The macOS Ventura public beta is now available. These are our favorite little-known features

Apple today released beta versions of its next major operating systems, making it relatively easy for adventurous users to download and install rough versions of the software, which will start running on Macs, iPhones, iPads and other devices starting in the fall.

We’ll post full reviews of these new operating systems when they’re officially released, but for Mac users who want to jump into public betas today, we’ll cover some of the macOS Ventura features we’ve learned about in our time. developer betas (the first public beta roughly corresponds to the third developer beta released last week).

Instead of focusing on big changes like the Continuity Camera, search improvements, passkeys, or a revamped Settings app, we’ve focused on small but still big improvements, including a few that show us where Apple is trying. direct Mac. next few years.

Public betas of iOS 16, iPadOS 16, macOS Ventura, and other updates can be installed on supported hardware using the Apple documentation here. As with any beta software installation, proceed with caution – make sure you have up-to-date backups of important files and consider using test hardware rather than installing beta versions on systems you rely on day in and day out. day.

Faster and seamless security updates

Apple’s long list of Ventura features is called Rapid Security Response, and it’s designed for Apple to provide smaller, more timely updates to macOS that don’t require a system restart. But what does it mean?

To accommodate these updates, Ventura is making some additions to Big Sur’s Signed System Volume (SSV) security feature. As a reminder, SSV includes almost all macOS system files, and your Mac is only allowed to boot and run if the volume signature indicates that nothing in SSV has been altered or altered in any way. When updates are installed, SSV is mounted in the background, files are patched, a new cryptographic signature is created to verify the next time the system boots, and a snapshot of this newly signed volume is created for use the next time the computer boots.

To allow minor updates to be installed without a reboot, Ventura uses separate “cryptex”disk images for some applications and operating system files. As anonymous Twitter firmware engineer @never_released described, cryptex images are treated by macOS as extensions to an existing volume. These images can be opened and modified independently of SSV, but to macOS and most of its applications, they will appear to be part of the system volume like any other system file.

Ventura will be able to fix applications and other system files located in these cryptex images without having to touch SSV, including Safari, WebKit and JavaScript related frameworks and others. This will eliminate the need for a lengthy installation and reboot process while maintaining the security benefits of SSV for most system files. Whether this will actually lead to faster or more frequent security patches remains to be seen. Larger updates, including (presumably) major updates like 13.1 or 13.2, will likely continue to use the current reboot approach.

Beyond the System Preferences app

The new System Preferences app for Mac completely replaces the old System Preferences app, and it’s probably the biggest change the app has received since the introduction of Mac OS X. But work on long-standing parts of the system user interface doesn’t stop there.

For example, Ventura is also completely redesigning the macOS Print dialog, ditching the multi-section drop-down menu in favor of a single long page with multiple expandable sections, as well as a new continuous preview column with independent scrolling on the left. Apps with the Page Setup option will also show the presence of an old friend, a sleek, high-res version of Clarus the dog. This goes back to the old LaserWriter days when Clarus served the same purpose.

Ventura is also making the biggest redesign to Font Book since it was introduced back in macOS 10.3, moving from a multi-column design that only looks at one font at a time to a more visually oriented font grid that provides smaller previews of dozens fonts. fonts at a time.

Unfortunately, Apple hasn’t decided to rethink all of its old built-in macOS apps. If you were hoping for an overhaul of TextEdit or Chess this year, you’ll have to wait.