Rubenerd

Marcel Weiher had such a great summary of Apple’s software of late:

In other words, I had set the Bozo Bit on Apple. By default, when Apple does something new these days, I fully and quietly expect it to be broken. And I am surprised when they actually get something right, like Apple Silicon. And it wasn’t an angry reaction to anything, in fact, it wasn’t even much of conscious decision, more a gradual erosion of expectations.

macOS Ventura is the perfect example of this. Michael Tsai has an exhaustive list of broken things, but these are some that continue to make my life frustrating:

• Music.app still sucks! It’s as buggy, feature incomplete, and unintuitive as it was when it first replaced iTunes. It’s almost hostile to the idea that people would want local music libraries. I rsync music to a Walkman now, so I’m looking at decoupling my twenty-year old iTunes library over to something else. End of an era; not with a bang, but with a whimper.

• System Settings is inscrutable. I thought I’d get used to it, but it’s still opaque and confusing a few months in. The categories on the side make no sense, controls are inconsistent with the rest of the system, and somehow they made an infinitely-scrollable window feel more cluttered than the previous System Preferences. It’s bad enough that Windows 11 Settings is better, and that’s saying something!

• The bin is broken. It never finishes emptying, so I have to use the Terminal. It’s a common problem, but don’t bother looking for a fix or you’ll be hit with a wall of adware-laden crap sites that say hurr durr permissions. SON OF A DIDDLY.

• Tethering has stopped working reliably. It was fine before, now it requires enabling/disabling Wi-Fi a few times to work. This could be hardware, but the timing is awfully coincidental.

These show a lack of polish, but aren’t show-stoppers:

• Unmounted shares still show as mounted. Doesn’t matter what the underlying protocol was. Overstaying one’s welcome is always intrusive.

• Encrypted drives ask for passphrases, even if they’re in the keychain. I’m so relieved I don’t rely on any Mac for archiving and bulk storage.

• The Finder routinely can’t gain focus. Use Spotlight, ALT+TAB, or click the Finder icon in the Dock, and none of the windows surface. Not all the time, but often enough that I was beginning to question my perception of reality.

And some obligatory inb4:

• Just use another OS/I don’t have these problems. The FAQ addresses this.

• Where can I buy chinos like yours? Uniqlo. Or if you abbreviated cappuccinos, I adore Apothecary Coffee in Sydney. Don’t spill cappuccinos on your chinos though, unless your next trip is to a laundry of some description.