Five digits of investment, and out of curiosity, I saw that Apple had reduced its trade-in "value" from $3,700 a few months ago to $1,100 now. Rather insulting, since they're still selling the same Mac Pro, and charging $3,000 for the RAM that's in this one alone.
I wonder if that is true. I hope so as I have a first gen M1 MacBook Pro and honestly it’s the best laptop I’ve ever had. I do wonder if either we’re going to see the ARM MacBooks have about the same lifetime as iPhones, or if iPhones will end up being supported for longer since they are architecturally very similar.
1. Apple has been doing this for years and years. At this point, it shouldn't be a surprise.
2. It reduces legacy cruft. The alternative is you get to keep 20-30 year old legacy cruft, as with Windows. I'm not saying what Microsoft does is necessarily bad, just different.
3. The Intel laptops don't stop running[a] -- and if history is any indication, will still receive critical security patches.
4. At least the bonus here is that the lowest end Apple Silicon Mac almost entirely crushes the high end i9 MBP 16" it replaced -- for a fraction of the cost.
a. Unless it gets hit by one of a number of known quality issues (screen, keyboard, battery, etc).
They did that when they moved to Intel also. They always have a hardware philosophy and push the market towards it. You see this in chips, cables, audio jacks, etc. It's just Apple being Apple.
Actually there isn’t an x86 version of the current macOS; it’s a single operating system that runs on multiple processor architectures. During the PowerPC to Intel transition back in the day, I could boot a PowerPC or Intel Mac from the same hard drive.
The same is true today with Intel and ARM-based Macs.
I have a 2017 Intel iMac running macOS Ventura but there’s plenty of ARM code on it. Here’s the output from running the file command on ls:
Apple is still selling the Mac Pro [1], which is Intel based. And there are plenty of Intel Macs for sale on Apple’s refurb store [2].
I suspect these machines will be supported for the foreseeable future.
BTW, my 2017 iMac is running its 7th major operating system:
- macOS 10.12 Sierra
- macOS 10.13 High Sierra
- macOS 10.14 Mojave
- macOS 10.15 Catalina
- macOS 11 Big Sur
- macOS 13 Monterey
- macOS 14 Ventura
I think Apple will support Intel Macs for a good while. They’re not going to get all of the same features as ARM-based Macs (due to these machines having Apple’s custom silicon the Intel Macs don’t have) but they will get the same core features for the foreseeable future.
I wonder about that too… Xcode Cloud runs on Intel server hardware [0] - is Apple going to want to build their own ARM server platform or will they just keep x86 alive enough for their internal server workloads?
It is not enough to explain it simply, one should also explain it accurately.
They are still supporting Intel chips from the Haswell generation and later, although as plorkyeran points out, they can now assume AVX2 chip instructions are available, which simplifies things for them.
Lightning has been around longer than USB-C and they've changed their charging port once in 20 years. That's a better history than every other mobile device manufacturer. Their most recent cable is a bridge between the eventual USB-C transition without obsoleting everyone's existing peripherals and cables.
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.
Thank heavens someone else noticed that Preview lost its ability to open PostScript. I occasionally use Preview to render manpages as PDF so I can print them out and using the Ventura beta made me think it was just a bug. It's a shame that it is missing in the final release -- I even filed several Feedback reports with basically no response. I am not sure at all what utility there is in removing features from Preview.
My current workaround is to use my 2013 Mac Pro that's stuck on Monterey to do so, but eventually that's going to kick the can...
Removing features like this is just plain stupid. Preview was one of the most valuable apps for viewing files preinstalled on every Mac. While I can understand that raw PostScript files are rarely seen nowadays, Encapsulated-PostScript is still used, i.e. for graphs in scientific software and publications.
To add an insult to injury, the Monterey era trick still works. Change the file extension from .eps or .ps to .ai (Adobe Illustrator) and QuickLook will happily display the file. It will even offer you to "Open in Preview" which then fails.
I’m also still on Monterrey, but I just discovered that Skim supports viewing both PostScript and eps files (I assume that functionality also works on Ventura), so that could also be a solution if you don’t want to switch between machines for viewing ps files.
I am one of those people who still have a lot of PostScript files. I have many scientific papers from college in my collection. I know I should convert them to PDF, but it sucks that they quietly removed support for a file format that's been around for a long time.
They did somewhat similar “feature releases” and “more” to the iWork suite many years ago. It probably still is a shadow of what it once was but TBH I stopped checking and moved on. Ironically preview had been filling some of its shortcomings for me. Yikes.
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.
The saving grace of the System Settings app is simple: System Preferences sucked too. Even as a macOS user for my entire adult life, looking at that tile layout seemed to hide categories from my mind.
Does anyone know what functionality has been lost in the transition? I was hunting around for it after I upgraded myself, but it's so different it's hard to compare. Ars' mapping indicates things are mostly still there. But I also can't seem to reorganize my connection priority list for WiFi networks. I wonder if the PM in control of the WiFi network settings panel even knows that feature exists.
I agree, before it was the main screen with the icons that sucked (but looked friendly!), now the sidebar is okay and workable and the detail screens suck.
FWIW I tried Stage Manager in Ventura and was surprised by how much I like it. I prefer to keep background windows clickable, and Stage Manager gives me that for free, except they don't get "lost" as easily. The animations are slick too (try it with Exposé!). I'll likely keep it enabled.
Settings has some issues but isn't as bad as I was led to believe from the pre-release hand-wringing.
The only compatibility issue I've encountered is that `man --path` no longer works. Weird.
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.
> 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."
You’ll love finding out that in System Settings, the Screensaver section doesn’t let you enable/disable the Screensaver. Or adjust how long until it activates. For that you gotta go to “Lock Screen”, yay.
The thought of using System Preferences (or Settings — I couldn’t tell you the difference, if there is one) to access anything, when Alfred or Spotlight can access it instead, is anathema to me.
System Preferences is grouped by software-related settings on the top and hardware-related settings on the bottom. You may notice a slight color difference between the two sections. (I only learned this recently).
Yeah, there's definitely an attempt at organization, but... here's the thing. Most of MacOS works the way my brain expects it to. Like, Pages was a revelation when it was released, as I was able to instantly find everything I wanted to do right where I expected it to be. The initial release of Pages may have been the high point of Apple making software the way I think.
I get that everything in System Preferences is in a place that makes sense, and once I've found it, I can reason back from there to why it's there. But... is a screensaver software or hardware? I mean, it runs on the screen, which is hardware, but it's obviously software--but then, this is a computer, so everything is software. I mean, Date & Time is under hardware, which... is not where I would have looked first. Siri is triggered by a physical button, but is software, while Data & Time are visible on my screen but is hardware--presumably because of the clock inside the computer, right? What about the chip enabling Siri?
Anyway, other people didn't like the version of Pages I loved, and maybe other people don't have trouble with System Preferences. Different strokes, and all that. I just don't get the complaining as if something of value was lost.
System Settings might be even worse that System Preferences. Fine. One of Apple's worst things has gotten worse, and is now an area of focus, so now might, or presumably will get better. I prefer that to the neglect System Preferences was receiving.
>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.
I get the friction, but if it is really causing you all that grief, why not pay for the $15 tool that helps?
Yeah, I get the argument that you shouldn’t have to spend more money to deal with an annoyance and the OS should be better at this… but if you have a solution, is there still a problem? (Or it you don't want to spend $15, was it really a major problem?)
I spent money on a tool that helps manage my menu bar for a similar reason, and it has made it much nicer to use my Mac.
Everyone dislikes it. This is among the reasons why Windows 8 was such a massive failure, it tried to force a UI that kind of makes sense on a small touch screen on PCs where it didn't make any sense.
Not particularly. The integration of iOS details into Mac OS is pretty limited. There are also Mac OS features leaking into iPad OS (windows with sidebar navigation panel).
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.
This has more to do with the 486 (or clones of it) having adoption in embedded platforms that run Linux than Linux being reluctant to let support for old consumer-oriented hardware die. For example, Linux doesn't even bother with attempting to mitigate speculative execution vulnerabilities on Intel processors running in 32-bit mode, you are just told you are vulnerable and that's that.
I used to think that, but at some point I noticed that homebrew was compiling dependencies instead of downloading compiled binaries, and found out it was because my OS was not in the most recent 3 versions.
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?
I hate the fact that I have to install third party software to do something every other OS (i believe) has as the default. I've been using scroll reverser, but that looks nicer, will try it out. Thanks
It doesn't look like it. There are separate controls on the mouse and trackpad screen, but they're tied to the same value.
I would think that would be separate - the keyboard re-mappings are different for each keyboard that you plug in.
I use a normal wheely mouse and am fine with "natural" scrolling, but I may just be weird in that respect. (I've had really bad luck with bluetooth mice, so my not so magic mice live in my closet.)
> There are separate controls on the mouse and trackpad screen, but they're tied to the same value
That's what killed the "Apple's UX is great and it just works" myth for me after i got my first work issued MBP. Not only is a basic feature lacking, there is stupidly confusing configuration for it in two places that makes you think it exists, but it doesn't. Apple's UI/UX/PM people make stupid decisions, same as any other company.
This isn’t about normal mouse or not, after all the Magic Mouse IS and scrolls like a normal mouse, just with a touch-surface instead of a wheel.
It’s about the fact that in macOS it’s the content that scrolls, not the viewport. By moving your finger up on a touchpad you’re pushing the content up, and the wheel of a non-Apple mouse is a physical proxy of the content.
You may not like the decision, but in my opinion it makes a lot of sense, and I set the mouse to work like this even in Linux.
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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.
Yes, I get that this machine is 7 years old, but I cannot tell from using it, everything is extremely fast, I upspecced it when I bought it and maxed out a lot of things, it has a decent i7 processor, 32gb of ram and 1tb ssd and the m395x maxed out graphics card, heck it still games well in Windows.
I really see zero reason to upgrade, it runs better than my new work windows laptop except that Apple have decided for some reason I can't get the update.
They've basically just ended 20 years of Mac for me.
Pity.
But please don't throw your iPad in the dumpster! I don't know why you're saying it could be easily used as a video or browser -- it still can! Tons of people use old iPads running old versions of iOS specifically as video players. They're perfect for that! Don't put it in the dumpster, sell it on eBay or give it to a friend's kid or something.
You can't play video on it because Youtube/Netflix/Hbo + all other video apps don't work anymore on IOS9.
You can't browse the web because certificates don't work anymore in the browser.
I don't know why you guys are attacking me for proposing legislation and retiring my old iPad - i'm a techy with a 2014 macbook pro that has really tried finding a usecase for his my old 2. gen iPad lol, i use stuff for as long as possible.
Most regular non tech people won't be able to stretch their laptops life as long as i did, that's the problem.
Why would it have to go in the dumpster if it still works well? This reasoning is why we have exessive e-waste, not the lack of upgrades...
ie, the processor is just fine for doing all of the above, but slowly all functionality has been lost.
The security footprint of machines running Ventura using OpenCore Legacy Patcher is going to be much smaller than that of machines officially updated, too.
I don't recommend my friends or family put important information or sign in to any device that is running unmaintained OS software
Because I assume they're exploitable from a security point of view after that point
Of course no one follows that advice but what are we supposed to do?
Deleted Comment
How do regular OS patches work with OpenCore Legacy Patcher? Do you have to go hoops to update OS for security / feature updates once you set it up?
The last thing we need is some crappy poorly written law that is filled with a bunch of unrelated hanger-on pork projects to appease politicians into voting for it.
Apart from selling more hardware, which is their one and only goal ?
This is probably better stated as two goals: lower costs, higher sales (profit = sales - costs). Dropping support increases the costs line in effect as it's a consumer happiness. But it also decreases it by reducing the support cost (multiple logic paths to support / more code / more bugs etc.)
I expect the more modern Apple Silicon based ARM devices to have a longer support lifespan than older Macs.
1. Apple has been doing this for years and years. At this point, it shouldn't be a surprise.
2. It reduces legacy cruft. The alternative is you get to keep 20-30 year old legacy cruft, as with Windows. I'm not saying what Microsoft does is necessarily bad, just different.
3. The Intel laptops don't stop running[a] -- and if history is any indication, will still receive critical security patches.
4. At least the bonus here is that the lowest end Apple Silicon Mac almost entirely crushes the high end i9 MBP 16" it replaced -- for a fraction of the cost.
a. Unless it gets hit by one of a number of known quality issues (screen, keyboard, battery, etc).
Actually there isn’t an x86 version of the current macOS; it’s a single operating system that runs on multiple processor architectures. During the PowerPC to Intel transition back in the day, I could boot a PowerPC or Intel Mac from the same hard drive.
The same is true today with Intel and ARM-based Macs.
I have a 2017 Intel iMac running macOS Ventura but there’s plenty of ARM code on it. Here’s the output from running the file command on ls:
Apple is still selling the Mac Pro [1], which is Intel based. And there are plenty of Intel Macs for sale on Apple’s refurb store [2].I suspect these machines will be supported for the foreseeable future.
BTW, my 2017 iMac is running its 7th major operating system:
- macOS 10.12 Sierra
- macOS 10.13 High Sierra
- macOS 10.14 Mojave
- macOS 10.15 Catalina
- macOS 11 Big Sur
- macOS 13 Monterey
- macOS 14 Ventura
I think Apple will support Intel Macs for a good while. They’re not going to get all of the same features as ARM-based Macs (due to these machines having Apple’s custom silicon the Intel Macs don’t have) but they will get the same core features for the foreseeable future.
[1]: https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/
[2]: https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/mac/2019
[0] - https://twitter.com/khaost/status/1410332951963869185
They are still supporting Intel chips from the Haswell generation and later, although as plorkyeran points out, they can now assume AVX2 chip instructions are available, which simplifies things for them.
We're talking about the company that makes AirPods and forces Lightning Cables to exist. Half their product line is e-waste.
Also all Ruby gems with native extensions stopped working for me, even the pre-installed system ones.
My current workaround is to use my 2013 Mac Pro that's stuck on Monterey to do so, but eventually that's going to kick the can...
To add an insult to injury, the Monterey era trick still works. Change the file extension from .eps or .ps to .ai (Adobe Illustrator) and QuickLook will happily display the file. It will even offer you to "Open in Preview" which then fails.
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.
Does anyone know what functionality has been lost in the transition? I was hunting around for it after I upgraded myself, but it's so different it's hard to compare. Ars' mapping indicates things are mostly still there. But I also can't seem to reorganize my connection priority list for WiFi networks. I wonder if the PM in control of the WiFi network settings panel even knows that feature exists.
Settings has some issues but isn't as bad as I was led to believe from the pre-release hand-wringing.
The only compatibility issue I've encountered is that `man --path` no longer works. Weird.
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.
System Preferences can hide individual preference panes from the list. System Settings can't.
System Preferences search field is focused on launch. System Settings is not.
System Preferences is fully keyboard navigable. System Settings is not.
System Preferences uses tabs where System Settings in many cases uses a modal window hidden behind a button.
The list goes on and on...
You’ll love finding out that in System Settings, the Screensaver section doesn’t let you enable/disable the Screensaver. Or adjust how long until it activates. For that you gotta go to “Lock Screen”, yay.
Here’s hoping they improve it over time, I guess.
I get that everything in System Preferences is in a place that makes sense, and once I've found it, I can reason back from there to why it's there. But... is a screensaver software or hardware? I mean, it runs on the screen, which is hardware, but it's obviously software--but then, this is a computer, so everything is software. I mean, Date & Time is under hardware, which... is not where I would have looked first. Siri is triggered by a physical button, but is software, while Data & Time are visible on my screen but is hardware--presumably because of the clock inside the computer, right? What about the chip enabling Siri?
Anyway, other people didn't like the version of Pages I loved, and maybe other people don't have trouble with System Preferences. Different strokes, and all that. I just don't get the complaining as if something of value was lost.
System Settings might be even worse that System Preferences. Fine. One of Apple's worst things has gotten worse, and is now an area of focus, so now might, or presumably will get better. I prefer that to the neglect System Preferences was receiving.
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/
Yeah, I get the argument that you shouldn’t have to spend more money to deal with an annoyance and the OS should be better at this… but if you have a solution, is there still a problem? (Or it you don't want to spend $15, was it really a major problem?)
I spent money on a tool that helps manage my menu bar for a similar reason, and it has made it much nicer to use my Mac.
Meanwhile, Linus is only just starting the discussion to drop the 486 from the Linux kernel.
https://mos.caldis.me/
I would think that would be separate - the keyboard re-mappings are different for each keyboard that you plug in.
I use a normal wheely mouse and am fine with "natural" scrolling, but I may just be weird in that respect. (I've had really bad luck with bluetooth mice, so my not so magic mice live in my closet.)
That's what killed the "Apple's UX is great and it just works" myth for me after i got my first work issued MBP. Not only is a basic feature lacking, there is stupidly confusing configuration for it in two places that makes you think it exists, but it doesn't. Apple's UI/UX/PM people make stupid decisions, same as any other company.
It’s about the fact that in macOS it’s the content that scrolls, not the viewport. By moving your finger up on a touchpad you’re pushing the content up, and the wheel of a non-Apple mouse is a physical proxy of the content.
You may not like the decision, but in my opinion it makes a lot of sense, and I set the mouse to work like this even in Linux.
It's nice to have the option for that, isn't it? Instead of having two toggles in two separate menus change the same setting who knows why.