Of all the changes in Ventura, the most controversial have come in the move from System Preferences to its completely rewritten System Settings. This article considers why this is needed, and whether Ventura is going to achieve what’s required.
System Preferences
Stepping back and looking as objectively as we can, System Preferences as they stand in Monterey are the weakest part of the whole interface to macOS. Even for those of us who spend a lot of time using them, the layout of the System Preferences app is chaotic. If there is any logic for the order, it has long defied me. Why does Notifications & Focus come between Language & Region and Internet Accounts, for example?
Open any pane and, no matter how empty or full it is, its window can’t be resized. Many now consist of long lists of themes at the left, squeezing often busy settings into the reduced area to the right. Take the Security & Privacy pane. It has four tabs:
- General, seldom used except when trying to install kernel extensions, when you watch for it to show a fleeting control that might already have come and gone,
- FileVault, a single control with a whole tab to itself,
- Firewall, another single control that few ever use,
- Privacy, overflowing with all the recent privacy controls squeezed into a complete mess. It desperately needs a deeper window, but as ever can’t be resized at all.
There’s no evidence of design, instead preference settings seem to have been thrown haphazard into panes in the rush to ship new features, then to have been left to grow like weeds.
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