its funny how apple laughed at similar design back in the day:
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10+ macOS Tahoe Features You Should Check Out
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I really think Liquid Glass is preparation for touch screen macbooks next year. More spacing on everything, more button-like enclosures. Maybe this iteration is to work the kinks out and next year it will make sense.
In the meantime, I plan to stay on Sequoia a bit longer. First time in 20 years that I didn't update on day 1
In the meantime, I plan to stay on Sequoia a bit longer. First time in 20 years that I didn't update on day 1
Just FYI, ChatGPT says:
Apple released macOS Tahoe on September 15, which means it's now available for all Macs that support it. If you didn't download the new software yet, here are some features that might entice you to upgrade.
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- Liquid Glass - macOS Tahoe has a whole new design, and it matches the Liquid Glass that Apple brought to iOS 26. Buttons, navigation bars, widgets, the Dock, menus, side bars, and more all have a more translucent look that reflects the background underneath and refracts light. There are new icon options, including tinted and entirely clear.
- Customizable Control Center - You can rearrange the Control Center in macOS Tahoe, putting what you access most often front and center. You're also able to use multiple Control Center pages, and add third-party app controls like on iOS.
- Customizable Menu Bar - You can also rearrange the Menu Bar, plus add Control Center controls to it. Live Activities from the iPhone will also show up in the Menu Bar now through iPhone Mirroring.
- Spotlight Redesign - Spotlight is very different in macOS Tahoe, and it might take some getting used to. There's no more Launchpad, because the new Spotlight functionality has replaced it. There are four main Spotlight options to access apps, files, complete actions, and access the Clipboard History.
- Clipboard - Spotlight now saves what you copy and paste, so you have a log of what you've been doing that you can go back and reference. You can see your entire history for the day, but it is limited to 24 hours.
- Spotlight Actions - You can use Spotlight Actions to do all kinds of things without opening an app. You can send texts, emails, create shortcuts for features in apps, set timers, create Calendar events, make reminders, and much more, plus there's integration with the Shortcuts app to take things even further. There are quick access phrases you can assign to launch tasks quickly, like CH for bringing up ChatGPT.
- Folder Customization - You can assign colors to folders, and also add an emoji or character to help you better organize your files. Folders get a color tag, which is a useful way to group things together.
- Widgets - You can move widgets from the Notification Center to the desktop for quicker access. This works with widgets from Apple apps and from third-party apps.
- Shortcuts - The macOS Shortcuts app supports creating automations, much like the Shortcuts app in iOS 26. You can make Shortcuts that run at a specific time of day, with a trigger action, when an accessory connects, when an action in an app takes place, when the battery drains to a certain level, when activating a Focus mode, and more. It's super powerful when paired with Spotlight's new functionality.
- Phone App - Apple brought the Phone app to the Mac, so you can make calls, accept calls, and use features like Hold Assist and Call Screening. You still need a connected iPhone with Wi-Fi Assist turned on.
- Journal App - The Journal app is new to the Mac, and it makes a lot of sense on a platform that has a full keyboard. It works just like the iOS version of the app, but there are also some added features like the option to create multiple journals.
- Games App - The Games app is also new to the Mac. It's a cross-platform app that aggregates Mac App Store games and Apple Arcade games with your own games library, plus it provides options for playing with friends. There's a new Game Overlay that lets you adjust game settings and connect with friends without exiting the game, and if you're on battery, there's a Low Power Mode so you can play longer.
For more on the new features in macOS Tahoe, make sure to check out our roundup.
Article Link: 10+ macOS Tahoe Features You Should Check Out
That’s interesting. sw_vers is reporting macOS 26.0 (Build 25A354). That’s not a public release. Apple’s latest official line tops out with macOS Sequoia 15 in 2025.
So this must be fake news.
(just found out that I have to put this in every prompt if I want ChatGPT to give me current data)
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Completely agree, won’t be downloading it to my Mac either. Its terrible and looks so dated.
Whoever has been put of Software UI design needs to be fired immediately.
You should have hidden the favourites bar, deselected the address bar, and had the same number of icons placed on the toolbar for a fair visual comparison, but nevertheless, holy ugly, Batman. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but for Safari dev team with Firefox dev team.
So far so good but bringing applications library to spotlight is a mess especially if you have adobe apps installed. It is so messy with all this apps you not need and you cannot bring them to a new tab or folder so it does not clutter the whole library. I hate this.
Ideas are easy, good ideas executed deftly with impeccable taste and skilful discernment; that's hard.
I'll wait for another year. This one is horrendous. Apple employees should have to read all the documentation Apple wrote before 2k.
You are being sarcastic because you think Apple knows best. Apple has reversed course over the years on various things, Apple's users will let them know. Safari UI was clean and elegant before this "new" design. Some changes Apple did on macOS Tahoe are for the best such as Lunchpad merging with Spotlight for a cleaner simple window that will get more use. Some others, mostly design decisions, are not so good. Much of the design community uses Macs. You will hear many opinions, but you will also hear some experienced designers and well known geeks speak with clarity on what Apple has done right and where they are going wrong.
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Have you tried enabling these in Accessibility:
reduce transparency
bold font
button shapes
increase contrast.
HUGE improvement IMHO.
There are some aspects I like, even though a bit heavy-handed. I like the "grouping" of certain functions/buttons, to better instantly highlight that these are buttons/action items and not info-only.
I'm overall fine with apps being accessed from Spotlight, but one change could make it much better. They show a list of app categories -- I'd like to edit that. Edit both to add new categories and to rearrange how they are listed. For me, that would bring back the one way I feel Launchpad was better.
I was a little worried at first when I saw the screenshots, but I actually like the new look(both iOS and macOS). Even Safari. However, I do prefer it with 'Reduced transparency' on. I'll give it some more time, maybe I will change my mind again, but so far I'm happy.
I expected to dislike Liquid Glass on iOS and macOS. And I was surprised that I didn’t.
I’d seen the wwdc presentation, followed the betas - via YT walkthroughs - and it didn’t look that great.
Then yesterday I got to experience it for myself.
A tiny sidebar - I really like it on iOS. Yes it’s a little extreme. So was iOS 7.0. A few months later, they’d iterated, refined it and dialed it back. I expect the same thing to happen this time.
On macOS - I’m surprised how little Liquid Glass there really is.
Sure, there’s redesigned UI elements - panels, rounded corners and what not, but Liquid Glass seems to be most confined to icons, Notification Centre, widgets, the dock and menu bar. And maybe the faint translucency on the safari tool bar. And maybe some the buttons which look glassy but don’t morph.
I’d say that apple is deliberately holding Liquid Glass back on the Mac as its users tend to be more resistant to change & more importantly, they depend on their machines to not mess up as they need to be productive with them.
No doubt when apple has refined things more on iOS and iPadOS we’ll see bigger changes on the Mac.
But until then, I think it’s hard to dislike Liquid Glass on the Mac - as there’s simply very little of it!
I’d seen the wwdc presentation, followed the betas - via YT walkthroughs - and it didn’t look that great.
Then yesterday I got to experience it for myself.
A tiny sidebar - I really like it on iOS. Yes it’s a little extreme. So was iOS 7.0. A few months later, they’d iterated, refined it and dialed it back. I expect the same thing to happen this time.
On macOS - I’m surprised how little Liquid Glass there really is.
Sure, there’s redesigned UI elements - panels, rounded corners and what not, but Liquid Glass seems to be most confined to icons, Notification Centre, widgets, the dock and menu bar. And maybe the faint translucency on the safari tool bar. And maybe some the buttons which look glassy but don’t morph.
I’d say that apple is deliberately holding Liquid Glass back on the Mac as its users tend to be more resistant to change & more importantly, they depend on their machines to not mess up as they need to be productive with them.
No doubt when apple has refined things more on iOS and iPadOS we’ll see bigger changes on the Mac.
But until then, I think it’s hard to dislike Liquid Glass on the Mac - as there’s simply very little of it!
Uninstalled Tahoe.
That was a painful experience from a developer perspective because it broke so much UI in our app.The Tahoe changes to SwiftUI are just ugly.
If you have a custom UI or using other SDKs you won’t notice it much but when you lean on what SwiftUI gives you then it’s painful to see what Tahoe does to buttons, padding, color pickers and layouts.
That was a painful experience from a developer perspective because it broke so much UI in our app.The Tahoe changes to SwiftUI are just ugly.
If you have a custom UI or using other SDKs you won’t notice it much but when you lean on what SwiftUI gives you then it’s painful to see what Tahoe does to buttons, padding, color pickers and layouts.
I’d argue that this is in keeping with Apple’s UI choices back to OSX 10.0!
The original OS X release was of course, loud. Lots of pinstripes. Even on the menus. Lots of translucency. Legibility problems etc. Hmm this sounds familiar.
Apple dialled it back over the next few years and we got into a good place.
And then - the brushed metal years. Which I am still mentally scarred from.
Brushed metal on finder and safari. Makes no sense. We got it anyway.
Then we eventually got into a good place with snow leopard, which was the pinnacle of the original OS X, most people would agree.
Lion bought the iPad to Mac OS X. And we all thought it was weird to have reverse scrolling on the Mac. And then got used to it.
Then the post iOS 7 redesign of Yosemite (or was it sierra?). Garish and like fisher price many people said.
But that was understated and quite pastelly compared to the 2020 big sur redesign which was even more garish, fisher pricey and ios-y.
All I’m trying to say is - we’ve had 25 years of ‘opinionated’ redesigns on the Mac & this year is nothing new.
Many people first hate these new designs - then eventually, many argue to keep them.
Does that mean that apple is always right? No. See brushed metal.
Is it slightly tiresome that apple often seems to tweak things for the sake of newness. Yeah, it can be.
But I have faith that we’ll be in a good place by macOS 27 & if people really don’t like it, sequoia will get patches for the next year or so.
Someone on the outside is telling all the tech CEOs to do this glass circles and heavy corner rounding nonsense. We can see it all over Reddit UI and YouTube UI as soon as the first Tahoe beta dropped. It’s probably because they have some kind of hardware to sell in the next two years and they want all tech companies to shape their software to fit that new hardware.
Us users are the last thing they care about. They think they can just force bad designs down our throats and damage our apps. First they tried with metaverse nonsense, then AI, then AR, then this, then that.
Brushed metal was only for some of Apple’s own apps. It didn’t break usability and they didn’t ask third party developers to use it.
Now with SwiftUI, when Apple messes that up all developers leaning on it get messed up. These days theme and SDK are the same thing. That wasn’t the case in back in Mac OS X Tiger.
Windows has actually looked mostly decent for a while, but MacOS always had the design edge -- not merely because of aesthetics, but also because the design details were focused on usability. Today, that changes.
This is certainly true when thinking broadly. Humans generally take time to adjust to changes and often see any change as a problem or a loss at first sight. And while there are clearly positive innovations in iOS 26, I think Apple’s version of bloatware, i.e. Liquid Glass, obscures the good innovations they’ve made.