Thursday, November 24, 2022

Mac OS 13 Ventura

I recently upgraded my new Mac to the latest OS, which is OS 13 Ventura (previously, I was on OS 12 Monterey). Now, I can't get the old, gravelly voice of Mr. Shickadance the landlord (Mark Margolis) out of my head:

SHICKADANCE: Ventura!

ACE: Yes, Satan?

I immediately regretted the upgrade. I normally hate upgrades because they often feel forced: there's nothing wrong with the OS that I currently have, so why the sudden need for "improvements" that turn out not to be improvements at all? If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Now, I get that technology is always evolving, but it takes years for any given tech to fall so far behind that you can't use any of the new stuff. Instead of offering upgrades once a year, how about slowing that down to once every few years?

My reasons for regret this time were twofold: (1) after the upgrade, I kept getting a popup message demanding that I agree to the new terms and conditions for iCloud, and (2) I lost functionality on my Apple TV app: I could no longer access the Store to buy new movies or to receive new episodes of "Rick and Morty" (we're at Season 6 with that show). So I immediately started researching how to go back to my previous OS, which was Monterey. A lot of what I was seeing online said that, to reinstall the old OS, you have to erase everything that's on your current hard drive. This made me hesitate, so instead of doing anything, I waited a few days, pondering my next move.

And waiting did the trick: the iCloud issue resolved itself when I was suddenly able to go to the screen where you have to click "agree," and the Apple TV problem also resolved itself as the Store function suddenly reappeared (that's store as in "place to buy stuff," not store as in "save or safeguard"). The newest "Rick and Morty" episode appeared in my queue, and I can buy new movies again. I guess all that happened, with the upgrade, was a temporary loss of functionality, and then it took a few days for the old functions to reappear. In the end, patience was the key, not action. How very Taoist.

UPDATE: I take back what I said. Apple TV isn't playing anything of mine—not TV shows, not movies, nothing. I'm looking into what might be up. We'll see.



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