According to developer Niki Tonsky on Twitter, despite being five betas in, Apple's revamped macOS Ventura System Settings programme, which replaces the System Preferences tool featured in macOS Monterey and prior versions, still has issues.
For those who are unaware, the new System Settings programme resembles the iPhone and iPad's Settings app more than it does the earlier macOS preference panels, with settings organised in a sidebar for allegedly easier access.
Tonsky's thread, however, highlights a number of bugs and problems with the interface design in developer beta 5 of macOS Ventura, such as inconsistent use and unpredictable behaviour of common UI components like dropdowns and buttons, misaligned text and inadequately sized windows, menu titles that are obscured by menu windows, misplaced content, and more.
SwiftUI, Apple's cross-platform user interface layer that functions across iOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS, is used to create the System Settings app. Shortcuts, a similarly complicated SwiftUI-written programme, has received criticism for comparable UI and performance issues on both macOS and iOS.
In the newly revamped macOS Ventura System Settings app, a thread of odd things was discovered. First, see what happens if you just hold down the "Up" button. twitter.com/Xuez5U5ufe — Niki Tonsky on August 10, 2022 (@nikitonsky)
On his own website, Daring Fireball's John Gruber linked to and commented on Tonsky's twitter thread, saying there is "something severely wrong with SwiftUI that, even when in-progress, so many small layout aspects are reportedly hard to get right."
Some buttons have their parent view cut off in the middle of them. When did Apple last release beta software that had issues like that? Setting aside the philosophical question of whether the Mac's system preferences/settings programme should adopt the fundamental design of the Settings app on iOS and iPadOS, there should be no doubt that it should have pixel-perfect visual fidelity.
Despite what some people may believe, Craig Federighi stated that the revamp of the System Settings in macOS Ventura was not primarily influenced by iOS in a discussion with Gruber on The Talk Show Live at WWDC 2022. Federighi maintained that the key objective of the development team was consistency for consumers and praised the "excellent interface" of System Settings in macOS Ventura.
Possibly though there are still problems, Apple still has time to fix them since the release of macOS Ventura isn't expected until October or even early November. Have you interacted with System Settings in the most recent beta in a similar way? How do you feel about the new style? Please tell us in the comments.
