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Mmm, it's Pumpkin Spice Latte and Apple Operating System update season.

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Every fall, Apple delivers to us an aromatic array of new features that should make using

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their devices better and easier.

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Should. What we're getting is iOS and iPadOS 16, macOS 13, Ventura and watchOS 9.

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They all include a lot of new features and revisions, but what I'm noticing this time

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around is not just the features each platform gets, but also the features they all share.

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What does this mean for the whole concept of the operating system for Apple going forward?

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If you look at some sections of Apple's all-new features pages on their website, you can see

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that many of the updates are exactly the same, verbatim between all the operating systems.

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Messages, Safari, Mail, iCloud Photo Sharing, Home, Photos, Reminders, Live Text and a bunch

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of others. The new features added to these apps are doled out to all devices equally.

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This is a good thing as it means you won't lose out on functionality using the same app

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between different devices. You can undo, send and edit iMessages and emails no matter what keyboard you wrote them on.

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How you surf in Safari won't have to be limited by your screen size.

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The way you organize your reminders on your Mac won't be any different than on your iPhone.

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But are these updates really worthy of WWDC?

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Would they have even been noticed on previous releases like Panthers, Snow Lappered or Lion?

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I don't think so. Photos is a stand-alone cross-platform app, Safari is a stand-alone cross-platform app.

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Photos is a stand-alone cross-platform service.

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And yet, their updates are arbitrarily tied to the broader operating system update.

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This can be really annoying too. Take Maps for instance.

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You can finally make a multi-stop route no matter which device you're using.

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This is an easy feature that should have been added years ago, yet to get it you have to

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update each device's entire operating system.

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You might think that this means the operating systems are converging all into one harmonious

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whole, with only but a screen size to differentiate them.

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If Apple was doing that, future parity like we're seeing would be a necessary step.

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So is this preparation for one Apple OS to rule them all?

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Touchscreens on the Mac? I'd argue no, because these changes to the cross-platform apps just increase usability

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across the ecosystem. And if you take a close look beyond them, you'll find that these OS's are as different

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from each other as ever. Despite the fact that it's going to be a little delayed, iPad OS looks to be the most transformed

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this year. After all our dogged complaining, Apple is really bringing the iPad into its more capable

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own. Toolbars are customizable now, allowing developers and power users to personalize and optimize

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their app's functions. It looks like a promising step forward, as the iPad moves further away from the iPhone

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and closer in capability to the Mac. The biggest demonstration of this is Stage Manager.

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It's a new app windowing feature available only to M1-powered iPads.

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Instead of being limited to two full-screen apps side-by-side with a slide-over floater

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for good measure, you can now pile and resize groups of windowed apps together on the screen,

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and then switch between those piles based on what you're working on.

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This improved since I first tried it earlier this summer, but despite these soft round

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corners, there are still rough edges.

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Apps aren't freely movable and resizable, they kind of just snap into set sizes and

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positions. It's quite interesting that you cannot completely cover app Windows over one another.

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These behaviors will require getting used to, and developers are going to have to put in

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a lot of work to support all these new layouts, as you can see.

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Even on this big iPad Pro screen, I don't think I'd use Stage Manager, but hooked up

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to an external monitor, it's a game changer.

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Now the iPad really is a tangible computer replacement for those who can work within

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the platform's bumper guards. Though, if you're used to a desktop operating system, don't forget that you will probably

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run into mouse interactions that won't work like you're expecting.

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Touch first, everyone. Also, on a Mac, you can close, minimize, and maximize Windows with the traffic lights

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on the top corner of a window. Here, those options are buried under an annoying submenu.

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Now, while your Mac is charging, you'll be interested in knowing that Stage Manager

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is here too. And because the operating system was engineered from the ground up to support resizable windowing,

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it works much better. Here think about it as an alternative way to organize tasks in Windows, compared to

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mission control. Next, we have something that works great on the iPad, but not so much on the Mac.

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They have replaced the system preferences with the system settings app.

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Same stovetop logo, though. It's adopted the sidebar format found on Apple's mobile devices.

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That makes it easier to find the section you're looking for at a glance, but I'm not bold

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over by the controls and layout once you're in there.

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Everything feels more complex. Look at how these alignments have changed, creating redundant space between the options

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and the selections. It's very hard to see things at a glance.

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The screens are so much bigger, and I'm really not convinced that mobile UI paradigms should

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be in desktop operating systems. Wait, macOS has a noise machine?

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An accessibility? Well, that's hard to find. And why is this a toggle switch?

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Why is this a window? What? Why did it shoot?

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Developer Nicky Tonsky posted a thread on Twitter showing just how rough the early beta

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versions of this app are, and showcased some of the questionable UI choices Apple has made

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with it. I find it so unrelentingly grey, like this list of toggles that look greyed out as if

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you can't use them, but oh, you can.

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Also, these were the gesture videos to show you how to use your magic mouse and trackpad

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before. These are the new ones.

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This is what software feels like these days in microcosm. We've gone from a rich, beautiful, understandable video to an uninspiring, abstract, boring

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animation bound to peak the curiosity of exactly no one.

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Because everything has moved around so much, I'm going to recommend that you only update

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to Ventura when you're mentally prepared to. But don't worry, like iPadOS, this update will be coming a bit later.

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Now the update worth installing is iOS.

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I absolutely love the look of the new lock screen. It makes the phone so much more useful at a glance, something my Apple Watch is great

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at. You can now add simple widgets and set your wallpaper to shuffle photos from your library.

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And if you don't have widgets enabled, the clock can now be cleverly placed behind your

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photo subject. You can even change the clock's font.

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Notifications are piled up at the bottom now, out of the way.

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And finally, as your mood changes, you can swipe between all your multiple themes, which

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can also be tied to different focus modes. I do have some niggles.

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On some wallpapers, the widgets can become completely illegible because there's no contrast.

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Disappointingly, all the options and freedom we get on the lock screen comes with a commensurate

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removal of options for the home screen. Apple's default wallpaper options are all but gone unless you use the same background

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as the lock screen. Oh, and check this out in the Photos app.

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That's cool. I've always hated doing that on Photoshop.

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Apple's finally showing us what capabilities the neural engine can bring to software, adding

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to live text to video and dictation improvements.

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Other than these main highlights, you're really not going to notice the improvements

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in day-to-day use, unless you really dig deep.

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Adam Angst at Tidbit did a survey asking people what features from last year's releases

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people were using, and the results showed that a wide majority of users didn't use

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any of the new features, save for live text.

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It makes me wish for a release that has no new features and is just bug fixes and refinements.

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A year-long feature moratorium, wouldn't that be great?

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Thanks for worsening the UI of this Mac Address. Now, if you are going to update your devices right away, give this video a like, and if

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you're going to hold off, you might as well subscribe. Now, comment below, I'm curious what you think about a feature moratorium.

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Now, new features just fixes.

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You agree?