EDIT: Sorry for the cut off poll choices. It won't let me edit them. I meant for the first "NO" to be for people who have tried Tahoe and have an issue, and the second "NO" to be for people just going off of feedback from others.
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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 26.4 drops. If Apple follows their typical release pattern, the release window for macOS 26.4 is "sometime in March". However, since 26.3 was "late" compared to the last few cycles (it usually comes in late January), I wouldn't be surprised if 26.4 is a little bit "late" too. (I will not post a poll for 26.3.1. 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.)
Past polls:
macOS "Tahoe": 26.1 (37.5% yes); 26.2 (36.1% yes)
(I'll put some kind of chart here when I have some more data.)
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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 the initial Tahoe release, 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. Rounded corners on PDFs. Large "hit box" for the green maximize button at the top of windows. 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. ...However, these kinds of things seem to have been largely cleaned up and are largely addressed in 26.1, 26.2, and 26.3.
I still have seen screen flickering as a commonly reported issue in 26.2, for iMacs and certain external monitors (including Apple ones), and I'm not sure if that is resolved in 26.3. I think they are also still showing "00:00 PM" for noon in Finder (i.e. on file modification timestamps) if you have the system set to use 12-hour times. macOS 26.3 beta 3 also caused a decrease in graphics performance across many apps and games, and while it appears that they fixed that in time for the RC, the fact that they're making changes that could cause things like that to happen tells me that they might be still doing a little more than just "targeted bugfixes", and actually messing around with the guts of the OS (the graphics stack in this case), which makes me apprehensive.
Then on top of that, there is the divisive new design. I'm not especially worried about "getting used to" the new Liquid Glass aesthetic (as much as I don't like the huge corner radius), but I am a bit put off by some lack of consistency and polish that they're showing off. For example, text in transparent containers that is difficult to read, text in menu alignment being off depending on whether icons are present or not, and not using the same icon for the same function consistently. (Those last two examples are from this great article, which raises some good points whether or not you believe that the old HIG guidelines are still relevant.) They also apparently forced menu icons onto third-party apps, which I hadn't realized until recently. There was also the thing with corners being difficult to grab for some people, but I understand that this might have just been fixed just now with 26.3. (They also introduced an issue in the 26.3 RC which made it impossible to resize quicklook windows. Not sure if that was fixed in the final release...? [Edit] - Looks like they did fix it.)
I am interested in your take, after using macOS Tahoe 26.3 for a bit. Did they make any improvements that meaningfully fix or improve any issues you were experiencing with prior 26.X releases? 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'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 26.4 drops. If Apple follows their typical release pattern, the release window for macOS 26.4 is "sometime in March". However, since 26.3 was "late" compared to the last few cycles (it usually comes in late January), I wouldn't be surprised if 26.4 is a little bit "late" too. (I will not post a poll for 26.3.1. 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.)
Past polls:
macOS "Tahoe": 26.1 (37.5% yes); 26.2 (36.1% yes)
(I'll put some kind of chart here when I have some more data.)
———
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 the initial Tahoe release, 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. Rounded corners on PDFs. Large "hit box" for the green maximize button at the top of windows. 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. ...However, these kinds of things seem to have been largely cleaned up and are largely addressed in 26.1, 26.2, and 26.3.
I still have seen screen flickering as a commonly reported issue in 26.2, for iMacs and certain external monitors (including Apple ones), and I'm not sure if that is resolved in 26.3. I think they are also still showing "00:00 PM" for noon in Finder (i.e. on file modification timestamps) if you have the system set to use 12-hour times. macOS 26.3 beta 3 also caused a decrease in graphics performance across many apps and games, and while it appears that they fixed that in time for the RC, the fact that they're making changes that could cause things like that to happen tells me that they might be still doing a little more than just "targeted bugfixes", and actually messing around with the guts of the OS (the graphics stack in this case), which makes me apprehensive.
Then on top of that, there is the divisive new design. I'm not especially worried about "getting used to" the new Liquid Glass aesthetic (as much as I don't like the huge corner radius), but I am a bit put off by some lack of consistency and polish that they're showing off. For example, text in transparent containers that is difficult to read, text in menu alignment being off depending on whether icons are present or not, and not using the same icon for the same function consistently. (Those last two examples are from this great article, which raises some good points whether or not you believe that the old HIG guidelines are still relevant.) They also apparently forced menu icons onto third-party apps, which I hadn't realized until recently. There was also the thing with corners being difficult to grab for some people, but I understand that this might have just been fixed just now with 26.3. (They also introduced an issue in the 26.3 RC which made it impossible to resize quicklook windows. Not sure if that was fixed in the final release...? [Edit] - Looks like they did fix it.)
I am interested in your take, after using macOS Tahoe 26.3 for a bit. Did they make any improvements that meaningfully fix or improve any issues you were experiencing with prior 26.X releases? 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.
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