macOS "Tahoe" 26.1 released: Is it time to upgrade from Sequoia?

[PotentPeas]

I'd like to try this poll after each minor macOS upgrade is released (X.1, X.2). I'm curious how community sentiment changes over time, and it could also help other users gauge the community consensus on whether upgrading at this time is a "good idea" or not.

The poll will remain open for 30 days. I'll post another one when macOS 26.2 drops. If Apple follows their typical release pattern, the release window for macOS 26.2 is mid-December. (I will not post a poll for 26.1.1. If there is such a release, it will most likely include just a small number of targeted fixes and won't change the overall picture by much.)

———

As someone who values stability and "things working right" more than access to the latest new features, I'm holding off on upgrading to Tahoe until I believe that it will be a reasonably smooth experience.

With 26.0, reading comments and posts from the community, I saw a lot of repeatedly noted issues. For example: Dock randomly going to autohide. Network printers not working. UI elements not cleanly meshing. Not having certain icons prepared in the new style (i.e. external hard drive icon). Contacts app much less usable than before. Rounded corners on PDFs. Impossible to get "back" in the TV app in some cases. UI animations or video playback in various apps being stuttery, when that was not the case before the upgrade. Electron app performance issues. Large "hit box" for the green maximize button at the top of windows. Finder exhibiting unexpected behavior. And so on...

To me, it really seems like Apple pushed Tahoe out to hit a self-imposed deadline, and it was still somewhat "beta" quality at launch; they did not wait for it to be adequately polished.

I am interested in your take, after using macOS Tahoe 26.1 for a bit. Did they make any improvements that meaningfully fix or improve any issues you were experiencing with 26.0? Should a "regular" user upgrade yet? Is it "safe"? Or is it still not worth it, because of the bugs and UI jank?

Vote in the poll, and comment if you like!

Thanks.

(I'm putting in a request to have this topic pinned/sticky.)

———

For myself, in addition to "feeling out the community", I'm also waiting for updates to or compatibility confirmation for certain key apps that may be more sensitive breaking with an OS upgrade:

• ✅ Parallels
• ✅ CrossOver
• ✅ BetterDisplay
• ✅ TG Pro
• ❌ Ice
  • (Ice currently has beta support only.)

 

[excelsior.ink]

VMware Fusion here. I noticed I can now see how much memory each VM is using, this is an improvement over Sequioa and 26.0.1 (I used both during the last month).
I think I will stick with 26.1 this time, looks stable enough for me. Probably not yet perfect but good enough, and it looks the same for iOS 26.1

 

[Basic75]

I'm curious how community sentiment changes over time

Apart from the usual issues with such a poll I'd be interested to see the "No" split into "No but I haven't tried it myself" and "No and I'm already using it".

 

[CalMin]

If things are working right for you, and there’s no killer feature for you, then don’t upgrade. I’ve found it to be mostly fine but other than the fresh coat of ‘Liquid Glass’ paint, there’s not much to be excited over really.

 

[PotentPeas]

Apart from the usual issues with such a poll I'd be interested to see the "No" split into "No but I haven't tried it myself" and "No and I'm already using it".

Noted, I think I can work with that.

And yeah, I get that this is a bit "unscientific" and will have some issues, but I thought it might be an interesting data point for some people who are wondering about this specific question (and I've seen a few threads about it pop up... hello @nathanz1lla).

The split is pretty close to 50/50 right now which is sort of what I expected, given the current discourse.

 

[Dr. McKay]

I was waiting for 26.1 but I just learned that there are issues with Indesign version 20 which I still need for a client of mine. Until that's resolved, I'll be staying on Sequioa (Macbook Pro 14" M1 Pro).

Will keep my iPhone on iOS 18 for the moment as well ; it seems that iOS26.1 hasn't solved the battery drain issue yet (I have an iPhone 13 Pro).

I've updated my iPad to iOS26 (2022 iPad 10th Gen) but I must say that it's far from being as smooth as iOS18 was, even after turning off all effects and transparency. I just use it for some reading and watching youtube, so no harm done but if this was a work machine, I would not be happy...

 

[turbineseaplane]

Absolutely not!

Goodness gracious no.

Every single visual change looks like quite a regression to my eyes.

 

[hieubui]

UI animation lags are still there. No upgrade!

 

[zenmacx]

No Thank You

Just No

 

[bogdanw]

"99 Ways to Say No" https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20130501190655-52397036-100-ways-to-say-no
"Defer Tahoe for 90 days"
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/defer-tahoe-for-90-days.2465304/

 

[nmt1900]

90 days will run out in mid-December, so then 26.2 will probably be out.

There is no good way to vote here as there's no definitive answer to the question, because "mileages do vary". For me 26.1 UI responsiveness and speed is actually back to where it was when I got this M3 Air I am writing this on (which is a big change) - except when Orion is running with lots of tabs open and is not hidden - then UI animation, scrolling and video playback framerates will drop drastically (maybe even to less than 20 fps). In addition there are other apps that are horribly buggy and still straight out unusable on Tahoe and can contribute to negative experience. One can complain and then remember that "oh right I had this awful Bartender 6 running" or whatever...

 

[tkermit]

Rogue Amoeba says it's time to upgrade:

Consider Upgrading to Tahoe Now​

We advise a conservative approach when it comes to upgrading your Mac’s operating system, but with Apple’s 26.1 update, we’re confident in recommending Tahoe for our users. The fixes detailed above make Tahoe the best OS for most users.

MacOS 26 (Tahoe) Includes Important Audio-Related Bug Fixes

When you upgrade to Tahoe, you’ll benefit from multiple bug fixes. Be sure you move up 26.1 for the best experience.

weblog.rogueamoeba.com

 

[Starfia]

A good idea for a poll for people wondering about technical issues.

Not really covered by the poll: if you're really hesitant about the system interface visuals by comparison to Sequoia, then 26.1 helps only a touch.

 

[oKUtItyp]

my only concern is the performance. will tahoe slow down my mac compare to sequoia?

 

[capamac]

I just tried iOS 26.x for the first time (for months now, I've only seen it in photos and videos).

It looks pretty dumb.

In fact I'd say it's the dumbest looking Apple OS I've seen.

I've yet to see macOS 26.x IRL but from what I've seen on iOS 26.x I am glad I've stuck with macOS Sequoia. I have zero desire to switch, like, ever.

Been a Mac user since the 1990s with System 7.x.

 

[chabig]

It looks pretty dumb.

For the first day, then you won't notice any more. That's been my experience. Performance is great.

 

[nathanz1lla]

Hello,

Today, I have updated to macOS Tahoe and then cleaned reinstalled it since at the release of 26.1 and let me tell you. It's smoother than the release versions like macOS 26.0 and 26.0.1, but Sequoia I think I felt.... Not yet.

Some parts in Tahoe are more faster than Sequoia like the System Settings app when you scroll in Sequoia it might be jittery, and it is not how slow your mac's are, but the refresh rate. If you use a higher refresh rate than your screen it is speedy. But on Tahoe, I think they rewritten the sidebar and other parts in the app.

So Tahoe has some faster parts than Sequoia, while Sequoia has still its speed. So if you prefer consistency and stability I recommend that you should not update, but stay on Sequoia and wait for updates 'till .2 . Because during the Sequoia days I downgraded to Sonoma, because of how much resources does Sequoia use. But in macOS 15.2 in December I updated and it was fine, same on Sequoia.

 

[SalisburySam]

I’ve consulted my go-to decision-maker, my Magic 8 Ball, several times. I’ve gotten back three “Outlook Not So Good” and two “My Reply is No” responses. Pretty overwhelmingly damning to move away from Sequoia, so it’s a “No” for me.

 

[PotentPeas]

I just tried iOS 26.x for the first time (for months now, I've only seen it in photos and videos).

It looks pretty dumb.

A little off topic maybe, but I wanted to point out — I do feel like the "tinted" liquid glass option improves the experience in iOS 26.1. I was actually running iOS 26 since 26.0 beta 8. There were a number of times when the transparent liquid glass controls wouldn't be able to tell whether they should be "dark" or "light" and were hard to see over the background. The tinted option mostly alleviates that.

The same option was added to macOS 26.1 but it appears that the change it makes is very subtle by comparison. I hope that they continue to refine this. Liquid glass "looks cool" (to me) but it has some usability issues.

 

[SDAVE]

Working well on M1 Max with 64GB RAM, however on a pimped out 2019 Intel Mac Pro it's slower. A tip for Intel users, turn off Liquid Glass (reduce transparency in Accessability) and you should get better performance. I will turn this back on when it's stable, hopefully around .3 and .4.

It will definitely get better over time, it seems that there's some nasty memory leaks.

I don't recommend it in a production machine tbh, especially for Intel users. I would assume Apple will bring full performance by the end cycle of Tahoe, which is the last macOS update for Intel users.

 

[sammcj]

Other than the terrible UI performance (as I've just noted in this post) the whole UI feels like "Fischer Price, My First OS", very childish UI design, lots of padding everywhere and it feels like I've lost a lot of usable screen real estate.

 

[n-evo]

Ice

I only used it to hide certain menu extras I couldn’t disable. macOS Tahoe offers that natively now.

 

[Technerd108]

I updated my M2 Mac as soon as Tahoe was released. On my Mac it runs rather well. As others have said there are areas where it seems performance has improved and some areas where it is the same or a bit slower. This release has been stable for me. I have had no major issues, glitches or errors. The subsequent . releases have improved things and I know things will continue to be refined and improved by Apple.

Personally I like Tahoe a lot. It has some infancy issues and Apple dropped the ball in UX design in some ways. I am just so extremely tired of the flat UI design that we have had for the past decade or two on all platforms. It is so boring. I understand that a UI should mostly get out of the way but it can look good doing so. In fact, the early Liquid Glass was iconic with its 3d animations. Having an OS be efficient and having it look good or bad are two separate issues. We always want increased efficiency in the UI but we can also have a nice looking desktop that isn't monochromatic and dull all the time!

People say this new UI looks cartoonish, garish, for children, etc. Well some of us don't like staring at the same boring UI for decades and like to mix things up. I just wish the new Liquid Glass looked more like the old one.

In terms of UI the amount of eye candy or animations etc. on newer modern Macs should be a non issue. The gpu on all m series Macs is more than capable of some fancy UI looks and animations without using much resources. If they could do it with Tiger than why not with Tahoe?? It is the integration of useless features that keep bloating the OS and draining resources. AI is not something I need baked into the OS beyond cpu level algorithms. Apple Intelligence should be a downloadable app. AI is useful for a limited use case at the moment and most people don't need it. Those that do need AI for whatever reason can seek it out and use it.

I do prefer Apple's way of putting AI into the OS and the ability to just turn it off. They should never get rid of this feature!

So more Liquid Glass old school and less AI please!!

 

[JMalone]

I am just so extremely tired of the flat UI design that we have had for the past decade or two on all platforms.

Liquid Glass on macOS, iOS and iPadOS is still flat. That’s the only good thing about it. If they did 3D animation turd the faithful and the whole internet would throw hard.

People say this new UI looks cartoonish, garish, for children, etc. Well some of us don't like staring at the same boring UI for decades and like to mix things up.

That is the same attitude that screwed many software companies up and even some device makers thought they could make their products snazzy and they died hard. BeOS tried to be flashy and different. Died. Palm eventually released a snazzy interface and then died. Vista had a futuristic look at me interface. World hated. Windows 8 tried to cause a post-desktop revolution. World hated.

Apple computers are not like buying shoes. Everyone gets the same OS. If you want flashiness don’t assume everyone wants it. Most, or almost all, people just want to open an app and not see text floating on glass that clashes with text under the glass.

If you head to dev forums across the web there are plenty of devs irritated by their apps breaking in nasty ways when they did not want to be forced to change anything for no good reason.

 

[n-evo]

That is the same attitude that screwed many software companies up and even some device makers thought they could make their products snazzy and they died hard. BeOS tried to be flashy and different. Died. Palm eventually released a snazzy interface and then died. Vista had a futuristic look at me interface. World hated. Windows 8 tried to cause a post-desktop revolution. World hated.

Apple tried with both Mac OS X and iOS and flourished.

BeOS never gained a substantial user-base beyond its niche, nor was its interface really that flashy. Palm was long on its return before they finally released a modern product and by then it was too late. Windows Vista was horribly delayed, didn’t ship with half the things promised, came with all sorts of hardware compatibility issues and on top of that “Vista ready” PCs were sold that couldn’t even run Aero to begin with and were stuck with Basic adding to the fury of many people.

With the exception of Windows 8 none of the fundamental issues with those systems that led to their demise or poor ratings had much to do with the interface in itself. Even with Windows 8 the new app format Microsoft tried to push that ran separately from the desktop environment and never got off the ground was the real issue.

You’re trying to draw a parallel with macOS Tahoe and those other operating systems that doesn’t exist in any meaningful way. In the end really not that much has changed with macOS Tahoe functionality-wise… Most changes are pretty superficial.

And if Apple followed your train of thought macOS would still be stuck with Platinum as the leap to Aqua would’ve never happened.