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Apple Releases macOS Tahoe 26.3

Interesting new ‘feature’:
I use Finder for Applications, and its sorted by Date Added (new/updated stuff first).
Worked perfectly fine in 26.2, but now its all messed up in 26.3, old apps are “new”/first, but not everything; its in a fully randomized order.
What the hell?
There is no Lauchpad, the new Spotlight app search is crap, now this??
Not to mention tons of small annoying visual bug of course, but thats another story.
 
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I’m from the era when Snow Leopard was introduced — an operating system focused on refinement. Not flashy features. Not major redesigns. Just refinement. It took Leopard and fixed what needed fixing, improving stability and performance in ways you could actually feel.

Today, things feel sadly different.

Click on an app shortcut and you can watch the system rebuild all the thumbnails in real time — every single time — as if it never cached them before. Try it again and you’ll see the same animation from scratch. It doesn’t even seem capable of buffering the last preview.

Want another example?

Try ejecting an external drive by dragging it to the Trash. Then wait. And wait. Eventually it disappears — with no clear feedback, no indication that the system is actually processing your request.

What once felt solid and carefully engineered now often feels inconsistent and unfinished.

These are not great times for macOS.
 
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deadspider187 said:
Safari now renders tabs correctly after not viewing them for a while. Previously, I would have to click on the URL bar and hit enter to reload the page or nothing was rendered. That fix alone was worth the update for me.
Click to expand...
I will test it out and hope this is true, but X is still having issues with memory
 
diegommc said:
I’m from the era when Snow Leopard was introduced — an operating system focused on refinement. Not flashy features. Not major redesigns. Just refinement. It took Leopard and fixed what needed fixing, improving stability and performance in ways you could actually feel.

Today, things feel sadly different.

Click on an app shortcut and you can watch the system rebuild all the thumbnails in real time — every single time — as if it never cached them before. Try it again and you’ll see the same animation from scratch. It doesn’t even seem capable of buffering the last preview.

Want another example?

Try ejecting an external drive by dragging it to the Trash. Then wait. And wait. Eventually it disappears — with no clear feedback, no indication that the system is actually processing your request.

What once felt solid and carefully engineered now often feels inconsistent and unfinished.

These are not great times for macOS.
Click to expand...
I remember upgrading to Snow Leopard, it felt as good as when I used to download lightweight versions of Windows XP from Forums (before I had a Mac)
 
I'm pretty sure 15.7.4 also includes the security updates, so I'll take that instead. I was brave enough to try 26.3 on my iPhone and watch. I'm not ready to install it on my desktop and laptop. I may wait until 27 for them.
Screenshot 2026-02-11 at 5.22.02 PM.png
 
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Anybody else having issue with the auto brightness? Suddenly after this update the screen will just randomly dim to the lowest brightness. tried a reboot, still doing it
 
They still haven't fixed the issue of alert boxes, share boxes, or quick look animation lag. I wonder when they'll fix it it's very annoying. My display is 100 Hertz so maybe that has something to do with it but Sequoia didn't have this issue.
 
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CaJG said:
Interesting new ‘feature’:
I use Finder for Applications, and its sorted by Date Added (new/updated stuff first).
Worked perfectly fine in 26.2, but now its all messed up in 26.3, old apps are “new”/first, but not everything; its in a fully randomized order.
What the hell?
There is no Lauchpad, the new Spotlight app search is crap, now this??
Not to mention tons of small annoying visual bug of course, but thats another story.
Click to expand...
Shoot. Does it still work if sorted alphabetically?
 
Theboi said:
They still haven't fixed the issue of alert boxes, share boxes, or quick look animation lag. I wonder when they'll fix it it's very annoying. My display is 100 Hertz so maybe that has something to do with it but Sequoia didn't have this issue.
Click to expand...
Mine lag too, on a Studio Display :/

I haven't updated yet but was hoping this one would fix it, it really bothers me too
 
SMB shares in the Finder sidebar still give: “” can’t be opened because the original item can’t be found. Instead of just, you know, reconnecting.
 
Hours after updating 8 other devices my Mac Mini M4 Pro on 26.2 booting externally is STILL telling me there are no updates.
 
I’m not sure how they’ll fix the lag unless they rewrite the animation. It looks great on my Alienware 4K@165Hz, and my M5 Promotion display also looks smooth, but on my ASD@60Hz none of the animations look particularly smooth, and my 2019 16” with Radeon 5500M 8GB also struggled to populate the Applications folder or App Launch for example, and Mission Control with more than two apps running, it was just better to enable reduce motion rather than deal with the jerky lag. Mission Control and even the shutdown/restart dialog have a jerkiness that isn’t super smooth compared to 165Hz. The high refresh rate smooths everything out. A new ASD@90Hz might not be high enough.
 
filchermcurr said:
SMB shares in the Finder sidebar still give: “” can’t be opened because the original item can’t be found. Instead of just, you know, reconnecting.
Click to expand...
I was horrified to see this is still shipping like this after working fine for the last 20 years of MacOS. I had a bug filed as FB20925885 which they actually responded to and said it would be fixed in build 25C5037j, but still nothing actually working as it was pre-Tahoe.

My list of regression bugs keeps getting longer and as a normal happy Apple customer, these worry me greatly for the brand.
 
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tomusko said:
Shoot. Does it still work if sorted alphabetically?
Click to expand...
Yepp, it does. Other options are fine.
The problem with date sorting is (by purely guessing), that macOS maybe resetting the date of added apps (?), but i had no time to f’k around with it.
 
Corefile said:
People used to celebrate new macOS releases but now the liquid molasses that is Tahoe is sending people over the edge.
Click to expand...
Coming from Windows to avoid this pain.
But Apple took the Microsoft approach with Tahoe it seems. 😅 Just rush things and avoid listening to feedback, let them betatest for us.
At this point, i wouldnt hope for anything major fix, maybe with 27.x on a later date.
This 26.3 looks like there are still no (visible) bugfixes.
I might be too negative, we will see.
 
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CaJG said:
Coming from Windows to avoid this pain.
But Apple took the Microsoft approach with Tahoe it seems. 😅 Just rush things and avoid listening to feedback, let them betatest for us.
At this point, i wouldnt hope for anything major fix, maybe with 27.x on a later date.
This 26.3 looks like there are still no (visible) bugfixes.
I might be too negative, we will see.
Click to expand...
Yeah it's rough. 26 is Yosemite. Hopefully 27 saves the day like El Capitan did.
 
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Having worked in product development and product engineering (physical products) I just know the wailing and gnashing of teeth that must be going on as the design and engineering teams know what needs fixing and the marketing teams are pushing to get out new visible features. There is a lack of competitive pressure on system usability as their hardware is leading and the other OS alternatives suck pretty hard. There is a need to feature freeze and consolidate but no market incentives. Also hardware power is muscling its way through software inefficiencies so they just have a lot of headroom there as well.
 
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Touch ID and unlock with watch no longer working after updating MB Air to 26.3 and updated iOS/watchOS.

Tried deleting prints, reboot, add new prints without success.
 
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