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After installing this second beta, I found that Safari, Mail, Notes, and TextEdit all QUIT just after launching. Had to switch to Chrome and SublimeText. How can a beta be released with such deficiencies? Is it because my MBP has an i9 Intel chip?
Yes, multiple Feedback filed! Feedback also Quits but is (barely) usable…
 
Is there an off switch for the glass nonsense? It's a usability nightmare.
I would hope not. Maintaining legacy features and code is not Apple’s priority and often causes issues. You are, of course, free to not upgrade to Tahoe. That's your decision to make. In the same vein Macworld is reporting that macOS 26 Tahoe drops support for Firewire. The IEEE 1394 format is no longer in any major use but there will be user complaints about legacy hardware like cameras (photo/video) that use the IEEE 1394 format and legacy Firewire drives as well. My understanding is that the current Thunderbolt 3->Thunderbolt 2->Firewire 800 adapters will no longer work in macOS 26. Time marches on.
 
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  • Disagree
Reactions: AndyUnderscoreR
I have been using it and I understand that this is a very early developer beta, (I'll honestly probably hop over to the public beta later) but this is a much bigger change than I previously thought but a lot of things still can be tweaked obviously.

I am glad that they reverted the little Mac Man as to me it felt like disrespecting the brand almost. I mean after Apple itself, Mac is it's oldest product.

As someone else mentioned, dark mode is completely broken in Safari in an almost jarring way. Some other apps I use are broken, but it isn't a huge deal for now as I am sure they will update their own apps shortly to work with it.

A few other things I feel that don't make sense is just unusual separations in the design, lines that just seem to be there to be there, and the dock seems oddly smaller and spaced out now.

Not everything is terrible though. They definitely have some interesting improvements with AI (although Siri is still Siri), and a lot of the other design flourishes actually don't look bad at all.
 
Black on gray vs. white on gray definitely seems like more contrast to me.
Yes, for some window elements, but at least for me, I don't see a black outline replacing a white outline around sidebar list text as introducing more contrast, at least as I understand the term. I've been seeing it as adding a visual element that's distracting since it doesn't seem necessary, for the user, to differentiate the area of the list text as much as this line does. It seems to needlessly add a second outline around most of the list text that it encloses, when the outline around the entire window itself that all of this is located on, plus the line between the list text and the body of the window, to its right, seems to be enough, at least for me, especially considering that the outline around the entire window gets nicely thicker when "Increase contrast" is on. Adding the cartouche line creates two parallel lines next to each other to the left, top, and bottom of the list text, making the extra cartouche line seem redundant on those sides, and even quaint and retro:

Screenshot 2025-06-29 at 1.51.14 AM.png


Maybe all we need is to stick with the nice clean look of a line only between the list text and the body of the window, to its right, as in macOS 15 Sequoia and prior versions:

Image 6-29-25 at 2.14 AM.jpg


The only way I can get close to this look again, when using Tahoe, is to turn off "Increase contrast", which has side effects I don't want, including removing the line dividing the sidebar list text from the items to its right. Tahoe's cartouche around groupings of controls, whether buttons or lists, is an iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS graphical thing, but it seems out of place in macOS's Finder and System Settings windows, since unlike in those other OSs (because they don't have "legacy" windows quite like these), it produces a double-line effect by placing a rounded rectangle within and close to the left end of another rounded rectangle, and especially when you see it only when you select the non-default setting of "Increase contrast".

My first image, of a macOS 26/Tahoe Finder window, shows another of my little peeves: there are now two pathname entries shown at the top of each Finder window, with the upper one being truncated since it's inline with the Toolbar items. This is the way it's been for several macOS releases. But this truncated pathname entry now becomes redundant since the fuller pathname is now shown just below it, so if the redundant upper pathname entry were removed, there would be more space for Toolbar items. The new longer pathname entry at the top of Finder windows also seems to make the Path Bar near the bottom of Finder windows redundant, or vice versa.

As I continue to play with the "Increase contrast" toggle in Tahoe, going back and forth with it, I can see how the cartouche is one way to successfully differentiate (or over-differentiate) the list text from the rest of the window it's in, and also from things (other windows, etc.) behind the window that the outlined list text appears in. But instead of changing the list-enclosing line from white to black, I'd like to see other approaches, even user-controllable options, like changing the background behind the list text to a slightly darker shade of gray, though maybe this would interfere with readability of the list text, or a light color, which might not reduce text readability.

I'm sure Apple has thought most of this through, and found that adding the cartouche line is a simple way of doing the job without adding extra issues like black text on a slightly dark gray or color-tinted background, without going down the rabbit hole of too many user-selectable theming options that might be confusing. But maybe giving us a choice by adding at least one or two more user-customizable contrast options to the overall interface, or even just Finder windows, would be nice.
 
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In both versions of the beta I’ve been unable to log in to the App Store. It looks like Find My is asking me to log in too, and for both it fails. Is anybody else getting that behaviour?

Found the answer to my question - I didn’t know this, but virtualised versions of MacOS don’t support logging in to App Store or using things like Find My.

More info here: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/120468
 
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