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Apple Releases Second macOS Tahoe 26.4 Public Beta

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Apple today provided public beta testers with the second releases of upcoming macOS Tahoe 26.4, tvOS 26.4, and watchOS 26.4 updates for testing purposes. The public betas comes a day after Apple provided the beta to developers, and a week after Apple seeded the first betas.

macOS-Tahoe-26-Thumb.jpg

After signing up for beta testing on Apple's beta site, public beta testers can download the updates using the Software Update section in the settings app for each update.

macOS Tahoe 26.4 includes several new features. The Compact tab layout has been reimplemented in Safari for those who missed having the option in earlier versions of macOS Tahoe, and there is a new Charge Limit feature that lets Mac users select a maximum charge level that ranges from 80 percent to 100 percent.

Apple silicon Mac users will see now see warnings about apps that are still using Rosetta 2, because Apple is phasing out Rosetta after macOS 27. macOS Tahoe is also the final version of macOS that will run on Intel-based Macs, and Apple is working to remove all lingering Intel features.

We could see additional features in upcoming versions of macOS Tahoe 26.4, such as new emoji characters. Apple is expected to test the update for the next several weeks, with a launch planned for the spring.

Article Link: Apple Releases Second macOS Tahoe 26.4 Public Beta
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2026/02/24/apple-seeds-macos-tahoe-26-4-public-beta-2/
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k1121j said:
I wonder if removing the intel stuff will make it operate better for Apple silicon. Hmm
Click to expand...
well one would hope this will result in much smaller full installers and ipsw files. the sizes are getting ridiculous. they are approaching 20GB!
 
capamac said:
Looks kinda potato
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You have no artistic vision 😁

* While there are some few things to appreciate in the new(TM), non-skeuomorphist UI, my humble opinion is that if this is the future for them? They need look hard at KDE Plasma. And i mean hard. What people can have, easily too, when no one has a "vision" to enforce upon them, and just because at that.
 
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k1121j said:
I wonder if removing the intel stuff will make it operate better for Apple silicon. Hmm
Click to expand...
I imagine that would depend on if they're using "fat binaries" (binaries that contain both X86-64 and AArch64 code) or not. I'm not sure if fat binaries are even a thing any more. They were in the 680x0/PPC days.

If they had been using fat binaries then going to AArch64-only code would reduce the amount of SSD space required for an install.

If they have not been using them, then the installer was always installing only AArch64 binaries on M-series cpus and installing only x86-64 binaries on Intel Macs, and your required SSD space would be see little or no difference.

I imagine the use of fat binaries or not would primarily affect SSD space and not affect performance otherwise (speed of operation, etc.)

If there were some apps that were X86-64-only even on M-series Macs, then these would have been running via Rosetta, which has a 10-40 percent performance penalty cost. So if they were converted to AArch64-only versions then there would be a moderate perofrmance increase.

Just guessing here.
 
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k1121j said:
I wonder if removing the intel stuff will make it operate better for Apple silicon
Click to expand...

Overall, no, it won't.

You'd gain some hard drive space and only because the way it functions entails some extra storage required per individual instaled app. Even so, you'd need a healthy amount of applications removed/replaced before it made a noticeable difference to you; and again, that would be in terms of some miniscule storage freed on your drive. Nothing to do with performance.

(if you have your HDD near full, that can affect performance, but that's i) on you, ii) nothing to do with Rosetta. If you're on a recent Mac, you should Google about NVMes, the percentage of storage best kept free, why, etc.)
 
losthismarbles said:
You have no artistic vision 😁

* While there are some few things to appreciate in the new(TM), non-skeuomorphist UI, my humble opinion is that if this is the future for them? They need look hard at KDE Plasma. And i mean hard. What people can have, easily too, when no one has a "vision" to enforce upon them, and just because at that.
Click to expand...
KDE Plasma is just a windows skin basically. its nothing like MacOS
 
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I am unable to download this update. I keep getting the following message:

"Failed to prepare the software update. Please try again.
An error occurred while downloading the selected updates. Please check your internet connection and try again."
 
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silvertech said:
KDE Plasma is just a windows skin basically. its nothing like MacOS
Click to expand...
Plasma is a desktop environment (DE), not an OS. It sits on top of the Linux OS. You can swap out the DE on the base OS install. It's not even hard, I've done it and I'm not a Linux hacker. You can have multiple DEs on the same machine and select the one you want at login.

If you want a MacOS look-alike Elementary OS also sits on top of a Linux base. You can also doodle up a Gnome version that looks like MacOS, see Zorin. The base installation is supposedly made up to look like Windows 10 (It's been so long since I had to use Windows I forgot what it looks like so I can't vouch for how close Zorin got it.) but it also has several other desktop environments available.

Interestingly given that MacOS started as BSD Unix as did FreeBSD, here is the list of supported FreeBSD desktops;

docs.freebsd.org

Chapter 8. Desktop Environments

This chapter demonstrates how to install numerous desktop environments, including web browsers, productivity software, document viewers, and financial software
docs.freebsd.org docs.freebsd.org

In principle Apple could port anything on that list to work on MacOS. But no, Apple is as bad as Microsoft in their 'my way is the only way' outlook. Apple is also worse than Nvidia at releasing the hardware specifications so people can port Linux to their hardware, even the M1 and M2 systems that Apple is no longer selling. The reverse engineering effort the Asahi Linus people are making should not have been necessary. They should have just had to read the book to determine how the hardware works. That applies to the previous generation's T2 chip too.
 
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jmmarus said:
I am unable to download this update. I keep getting the following message:

"Failed to prepare the software update. Please try again.
An error occurred while downloading the selected updates. Please check your internet connection and try again."
Click to expand...
Me too, among others. I've tried several of the ways suggested elsewhere, and none works. Luckily beta 1 still works.
 
Tranel said:
Be careful with this beta. The developer one on Monday has some significant issues, especially with tools like AdGuard, Malwarebytes, etc. I had several crashes and reboots of my M1 MacBook Pro.
Click to expand...
Same here. On my M1 Macbook Pro Max, starting with macOS 26.3 beta 2, and still with 26.4 beta 2, I've had several random, complete system freezes, with no response to keyboard, trackpad, etc., followed by an automatic restart after about a minute, while using Chrome with AdGuard installed (though with some other apps running too, like LibreOffice). But I don't know if this is coincidental with your configuration.
 
silvertech said:
KDE Plasma is just a windows skin basically. its nothing like MacOS
Click to expand...

It is -to you, end result- a "skin", just like what you see on your monitor, right now, is a "skin".
Things go deeper than that.
But i'll leave that up to you. My personal opinion, you missed the context here or at least what's inferred by it.

As to "like MacOS".. one could make Tahoe look and act like Windows on a surface level. Would that make it not a MacOS?

So back to "skins" as you put it, the initial comment was on what's on offer, elsewhere, for UIs of this style.
I even mentioned it, non-skeuomorphic UIs. Just like Tahoe is, and Sequoia before it and so on. That means the UI currently occupying your monitor presently. There exist other kinds.
Had you worked with such UIs elsewhere, you would have noticed how badly Tahoe fairs in comparison.
Even if it suits you personally, which i respect, the options it could have had, ie options others might have enjoyed? Are lacking.

That is solely due to "vision". Someone decided eeeeeverybody shall work this way and this way only.
 
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silvertech said:
KDE Plasma is just a windows skin basically. its nothing like MacOS
Click to expand...
Plasma desktop is nowhere near like windows11, only because it has a panel at the botton and a menu it doesnt mean is like win11, actually you have a global menu like mac, and tons of widgets and the best of all is that is FAAAAST!!

Dolphin file manager is one of the best in my opinion, I can open a folder with more than 3k files like a breathe when other OS get stuck becasue of so many tiny files, finder included. Apple should focus on efficiency not gimmick visual effects that do nothing.
 
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jmmarus said:
I am unable to download this update. I keep getting the following message:

"Failed to prepare the software update. Please try again.
An error occurred while downloading the selected updates. Please check your internet connection and try again."
Click to expand...
I get the same error. Tried multiple times. Mac Studio M2 Ultra. Not sure what to do.
 
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