My goodness, Ventura makes everything just a little bit worse

[Nermal]

True, but, why do so few applications log their errors, so IT can find out what happened?
;JOOP!

Don't get me started on that one. My MS Teams has been reporting "something went wrong" with updates for more than a year at this point. What, pray tell, is the "something" and how do I have a hope of troubleshooting the issue if you give zero details about it?

 

[dysamoria]

I used to see this quite a bit when I was supporting "ordinary" people. When an warning or error message popped up, they'd just immediately close it. They certainly wouldn't read it.

Me: Wait, what was that?!
Them: What was what?
Me: That error you just closed.
Them: Oh, that always happens.

I had the same experience with support clients as well. It was exasperating.

The other one that bothered me more, though: The occurrences of obvious bugs or bad design that users think are their own faults some how. We have computer geek culture that promotes this belief, which pushes on people’s insecurities to defend bad tech. It’s gross.

 

[dysamoria]

I work as a Mac sysadmin and deploy a lot of Mac in the HigherEdu environment. Personally I don't interact with a lot of those said features. Yes, the notification can be done better/rewritten and oh sure the memory leaks. Full screen app is something I don't like to use, never liked one app take over the entire screen. I still wish Apple put back the home folder and hard disks on the sidebar as default, might as well the Hard disk icon on the Finder.

Thanks. That makes sense. Sometimes I feel like Apple makes it personal: screwing up the features I use most… but I tend to feel like I use most stuff… though not AppleScript and Automator, which are great tools that I’m annoyed to see being replaced by half-assed replacement “Shortcuts”.

 

[koelsh]

The other one that bothered me more, though: The occurrences of obvious bugs or bad design that users think are their own faults some how. We have computer geek culture that promotes this belief, which pushes on people’s insecurities to defend bad tech. It’s gross

I feel this one in my bones. Yes development is harder than it looks but it sure feels like more and more developers are shipping without testing, never mind testing enough.

One software vendor we use at work has a list of mitigations and workarounds that only grows with every software release. And talk about bad design... oh boy. It's a point of sale system so of course it makes sense to set which printer the receipt comes from by configuring which payment device it's going to use. Everybody knows it's impossible to put tires on a car without first installing headlamps.

 

[koelsh]

It does feel like macOS used to be polished to a fine sheen throughout. From the most insignificant button down to the deepest darkest depths of the kernel. Everything was given attention and designed.

For some time now it does feel like only the surface of the surface, just what appears in keynotes and store demos are getting all of the attention while the rest is left to wither. And then there's the Ventura System Settings app......

I ran the Ventura Beta and now the official release which has been a mistake on several levels. Think I'm going to sit out on Sonoma and iOS's 17 until 2024.

 

[ThomasJL]

I have recently updated to the last Mac OS my 2017 27” iMac will ever get. I was waiting on Ventura because of some audio software, but they all seem to support it now, so I made the change…

…And FFS, everything is even slightly worse than Monterey, which was slightly worse than its predecessor, which was slightly worse than its predecessor, which was… (repeat back to Snow Leopard, which was far faster, more stable, and more reliable than its predecessors or successors).

Even just the basics, like Finder and quicklook are worse. Quicklook doesn’t zoom at a double tap anymore (zoom via pressing the CMD or ALT keys is missing, too), image zoom via gestures is jumpy at times in Quicklook and Preview (no idea why it isn’t consistent, but it’s often), the memory leaks revealed by leaving a Finder multi-item Info box open continuously are still present (and may be worse), notification demand extra clicking for the same interactions (introduced in Monterey), Mac OS won’t switch to open apps in full screen workspaces reliably, the keyboard and text bugs in the iMessage app that I reported in Monterey are unfixed…

There have been so many small but new irritations from Monterey and Ventura that I can’t remember them all, nor which OS brought them.

Apple has become Microsoft and Mac OS has become Windows. This endless piling-on of brokenness and inconsistency is why I left the WinTel platform.

That is the result of having an MBA suit like Tim Cook as CEO. MBAs are typically inside-the-box thinkers who don't care about innovation, which is why so many of them consider a dream job to mean working at McKinsey and Goldman Sachs. At soulless firms like those, money is the most important thing. Improving the quality of people's lives through creating reliable and user-friendly products and services is not necessarily valued. What's valued is maximizing profits and pleasing shareholders.

 

[Ben J.]

I've been using mac OS'es since v 5 (or earlier), and the latest ones, 11-12-13 have been the most stable and functional ever. I use my mac for eveything including music production, photo work, and I employ many features of the OS that often is overlooked by users; like f.ex multiple screens with multiple spaces, syncing across devices, picking up iphone calls on the mac etc. There are quirks, yes, but modern macOS on modern macs is more solid than it's ever been.

That's what I think.

PS: the mac in my signature has not had a single hickup, much less a crash since I got it in february, and I keep it running 24/7 and use it all the time.

 

[svenmany]

I've been using mac OS'es since v 5 (or earlier), and the latest ones, 11-12-13 have been the most stable and functional ever. I use my mac for eveything including music production, photo work, and I employ many features of the OS that often is overlooked by users; like f.ex multiple screens with multiple spaces, syncing across devices, picking up iphone calls on the mac etc. There are quirks, yes, but modern macOS on modern macs is more solid than it's ever been.

That's what I think.

It's reasonable to think that since that's what you are experiencing. Unfortunately, it's impossible to draw the conclusion that the OS is more solid then ever. You need a much, much, much larger dataset. I fall into the same trap and draw the opposite conclusion based on my experiences.

Just today - yet another bug (usually one every day or so). I made a new Excel spreadsheet on my desktop (which I keep in iCloud Drive). I saved it a few times. The last time I tried to save it I got a synchronization conflict and the save failed.

 

[koelsh]

It's reasonable to think that since that's what you are experiencing. Unfortunately, it's impossible to draw the conclusion that the OS is more solid then ever. You need a much, much, much larger dataset. I fall into the same trap and draw the opposite conclusion based on my experiences.

Just today - yet another bug (usually one every day or so). I made a new Excel spreadsheet on my desktop (which I keep in iCloud Drive). I saved it a few times. The last time I tried to save it I got a synchronization conflict and the save failed.

I do feel like there are simultaneously more quirks and fewer outright "problems".

That is there are fewer outright crashes for the OS and major software than say 15 years ago but even back then my machines could run for months before becoming quirky enough to warrant a reboot.

Safari used to "run" for weeks before needing a full quit but recently I'm having to quit Safari at large once or twice a day.