I swear I don't usually complain about UI styling updates, because it's usually not a big deal - but this looks really, really bad [1]. It's less functional with bizarre transparency choices destroying legibility, and big rounded corners taking up more dead space. And stylistically, the layouts just look unbalanced and amateurish (It reminds me of what happens when I attempt to do CSS layouts). Most Linux desktops unironically look better than this.
How has Apple still not addressed many basic UI issues, such as menu bar icons disappearing behind the notch with no way to see them?
cosmic_cheese · 1h ago
Menu extras were never intended to be treated like Windows tray items. For the earlier portion of OS X’s life, there wasn’t even a public API to create them and required a hack and a private API, and the current API is intended for ephemeral menu extras that disappear when their host app isn’t running. In short, the menubar isn’t designed for users to collect menu extras like Pokémon.
D13Fd · 26m ago
But that’s exactly how it is used, and them disappearing behind the notch feels like a bug.
EarthLaunch · 1h ago
I take it as a sign of typical increasing corporate dysfunction. Obvious problems, some even easy and uncontroversial, don't get fixed. Why?
The people who can fix them are not in control. The org must be very top-down. But Steve Jobs had a top down style, so what's the difference? Its: Using and caring about the product.
It's top down direction with the people at the top not using/caring about the product. Presumably they're concerned with other things like efficiency, stocks, clout.
wrs · 1h ago
In case you don't know, at least there's a setting to help:
And the apps that provide solutions for it, like Bartender, need screen reading permissions which I just can't bring myself to grant.
nozzlegear · 1h ago
I think they kinda did? I'm not sure where to look for a link to this info, but I remember watching a YouTube video showing the ability to group and hide menu bar icons in Tahoe so they take up less space (and therefore encroach less toward the notch).
Maybe I'm misremembering the video though.
(edit) The linked page seems to hint at it:
> Personalized controls and menu bar. Your display feels even larger with the transparent menu bar. And you have more ways to customize the controls and layout in the menu bar and Control Center, even those from third parties
iambateman · 1h ago
I love my Mac and yes, this is easily the most absurd problem. It happens to me all the time and I can’t believe they haven’t fixed it.
It was great, but they had to quietly retire it when somebody pointed out it looked like a dick.
self_awareness · 1h ago
Apparently it's not important.
brailsafe · 2m ago
[delayed]
rramon · 1h ago
They went way too far with the corner radii and pill shapes imo, looks like a Fisher Price toy. Some inner buttons retained the old radii and don't match the outer window radii anymore.
sys_64738 · 30m ago
It's truly hideous to look at. I really can't believe they went for these massively rounded corners. They're too stubborn to allow you to select an option for right angled corners again. They just tinker as there's no other real UI enhancements.
cosmic_cheese · 1h ago
It’s a trend that’s visible in other designs too, like Material 3 Expressive.
I’m not a fan of Windows but I believe that probably the best modern UI design system for desktops right now is probably the flavor of Fluent used in Windows 11. It still retains somewhat desktop-like information density, doesn’t go overboard on radii, and has a touch of depth. I’d like to see more design languages exploring in its general direction.
sitzkrieg · 1h ago
totally agree, this is kind of an embarrassing look for supposed workstations
ksec · 1h ago
Any actual interesting changes under the hood other than UI changes? I cant remember the last time macOS release that actually brings any useful feature I use.
cosmic_cheese · 1h ago
Spotlight got a major upgrade. It’s notably faster and deeply integrates with Shortcuts (letting you specify input variables, for example) among other things.
lukasb · 1h ago
Can it find my files now?
jpease · 1h ago
At a minimum, it can not find them faster!
pants2 · 1h ago
Anyone using Raycast has had these features forever. Nice to see some attention on Spotlight but it's still nowhere close to the functionality you get from Raycast.
nozzlegear · 1h ago
I've been using Raycast for a couple months but I'm hoping I can uninstall it if Spotlight is responsive enough in Tahoe. What bothers me about Raycast is the monthly subscription for certain features. I don't mind paying for Mac software – I'm quite happy to do that – but I do mind paying monthly subscriptions for Mac software with seemingly no justification for it (i.e. what monthly resources does running a "window command" use on Raycast that justifies locking it behind a monthly subscription?)
pants2 · 1h ago
What's the window command? I'm able to use things like "Top Left Sixth" on the free plain. AFAIK you only the pro for the AI features.
nozzlegear · 59m ago
I thought Pro was only for AI features as well (that's what it said when I installed Raycast), but this dialog is saying Pro is required for custom window layouts as well. I only discovered this today when I was trying to create a new command to paste the screenshot from my clipboard into Preview for OCR.
Raycast is interesting but I’m not going to touch it so long as VC funding is involved. Alfred has been doing the job well enough, only requires me to buy a new version a couple times per decade, and isn’t going to become enshittified because there’s no VCs to come knocking looking for a profit.
treetalker · 48m ago
+1 for Alfred. I'm a proud Power Pack / lifetime-license holder from the beginning. Very few outfits anymore have the chops to both offer and make good on a single-payment, long-lasting product with frequent and excellent substantive updates.
Mad props and three cheers for the Alfred team!
cosmic_cheese · 41m ago
It’s insanely tiny and efficient for what it does, too. One of the only apps that’s so small that updates are done downloading within a second or two of clicking “Download”, even on a mediocre connection!
daveidol · 1h ago
I'm curious if it will get me to stop using Alfred
unsnap_biceps · 1h ago
Alfred leverages the spotlight indexes, so Alfred will also get the speed up
ryandrake · 1h ago
It's been so long since Apple has released anything in either iOS or macOS that excited me as a user. I don't seem to be their target customer anymore.
The only reason I even have to "upgrade" to a higher version number is how quickly app developers (including Apple themselves) drop support for older OS's. My iPhone which is stuck on iOS 15 runs just as well as the day I bought it, but every other app I download tells me (in essence) "LOL your phone is too old and our developers are too lazy to keep our software running on it. Upgrade your OS or get lost loser".
That's literally the only thing motivating me to upgrade anymore: The treadmill of software compatibility. Apple doesn't have to innovate--they just need to make sure the ecosystem is broken after ~5-10 years or so.
mrweasel · 1h ago
Isn't that true for pretty much every OS? The feature set we need to be able to do our jobs and computing hobbies have been available for two decades.
Operating systems like Debian is sufficiently boring that I can just upgrade and continue computing. macOS upgrades have become a small gamble, the stuff that I depend on may not continue to work, or at least it will take a good deal of work. There are however no reason to upgrade, so the risk isn't really worth the hassle of upgrading and breaking Java or Python.
ryandrake · 1h ago
You can still get software that installs and works perfectly on Windows 7 (released 16 years ago). Good luck finding software that even installs on Snow Leopard (released 16 years ago), let alone works well.
cosmic_cheese · 1h ago
The flip side of this is that every attempt at advancing the Windows UI framework story beyond win32/MFC and WPF has failed and the platform itself is steeped neck deep in technical debt.
skydhash · 1h ago
Sometimes it’s Apple and Google that are forcing developers. The system is perfectly capable of running the app (you’re not using any new API) but store policies force you to add the restriction anyway.
jmkni · 1h ago
Yeah we are in this situation right now with an App, we literally can't update it unless we target a more modern version of the SDK, which introduces breaking changes
ryandrake · 1h ago
This problem could be mitigated by Apple making older versions of software available. Then you could continue to release updates, and users on older devices could continue to use earlier versions of your app on their devices.
Apple actually partially solves this: as a user, if I have EVER downloaded Older Version X of an app, and then go to download it again, they let me. However, if I have never downloaded the old version and go to download it, they just say “this app is not compatible with your device.” and don't give me the chance to get the older, compatible version. I don’t know why they make this distinction.
Worse are the third party apps where the old version still actually runs, but the developer deliberately blocks you with a full-screen “go away” dialog (I’m looking at you, FlightAware).
cosmic_cheese · 1h ago
Support rapidly being dropped happens mostly with smaller devs, because when resources are limited in the Apple platform world you can either adopt newer APIs and language features or you can support old OSes 3+ versions back. Trying to do both lands you in feature check conditional hell and requires a large matrix of test devices to ensure that nothing is being broken.
It’s less of a burden for corporate giants which is why you see much longer support timelines from e.g. Google.
The on-device foundation models framework is interesting to me. So far the responses have not been good but the potential is appealing.
NaomiLehman · 45m ago
I was in Beta since Beta 2, and I saw massive improvement in energy efficiency on my MacBook Air M2 and Pro Max M4
asdhtjkujh · 1h ago
I should know better, but I'm still surprised they're shipping this version of Liquid Glass. Performance is stable but there are so many UI bugs and inconsistencies that haven't been fixed from early betas, including low-hanging fruit that a second year design student would notice. I don't mind change or interface elements moving around but keynote-level UI overhauls should be fully implemented at launch, otherwise people are stuck using a broken OS for a year.
At this point I'm doubtful that these will be addressed in the 26.X updates, so the wait begins for 27.0...
jazzyjackson · 1h ago
"Reimagined with Liquid Glass, macOS Tahoe is at once fresh and familiar. Apps bring more focus to your content. You can personalize your Mac like never before. And everything just flows into place."
what is this grammar
Insanity · 1h ago
I think this is just 'sales writing'. As if written for a trailer video.
spandrew · 28m ago
Apple used to be like... the standard for how to do this.
IMO we're losing a lot of writing craftsmanship across many industries with Gen X'ers retiring
wrs · 1h ago
It's Apple house style. Marketing writes in tiny sentences. Even fragments. Makes the copy more punchy. And it's been like this for decades.
joshstrange · 1h ago
I'm normally on about 1 year delay on upgrading macOS for a multitude of reasons. I might not wait the full year but something else will have to force me to upgrade within the first few months.
I'd heard from people who were running the betas that it's not ready and they are surprised Tahoe wasn't delayed.
No way I'm upgrading any time soon to Apple's least cared for OS with a change this big (and this untested).
stouset · 52m ago
I'll be honest, I hear this every single time. But I've never delayed upgrading, and I've never regretted it. That's not to say every upgrade has been a strict improvement, but going back to my first Mac at 10.4 (Tiger) I've never wished I had stayed on an older version. We'll see how I feel after going to Tahoe, maybe this will be the one that breaks the trend.
Windows, on the other hand…
BruceEel · 1h ago
I'm not quite sure what to make of Liquid Glass, I developed an allergy of sorts to the term while listening to the keynote.
Any 'relevant' new features for power users / cmd line geeks that you know of?
Not a direct response to your question but (I guess like you) I often find with these releases that the changes I actually care about aren’t flashy enough to even warrant a mention in the presentations or on the main web page.
There seems to be some expansion of screen time, finally, but I haven’t been able to figure out what it is yet based on the only *os 26 update I’ve done so far is the public beta on a single Apple TV.
downrightmike · 1h ago
I think we'll have to wait for benchmarks to see if this is a leopard or a snow leopard
nicbou · 56m ago
Okay that seems pretty nice. A lot of small improvements to day-to-day use. This is what I want from a desktop OS update.
pacifika · 1h ago
First macOS version I’m holding off on. Just too unusable.
WorldPeas · 1h ago
are they giving any hints that in high vis/accessibility modes this will be fully disabled? I've been largely insulated from changes like this for a while by that, if that were to change however, more drastic measures may be needed
karlgkk · 1h ago
I'm on the beta right now and a "<<" icon has appeared.
It's embarrassing that it took them that long but they have in fact fixed it.
xnx · 1h ago
I had thought Tahoe was the first version to drop Intel CPU support, but it looks like it will be the last version to still support Intel Macs.
mikestew · 1h ago
Two of the latest Intel MacBooks, and the last Intel iMac, so technically, yes, there’s still some Intel support in there. My 2019 iMac is one version too old.
jgbuddy · 1h ago
I really hope spotlight didn't just get ruined
highwaylights · 1h ago
I mean it’s gotten bad already, but I think people’s hope is that they fixed it that if I type in a file name I work with all the time it’ll be the first result. At least that’s what I’m hoping for.
GuinansEyebrows · 1h ago
that and some kind of weighted memory for search history. i use photoshop almost daily, photos once a month or so, and photo booth once a year, but they appear in reverse order based on alphabetization.
robin_reala · 1h ago
A reminder, if you dislike the liquid glass look, that going into System settings / Accessibility / Display and toggling “Increase contrast” gets you a properly nice design with actual borders and solid backgrounds. 100% recommended.
everdrive · 1h ago
Back on Sequoia, but this is great advice, thank you!
ddtaylor · 1h ago
This seems like a relatively minor update.
jsheard · 1h ago
This is the last ever version with Intel support, right? That's a milestone of sorts.
highwaylights · 1h ago
Which is a bit sad. There were some choices that didn’t pan out in the last Intel era (butterfly, touchbar), but part of me loved those changes (the keyboard and the touchbar felt super premium, until you tried to work with them for any amount of time).
triyambakam · 1h ago
Disappointed with the background image. I was expecting a similar treatment like with Sequoia and previous versions with a beautiful and inspiring scene in nature. Instead it is vaguely inspired by water?
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/09/macos-26-tahoe-the-a...
The people who can fix them are not in control. The org must be very top-down. But Steve Jobs had a top down style, so what's the difference? Its: Using and caring about the product.
It's top down direction with the people at the top not using/caring about the product. Presumably they're concerned with other things like efficiency, stocks, clout.
Maybe I'm misremembering the video though.
(edit) The linked page seems to hint at it:
> Personalized controls and menu bar. Your display feels even larger with the transparent menu bar. And you have more ways to customize the controls and layout in the menu bar and Control Center, even those from third parties
Apple…if you’re listening…please fix this.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_Strip
Solves this exact issue.
I’m not a fan of Windows but I believe that probably the best modern UI design system for desktops right now is probably the flavor of Fluent used in Windows 11. It still retains somewhat desktop-like information density, doesn’t go overboard on radii, and has a touch of depth. I’d like to see more design languages exploring in its general direction.
https://imgur.com/a/6OeqJYQ
Mad props and three cheers for the Alfred team!
The only reason I even have to "upgrade" to a higher version number is how quickly app developers (including Apple themselves) drop support for older OS's. My iPhone which is stuck on iOS 15 runs just as well as the day I bought it, but every other app I download tells me (in essence) "LOL your phone is too old and our developers are too lazy to keep our software running on it. Upgrade your OS or get lost loser".
That's literally the only thing motivating me to upgrade anymore: The treadmill of software compatibility. Apple doesn't have to innovate--they just need to make sure the ecosystem is broken after ~5-10 years or so.
Operating systems like Debian is sufficiently boring that I can just upgrade and continue computing. macOS upgrades have become a small gamble, the stuff that I depend on may not continue to work, or at least it will take a good deal of work. There are however no reason to upgrade, so the risk isn't really worth the hassle of upgrading and breaking Java or Python.
Apple actually partially solves this: as a user, if I have EVER downloaded Older Version X of an app, and then go to download it again, they let me. However, if I have never downloaded the old version and go to download it, they just say “this app is not compatible with your device.” and don't give me the chance to get the older, compatible version. I don’t know why they make this distinction.
Worse are the third party apps where the old version still actually runs, but the developer deliberately blocks you with a full-screen “go away” dialog (I’m looking at you, FlightAware).
It’s less of a burden for corporate giants which is why you see much longer support timelines from e.g. Google.
But yeah, I agree with you.
At this point I'm doubtful that these will be addressed in the 26.X updates, so the wait begins for 27.0...
what is this grammar
IMO we're losing a lot of writing craftsmanship across many industries with Gen X'ers retiring
I'd heard from people who were running the betas that it's not ready and they are surprised Tahoe wasn't delayed.
No way I'm upgrading any time soon to Apple's least cared for OS with a change this big (and this untested).
Windows, on the other hand…
There seems to be some expansion of screen time, finally, but I haven’t been able to figure out what it is yet based on the only *os 26 update I’ve done so far is the public beta on a single Apple TV.
It's embarrassing that it took them that long but they have in fact fixed it.
https://mrmacintosh.com/download-the-new-macos-tahoe-wallpap... has them at the bottom of the link