I have to keep reminding myself that they for some reason decided to release this in September as opposed to the usual October for macOS.
I have no clue why Apple thought that was a good idea because it certainly isn’t ready for Primetime.
Same. As I've mentioned, I've been using Macs since System 7 (at a very young age, I am not
that old, lol) and save OS X 10.0, a truly brand new OS that came with warnings and the option to jump back and forth between it and OS9, Tahoe is the buggiest Mac OS release ever.
macOS 26.01 looks, feels and behaves like not just a beta, but a mid-release beta. This OS was not fully baked and it was clearly released based on timing, not because it was ready. And there is no way this 'new' design was years in the making. They either rushed it last minute or scrapped a completely different approach and had to start over, because the alleged ‘complete overhaul’ of macOS looks more like Sequoia with the same mostly flat-leaning design, a few new features, a glass
illusion theme with rounded corners applied and many QOL issues inserted to accommodate these awful design (for the sake of it) changes.
Which leads me to my issue with prominent YouTubers, Bloggers, and big Apple sites, including (and sometimes, especially) MacRumors, who all prioritize their PR relations with Apple to keep those event invites coming, which produces the most viewed content in their published libraries. As a result, save a few bombs that they just can’t avoid, they don’t always speak objectively when Apple drops the ball unless it’s a safe ding that Apple admits to as well, like AI, etc. This shields Apple from pushback by those who have large platforms, which is bad for everyone.
Then there are the prominent 'reviewers’ that gloss over or omit blatant design flaws, issues and major bugs as they take you through a perfect and safe scenario with just the right wallpaper and window placements, and on Macs running nothing but a fresh install. This gets tricky though, because as you look for more objective blogs, channels and reviews, and yes, they are out there, you’ll also notice that on the other side of the spectrum there are content creators whose only angle is to bash Apple all the time and every time simply because any negativity towards Apple will automatically generate more views, especially with their absurd and clickbait thumbnails. Just another horseshoe effect in play in these modern times.
In contrast to other macOS releases, Tahoe (as of 26.01) is a mess (iOS is a horror too, but I've not had the time to even go there), and while we can say that taste is subjective when discussing the (failed) Liquid Glass
illusions applied to the actual windowed GUI and icons (especially in Dark Mode), what’s not subjective is the fact that Apple screwed up the UX and made Tahoe the first macOS to
actually get in the user’s and their data’s way while they tout that Tahoe is the macOS that gets out of your way.
Call it gaslighting, call it Apple being delusional, but we can’t call much of the Tahoe pushback subjective. A staircase that’s too narrow and or steep makes it an objectively bad and dangerous design, the garish carpet running up the steps? Sure, that can be seen as a subjective take, but that would be just a small part of the equation. ‘Liquid Glass’ may be Apple’s latest design language, but all the changes they made to showcase it and all the bugs that the OS 26 releases introduced are also part of the Liquid Glass branding and moniker in my view.
Here’s hoping that Apple will make very necessary tweaks and changes with upcoming releases, but I think we know that they are all-in on this design direction that they’ve entered, and we’re going to see other devs/apps following suit, and at best, we may get better visibility here and there, but I am not expecting Apple to address all the QOL and UX issues that they uncessasarly introduced with this release.
arstechnica.com
