macOS Tahoe Beta Performance - Blown Away!

[Richard Tillard]

Just wanted to share my experience with the macOS Tahoe beta so far, and honestly, it's the best beta performance I've ever seen.

For context, I'm running an M3 Max with 48GB of RAM, and after installing the system, I did a full factory reset for a completely clean slate. This might be contributing to my amazing experience.

The responsiveness is incredible – everything feels super snappy. Safari is flying, and I haven't experienced any crashes or issues with other software. As for the design, it clearly has a lot of potential. It feels like a perfect blend of modern aesthetics and some of the beautiful elements from older macOS versions.

For developers out there, all my developer tools and Homebrew installed without a hitch, so you likely won't encounter any problems if you're coding. And for creative professionals, I've had no issues whatsoever with Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro.

And a special shout-out to the new Spotlight – it's absolutely fantastic! It seriously boosts my productivity and allows me to work 2-3 times faster. On top of that, applications themselves seem to open much quicker too.

Frankly, I don't see any reason to roll back. This might be one of the most enjoyable macOS updates for me personally.

 

[dmccloud]

I just want to build on the OPs comments regarding development. So far I have been able to use all of the following development apps without any issues under Tahoe:

• Netbeans
• Bootstrap Studio
• Ollama
• LM Studio
• Phoenix Code
• VS Code
• Polypane
• Warp
• Wave
• iTerm 2

 

[Mac_fan75]

Had it running and testing for several hours without any big issues. Felt a bit slowish at start but guess that was the indexing and photo app doing stuff. Also did not do a clean install, so might be better to try for next beta. But performance seems promising (M4 Max 64GB).

 

[jcshas]

I'm looking forward to trying it, but I'll probbably wait for the public beta in July.

 

[iBookmaster]

Just wanted to share my experience with the macOS Tahoe beta so far, and honestly, it's the best beta performance I've ever seen.

For context, I'm running an M3 Max with 48GB of RAM, and after installing the system, I did a full factory reset for a completely clean slate. This might be contributing to my amazing experience.

The responsiveness is incredible – everything feels super snappy. Safari is flying, and I haven't experienced any crashes or issues with other software. As for the design, it clearly has a lot of potential. It feels like a perfect blend of modern aesthetics and some of the beautiful elements from older macOS versions.

For developers out there, all my developer tools and Homebrew installed without a hitch, so you likely won't encounter any problems if you're coding. And for creative professionals, I've had no issues whatsoever with Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro.

And a special shout-out to the new Spotlight – it's absolutely fantastic! It seriously boosts my productivity and allows me to work 2-3 times faster. On top of that, applications themselves seem to open much quicker too.

Frankly, I don't see any reason to roll back. This might be one of the most enjoyable macOS updates for me personally.

When you say you did a full factory reset, do you mean you erased and installed again or did you go to System Settings and clicked General /Transfer or Reset? Or some other way?

 

[benwiggy]

do you mean you erased and installed again or did you go to System Settings and clicked General /Transfer or Reset?

You should never need to wipe the entire disk and reinstall the OS. Clearing all user data from System Settings erases the Data volume, which is "everything you ever did". The OS is on a read-only volume, and won't boot if it has been modified.

 

[iBookmaster]

If I'm having issues, I usually create a new user. That gives a pretty fresh start. Since this was a 1st beta of a new system and I recently created a new user, I did erase and install and it has been much better. Looking forward to the next update.

 

[John Malkovich]

You should never need to wipe the entire disk and reinstall the OS. The OS is on a read-only volume, and won't boot if it has been modified.

How so? Clean install means to boot from recovery option, format internal SSD (effectively erasing the whole drive, including System and Data partitions) and then installing afresh. Anything less than this is installing one system over another.

 

[Jacoblee23]

It is smooth as butter. The only issue I am having on my MacBook Pro m3 pro is the battery life is horrendous on this beta.

 

[JUMA55]

How so? Clean install means to boot from recovery option, format internal SSD (effectively erasing the whole drive, including System and Data partitions) and then installing afresh. Anything less than this is installing one system over another.

Over the years I've done this a lot with zero issues. I've done it at least twice with Sequoia on this iMac M4.

 

[John Malkovich]

It is smooth as butter. The only issue I am having on my MacBook Pro m3 pro is the battery life is horrendous on this beta.

Funny how this first developer beta works better than full-baked Sequoia. It is not perfect but still better than Sequoia.

 

[benwiggy]

How so? Clean install means to boot from recovery option, format internal SSD (effectively erasing the whole drive, including System and Data partitions) and then installing afresh. Anything less than this is installing one system over another.

As said, there is no point in doing this, and erasing the entire internal disk can brick your Mac, because the other volumes, like the PreBoot, are essential.

The OS is effectively a disk image, on a read-only volume. It doesn't get altered by anything you do to it. If it is modified, it will not boot. You're not going to have bits of Sonoma left over, after you've installed Sequoia.

The Data volume is where everything is written, and just erasing that makes it "factory". Same as an iPad or iPhone.

 

[John Malkovich]

Sorry but no. macOS creates two volumes on the startup drive: "Macintosh HD" for the operating system and system files, and "Macintosh HD - Data" for user data and applications

Erasing the SSD does not affect preboot volume or brick the machine. Also, there is internet recovery.

 

[chabig]

How so? Clean install means to boot from recovery option, format internal SSD (effectively erasing the whole drive, including System and Data partitions) and then installing afresh. Anything less than this is installing one system over another.

"Clean install" isn't what it used to be. The system never needs to be reinstalled because it can't be corrupted. Under old macOS, erasing and reinstalling ensured no remnants from the old system remained. With modern macOS, you can just skip the erase portion because installing the new system replaces everything from the old.

 

[JUMA55]

The installation of a new OS might completely replace all the elements of the old OS, but that doesn't go for all the apps you installed, then decided later you really didn't need and used whatever to delete them. Run EasyFind looking inside files and invisibles on the program name or the developer and you turn up all sorts of stuff that's hard to get rid of. Besides that, sometimes you just want to start fresh, which is why I have 3,000 screen prints going back 13 years covering various setups.

Also on my system something is corrupting something. This has been going on since Sequoia's release. And I got this on a 2019 Intel iMac and a iMac M4. Took the virgin system on this iMac M4 and started installing apps. Everything was great. Ran Disk Utility and got this. Apple says "Don't worry about it." They are perhaps right as I cannot find anything actually corrupted except maybe for the system snapshots.

Anyway, I agree with Malkovich on this one.

 

[iBookmaster]

"Clean install" isn't what it used to be. The system never needs to be reinstalled because it can't be corrupted. Under old macOS, erasing and reinstalling ensured no remnants from the old system remained. With modern macOS, you can just skip the erase portion because installing the new system replaces everything from the old.

Apple may have tried to make the OS installs where they can't be corrupted but, I think any system can have become corrupt. My install of Tahoe runs far better after erasing and installing vs installing over original Sequoia and updates.

 

[sgtaylor5]

The installation of a new OS might completely replace all the elements of the old OS, but that doesn't go for all the apps you installed, then decided later you really didn't need and used whatever to delete them. Run EasyFind looking inside files and invisibles on the program name or the developer and you turn up all sorts of stuff that's hard to get rid of. Besides that, sometimes you just want to start fresh, which is why I have 3,000 screen prints going back 13 years covering various setups.

Also on my system something is corrupting something. This has been going on since Sequoia's release. And I got this on a 2019 Intel iMac and a iMac M4. Took the virgin system on this iMac M4 and started installing apps. Everything was great. Ran Disk Utility and got this. Apple says "Don't worry about it." They are perhaps right as I cannot find anything actually corrupted except maybe for the system snapshots.

Anyway, I agree with Malkovich on this one.

View attachment 2519505

I’ve seen this before myself. No clue and reinstalling didn’t help.

 

[JUMA55]

I’ve seen this before myself. No clue and reinstalling didn’t help.

Are you referring to the disk corruption issue or something else I said? If it's the corruption, I'm glad I'm not the only one, but I am sorry it happened to you.

What I don't get is I can reformat and install everything from scratch or reformat and restore via Time Machine, and the result is the same. I go about two or three weeks running Disk Utility once a week and have no corruption. Then the next week the corruption happens, but I don't have any issues that I can tell from the corruption.

 

[sgtaylor5]

Are you referring to the disk corruption issue or something else I said? If it's the corruption, I'm glad I'm not the only one, but I am sorry it happened to you.

What I don't get is I can reformat and install everything from scratch or reformat and restore via Time Machine, and the result is the same. I go about two or three weeks running Disk Utility once a week and have no corruption. Then the next week the corruption happens, but I don't have any issues that I can tell from the corruption.

I was responding to the disk corruption issue. I know, it baffles Howard Oakley, too. Not nearly enough macOS technical documentation out there to write low level disk repair utilities. They must not care...

 

[yabeweb]

Funny how this first developer beta works better than full-baked Sequoia. It is not perfect but still better than Sequoia.

Well considering it is basically an updated sequoia I see nothing strange.

They revamped the entire UI not the os, I guess changes are not that big under the hood

 

[H2SO4]

"Clean install" isn't what it used to be. The system never needs to be reinstalled because it can't be corrupted. Under old macOS, erasing and reinstalling ensured no remnants from the old system remained. With modern macOS, you can just skip the erase portion because installing the new system replaces everything from the old.

That's an extremely bold claim.
I'm of the opinion that ANY data medium read only or otherwise can be corrupted.

 

[John Malkovich]

If we do not reinstall the system, do we even install a new OS, then?

 

[benwiggy]

If we do not reinstall the system, do we even install a new OS, then?

It's been like this since Big Sur. The OS is on a signed, cryptographically sealed volume. Apple has the keys and can replace the entire image with another. (That's why there are no more delta updaters.)

Signed system volume security

SSV not only helps prevent tampering with any Apple software that’s part of the operating system, it also makes macOS software updates more reliable and much safer.

support.apple.com

Big Sur’s Signed System Volume: added security protection

From SIP to a protected read-only System volume, macOS 11 takes system protection a big step further with cryptographic verification.

eclecticlight.co

You gain nothing from reinstalling the OS, except some extra writes to the SSD.