Two Nice "Fixes" in iOS 16.2 & MacOS 13.1

TidBITS Talk
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I just updated to iOS 16.2 and finally updated to Ventura.

Here are two “fixes” that I appreciate and want to share. Apologies if this is old news:

  1. Apple Photos on both iOS and MacOS finally allow the “People” album to be sorted by Name. On the Mac, click on the People album, and then in the menu bar, Photos > View > Sort > By Name & Ascending. This sorting option has been “grayed out” for years. Once enabled, it was simple to identify instances when I had two “profiles” for the same person, allowing me to combine those profiles.

  2. On iOS, it is again possible to silence Siri feedback. Settings > Siri & Search > Siri Responses > Prefer Silent Responses. I can’t remember precisely when we “lost” the option to request silent responses, but Apple has brought back the option.

I am curious to hear about other recent “quiet” fixes that have resolved interface issues.

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Thanks for highlighting these two improvements, particularly the Photos name sorting, which had frustrated me for years - I used to sort them manually!!!

I was intrigued by your comment about finding duplicates. In theory this shouldn’t happen but I find it all the time. I think something broke a few years back, because if I add someone now, who hasn’t been added for a considerable time, they don’t appear in the drop-down list of name options, resulting in a duplicate entry. However, as you say, merging the two names fixes the older entries and they start acting correctly.

Another thing I would like fixed is that if I name someone new, who is in my Contacts and select the automatic entry for them (with their email address), Photos only displays their first name. I find this very annoying as I have thousands of named folk in pictures. I can force it to display first and last names but that is then treated as a separate entry, not linked to my contacts. So if I then add the person subsequently, they have two options appear in the drop-down menu and I have to be careful to select the correct one (the one with a photo by it).

Does anybody know if it is possible to always display first and last names by default?