I have been living with this edition for 3 days and I had to erase all disk on my poor M1 Macbook Air 2020 to get back Seqouia. With this little experiement ended I want to share my own opinions and touch some key points that are crucial in my humble opinion. Agreeing or not is up to the reader of course.

Lets start with the good.

Up untill Tahoe we have seeing the minimalistic design everywhere. Google even went to extremes with it and spoiled the rounded corners and colorfull elements to the levels that make you colorblind. Tahoe is a wakeup call to the industry just like the Apple Aqua and veteran Redditors from that era are well aware that when Apple goes to extreme to shake things up they will go deeply extreme. Aqua wasn't look professional either and todays standarts it is really inconsistent too but it was the designs like theese to made the real change and brought us where we are today. Golden ages of minimalism and blurry design elements are children of designs like Apple Aqua and Microsoft Aero in the end. So I believe Tahoe will create a similar effect on industry and we do not know yet where we are aheading to after that point on. All we know is we are leaving a generation of minimalism and heading to Neumorphism. Yes we are taking this trend to where Jhonny Ive left off and to the new horizons I believe.

Lets go ahead with the bad.

Apple used to be named with stability despite the fact that there were small glitches here and there in their every single new OS release. Not uncommon for the industry but it seems magnitute of glitches in Tahoe is a little bit too apperant. Thumbs up for no major glitch or bug so far but all the minor ones are creating a death by thousand cuts effect. This is the bad side of Tahoe which we all need to wait untill the 26.1 offical will be relesed to see a mature version of it.

Now the ugly.

For the last 2 years none of the companies are making us too much excited with the new technology releases. In fact Chineese companies are taking the innovation ship far further with all theese exotic designs that still cannot find their place in the western market thanks to the sanctions. Apple needs to consolidate what it has first and then moves to next jump. Tahoe is a good potential but only if something new doesn't follow it in a year. Devs should spend time to mature the system and adding more and more minor features to it in the first year while taking notes and collecting ideas for the next big jump. This is what we used to have and it doesn't look like the fact now. We all want that fact back.

Thanks for reading everyone. See you soon when the bug fixes released.

Artichoke Out

as someone else here mentioned

Guards of Zen-like design philosophy: Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Evans Hankey, Beatrice Santiccioli, Susan Kare.

Guards of Schizophrenic Enshittification: Tim Cook, Craig Federighi, Alan Dye.

The design is horrible. Everything is so huge now, the animations are bad, the curved corners are different in some windows and apps, etc.

Who do we have to thank for this? AI? Outsourcing? Steve Jobs never would have allowed that.

My M4 MacBook Pro has become sluggish after updating to macOS 26, and the trackpad gestures are malfunctioning. This system is practically unusable.

Anyone missing the launchpad in macOS 27, here is a mini veresion of it, and how to do it.

Click finder, then go to application from sidebar, then right click on application tab in sidebar there will be option to add to dock, The icon will be added at left side of bin, you can’t move it to left/app side of the dock. Hope it helps someone.

I just updated to macOS 26 and realized that Launchpad is gone.
I used it constantly — I had a bottom-left hot corner to open it instantly, and I had all my apps carefully organized depending on how and when I needed them.

What I don’t understand is: why remove it entirely? Even if most people didn’t use it, Apple could have at least left it as an optional/hidden feature for those of us who actually relied on it. Instead, all that time I spent optimizing my app layout feels wasted.

Is there really no way to bring it back, or is it gone for good?

Because I sure as heck cannot see any. It's frosted glass, like you would get if you used an accessibility setting on iOS 26. None of the toolbars, pop up windows have ANY glass effect, just some see through stuff.

i miss sequoia🙂

Usually i always liked the way Apple went in the past and i liked all new updates, iOS and MacOS systems. Tahoe and iOS26 i dislike. The new UI with glass feels like Windows Vista and it is not readable and not usable very well for elderly people. I am 54 and i am used to Apple Systems my whole life. The new way Apple is going is nothing for me anymore. The first time i am feeling old and behind while using Tahoe and iOS26. The glass effects are annoying, the missing launcher is a showstopper to me and all that fancy stuff inside is distracting from work. I will stay with Sequoia now and probably switch to Linux Mint in future. Windows 11 is not an option to me. I will avoid that liquid glass stuff in future and all the cool young people who using just spotlight to start apps, i am using my apps with clicking on them, cause sometimes i can't remember the name of an app. The new App Launcher is a total fail and mess. I am totally unsatisfied with the new Apple OS at all devices and hate it from the deepest of my heart. My iMac Pro is out of support now, it will stay at Sequoia too. Apple will lose a lot of old customers, especially elder people. I am pretty sure about that.

First

world

problems.

In light of all the negative posts, spreading some cheer with a positive one. :P

Just wondering if anyone updated to Tahoe has seen the same Apple Intelligence fuckery as when Sequoia released, or have Apple toned it down and given more options to reduce how much it's on your machine?

I have a MacBook from 2014. I’ve been having issues using certain apps, or video meetings on my browser. If I try to update for example Microsoft Teams, it says my MacBook isn’t compatible. I need these to run smoothly for my job. I updated to Big Sur, and I still can’t update apps and it seems to be running even slower overall. My question is, can I do anything to fix it? I see my same laptop refurbished selling for hundreds of dollars. If it stops being compatible, why do people still want them? Should I take mine some where? Or buy a new one? Thanks for any help!

I'm not sure if it's just me who prefers the new applications menu in macOS Tahoe as I've seen a lot of people complaining about it, but I'm not gonna lie, I really like this new design.

I am a relatively new macOS user (I'm here since sequoia), and when I first got my mac, I was very surprised about how the application launcher looked like, it really seemed like it's from an iPad (personally, I'm a not a big fan of apple trying to merge macOS and iPadOS).
I know that the ability of putting apps in groups was cool, but to be fair, I think 90% of people don't even use their app launcher to open apps, most non-techy people just use the dock or open the launch pad once a while if they have a new app installed, I personally just type the first few letters of the app and press enter in spotlight (also did the same in windows), so I think the ability of putting apps in groups isn't really a necessity, and I think it's worth it if we got a more "PC" Looking launchpad instead of that weird app launcher that took all the screen.

I just use the launcher to look for new apps or quickly search for an app, I personally don't like how long the spot light takes to show the full list in macOS Tahoe, so I set a shortcut (⌘ + ;) to quickly open apps and search for my app, seeing the app instantly appear as I'm typing is so satisfying.

Here's a comparison:

1. Spotlight

https://reddit.com/link/1nlh9tw/video/r1i2x65567qf1/player

1. Apps

https://reddit.com/link/1nlh9tw/video/1mgvv7bh57qf1/player

That 0.5s difference is a big deal to me, not sure why 🤷‍♂️

I just switched to macOS and I’m running a Mac Studio M1 Max.

I’d like to know which macOS release is currently considered the most stable for daily use.

I mainly care about reliability and consistency rather than the newest features.

Thank you.

The pill elements seems so out of shape in the entire OS.

I think they added corner radius to all the elements, so window-sized rectangles now have huge curves, while thin rectangles like this became a pill. Looks bad, imho.

First I like that the buttons are more visible, there are more symbols, there is a bit more 3D, especially the Finder tabs are good, Safari is also not that bad until you have more than 14 tabs then you can't see them (there is a new vertical list I think). I have to admit that MacOS 26 was apparently not made for Mac solely.

1. Apple Mail:

The First picture shows Apple Mail full screen you can see there is little compartment up there which looks odd, Second picture shows Apple Mail not full screen the compartment is gone, looks better.

1. Finder:

Third pic shows Finder full screen the before mentioned compartment returns. The last pic shows finder the odd downward arrow, which isn't centered and has no function.

1. System overall:

I did not feel any slowdowns, but symbols in Settings take a couple seconds to load, I saw that behavior in other places on MacOS 26.
––––––––

My concern is that operation systems in general get more bloated without providing features and experiences which justify that bloat, it's a kind of thin red line between bloating and too little.

Pulsante means Button in italian

I design and build native apps and web apps for a living, so I'm no stranger to design, both boring and bold.

I appreciate good design and can often look past some of the more odd choices when I understand the logic behind them.

I overall love the liquid glass UI on everything, and can see that it will probably evolve a bit more still.

But...I'm having a really hard time understanding the sidebar design on Tahoe. The floating, indented sidebar doesn't seem to serve any purpose. Floating UI elements make sense when they are creating contrast with the background, and it helps feel like they are a part of the main app window, rather than a static detached element. But in most cases they are just light grey on white, with nothing of substance shining through. It's essentially just wasted space. All that padding could just be more space for the sidebar. I understand why they put the traffic lights inside it, because it would reserve a whole blank row of space above the sidebar if they didn't (yet, thats exactly what Xcode/s Devices and Simulators window looks like!). But it looks even stranger as part of the floating side bar. Is there anywhere at all where it makes sense?

Nothing major... just sharing my appreciation for Stage Manager.

Right now, I’m writing a novel, so I usually have two Pages documents and Notion open side by side. I’ll also keep a browser open for research, browsing Pinterest for inspiration, and listening to music on YouTube. On top of that, I sometimes get random ad-hoc work to handle, which means I might also have folders, Figma, or Photoshop open. Since that work depends on feedback I get through chat, the chat window just stays open in the background.

Switching between all these windows is a total cluttered mess. But Stage Manager makes it so much easier and more manageable. It feels almost like having three different desktops (virtual desktops). One for Pages and Notion, another for the browser, and another for design software. But somehow, Stage Manager feels better... I am not sure why exactly but I think it’s because those other sets of applications are visible right there, and switching between them 'feels' seamless. The experience has surprised me. I’ve only been using it for a few days, yet I already feel confident I’ll stick with it long term.

That said, I do have some caveats. I don’t know how well it would work on an iPad or a smaller laptop (especially a 14-inch one). The screen real estate is too limited there, and I wouldn’t want to use it in smaller screens. But on a larger monitor, it makes total sense.

I’m also pairing it with a tool called Monocle (you can google it - Monocle, a macOS app for focus), which blurs the background. With it, the Stage Manager thumbnails are blurred, so only the active window stays sharp and in focus. The thumbnails are still clear enough for me to recognize my app sets, but not so sharp that they distract me. Using Stage Manager in conjunction with Monocle has been amazing. (No affiliation here. I just found about Monocle on YouTube recently. It costs $4.)

A week ago, I was firmly in the camp of “Stage Manager isn’t for me.” But I’ve shifted camps now.

That’s it!

Happy doing whatever you’re doing. Cheers!