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We're on the fourth developer beta and first public beta of macOS Tahoe, which means we're getting closer to the launch version that's set to come out in September. With macOS Tahoe now available to the public, we thought it would be a good time to share an initial review of the update.


Like iOS 26, macOS Tahoe adopts the Liquid Glass design. It's used for the Dock, widgets, Control Center, menu bars, navigation bars in apps, app icons, and a few other places, but its implementation is less widespread than it is in iOS and iPadOS. It's clear that Liquid Glass was not a Mac-first design, and the glass parts of the interface feel cobbled together with the previous design language.

The floating element of Liquid Glass looks natural on the iPhone and the iPad, where glassy buttons hover over the app's content to provide a sense of depth, but macOS Tahoe doesn't have enough of the glass-like transparency to make that work in the same way on the Mac. There are not-so-transparent gray-shaded buttons and navigation bars that have a dated-looking shadowing behind them, and the rounded look doesn't help make things appear modern either. Liquid Glass looks better on darker backgrounds, but it very much feels like a work in progress. This is a beta, of course, so we could see further updates to Liquid Glass on the Mac before Tahoe launches.

Apple has been updating the macOS Tahoe design from beta to beta. Up until beta 4, Safari had a design where non-active tabs were denoted as such with an underline, while the active tab had none. That's typically not how underlining works, so determining which tab was in use was confusing. Apple thankfully adopted a color-based design in beta 4, so it's now clear which tab is at the forefront.

Though Liquid Glass doesn't feel fully developed in macOS Tahoe, there are other new features that make a positive change to customization and function.

The Control Center and Menu Bar can be customized with the apps and features that you need most, and other less useful options can be tucked away or removed. The Control Center is more like the iOS Control Center, and you can create multiple pages with options organized in a way that works for you. Third-party app functions will be able to be added to the Menu Bar and Control Center too.

macOS adopts the tinted icon option from iOS, so you can tint your icons all the same color, or choose the Liquid Glass-style clear option (though be warned, it's more gray than clear on macOS). Folder colors can be customized too, and you can add an emoji to a folder to make it stand out.

One of the biggest changes in macOS Tahoe is to Spotlight, which is now a one-stop spot for everything that you might need to do on a Mac. You can use it to open apps, find anything on your Mac, see your clipboard history, and complete actions. Spotlight replaces Launchpad, so when you want to open an app, you'll now use Spotlight.

Search is more comprehensive and you're more likely to find what you're looking for using the file searching feature, plus you can keep tabs on what you've copied and pasted with the new clipboard history option. It stores a log of what you've copied for 24 hours.

Actions is an all-new Spotlight function. You can do all kinds of things without ever opening an app, like sending an email or message, starting a timer, creating a note, placing a call, creating a reminder or calendar event, and much more. Apple added quick access buttons that are easy to learn, so you can use Command 1, 2, 3, and 4 to get to the different Spotlight functions. For things you use most often, you can set up your own quick keys.

The Phone app is now on the Mac, which could be useful depending on your daily habits. There was already an option to answer a call on the Mac or make a FaceTime audio or video call, but now you have access to the full suite of phone functions for placing calls from the Mac. You'll need a connected iPhone with Wi-Fi Calling, of course. The Phone app on Mac includes the new features like Hold Assist, Call Screening, and Live Translation that you'll also find on the iPhone.

There's a new Games app that basically includes what's in the Games section of the Mac App Store and Apple Arcade. There's a "Play Together" option for challenging friends to beat you at a specific goal in a single-player game, and there's a multiplayer section for finding games to play with friends. The Games app doesn't seem all that useful as of right now, but maybe it will get additional features to make it more appealing in the future.

The Journal app is also now available for Mac, which will be a welcome change for those who want to write journal entries using a Mac's keyboard.

Many of the most useful iOS 26 features and changes are also available on the Mac, like personalized Messages backgrounds, Apple Intelligence support for organizing Reminders, new ChatGPT styles for Image Playground, and support for the updated Genmoji.

Have you tried macOS Tahoe yet? Let us know what you think of the update in the comments.

Read More About macOS Tahoe

We have a macOS Tahoe roundup that walks through all of the different features in the update.

Article Link: macOS Tahoe Review: Spotlight Shines, Liquid Glass Disappoints
 
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When I heard Apple was adopting the glassy look from visionOS I was initially excited because I was hoping they’d be going for the smoked glass gray look. Since Big Sur macOS had had just too much stark white in light mode. Tahoe compounds this problem with its sidebar design. Instead of subtly showing the contents of whatever is below the window with a gentle blur, as has been the case since Yosemite, sidebars are now a floating slab of Liquid Glass. The problem is that Liquid Glass only looks good when it has something underneath it to refract. For the majority of windows in Tahoe it’s just white underneath. So you have layers of white on white, with only the faintest of drop shadows to separate the interface elements. Same with the Apple Music redesign, where the control bar is now on the bottom of the screen on a Liquid Glass bar that’s bright white so it washes away against the equally white background of a playlist.

Tahoe could be great but it desperately needs contrast between interface elements. Toolbar buttons are equally bad. Liquid Glass should be an eye popping accent but on the Mac at least it makes the whole UI somehow seem even more staid and muted.
 
We're on the fourth developer beta and first public beta of macOS Tahoe, which means we're getting closer to the launch version that's set to come out in September.

New macOS versions tend to come out in October. September is usually iPhone month. October or November is typically Mac month. Apple likes to put out new versions of their OS’es when they introduce new hardware.
 
I'm looking forward to the improvements in Spotlight. I already use it a lot on Sequoia and it looks like the new options will make it my one stop shopping for many things. I'm hoping the liquid glass effects have some user settings to tweak them if needed. I'm fine with it being more opaque since I value readability over some cool new look
 
We're on the fourth developer beta and first public beta of macOS Tahoe, which means we're getting closer to the launch version that's set to come out in September.

New macOS versions tend to come out in October. September is usually iPhone month. October or November is typically Mac month. Apple likes to put out new versions of their OS’es when they introduce new hardware.

Sonoma and Sequoia both came out in September, which is what I'm going by. Last version of macOS to come out in October was Ventura. I'm not saying it won't happen, but given Apple's aim for cross-platform cohesiveness, I'd be surprised to see macOS 26 split up from iOS 26.
 
We're on the fourth developer beta and first public beta of macOS Tahoe, which means we're getting closer to the launch version that's set to come out in September.

New macOS versions tend to come out in October. September is usually iPhone month. October or November is typically Mac month. Apple likes to put out new versions of their OS’es when they introduce new hardware.
You're right about the months, but not in your last sentence. At least in the last fifteen years or so, Apple has NEVER given a hoot about synchronizing Mac hardware and OS releases. Same with the iPad. Only true on the iPhone.

Mac hardware comes out when it comes out. In the last 5+ years or so, they've released it in January, March, July, December, etc. etc.
 
I read a comment about Liquid Glass being like a runny egg and thought that overblown. It's not. I tried for a couple of minutes and it's not useable. Even with "increased contrast" there are some windows where the Glass effect is visible. The Glass effect does not have any improvement for usability. Instead it's just frosting.

Some dialogs at least have a better width. But others have the most stupid word break. Some icons look horrible on the dock most of the time but not always.

@Smartuser: Apple has sometimes walked back on some tiny little changes but never on the big ugly ones like the utterly stupid System Settings Design. On Tahoe the complete UI revamp is for the bin.
 
In the video he shows settings for changing how the liquid glass looks for at least the dock (maybe other things?). I liked a darker one that looks a lot more like they look on Sequoia. Personalizing these will be key how much people like or reject this new look.
 
Hopefully MacOS 26 will get an edit on Liquid Glass.... Although I don't like it, I could live with it as long as MacOS 26 under the hood is better...
 
Up until beta 4, Safari had a design where non-active tabs were denoted as such with an underline, while the active tab had none.
That bug was mentioned in the release notes for beta 2 and fixed in beta 3, not 4. I'm still running beta 3 due to needing to avoid a specific bug in macOS 26/Xcode 26; the underline is not there.
 
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@Smartuser: Apple has sometimes walked back on some tiny little changes but never on the big ugly ones like the utterly stupid System Settings Design. On Tahoe the complete UI revamp is for the bin.
You tried it for a few minutes and you're entitled to your opinion. I'm not actively using it, but I grabbed a computer with it installed for this reply, and I'm not noticing anything that's getting in my way.

There's still no world in which a review of beta 4 of <something> should ever be titled "Review of <something>" and be taken seriously. At least it should be called "Review of beta 4 of <something>".

In the world of serious reporting, which is something this world desperately needs, it's a convention to only review things that are release versions. Personally, I'd also find it acceptable to review a release candidate and update the article if any changes are still made. But beta versions, no.

I form my final opinions on final versions. Everything else is preliminary and should labeled as such.
 
I use Alfred, and many of the new Spotlight features are already in it from what I gather. I hope Alfred can adopt those that aren’t as it is a great productivity tool.
 
You're right about the months, but not in your last sentence. At least in the last fifteen years or so, Apple has NEVER given a hoot about synchronizing Mac hardware and OS releases. Same with the iPad. Only true on the iPhone.

Mac hardware comes out when it comes out. In the last 5+ years or so, they've released it in January, March, July, December, etc. etc.
I’ll agree that Apple is only consistent with iPhones and iOS, but by and large, when they have Mac releases in October/November, you can usually rely on macOS coming out a week or two earlier. Even iPhones aren’t 100% if you consider the iPhone SE/16e. iPad hardware releases are all over the place, sometimes in October, sometimes in September, sometimes in March of May. There are so many Mac models that there is no way to predict when anything comes out, but we generally expect something in October. Soon, iPhone non-pros will move to March while Pros and foldables will come out in September.

We can usually tell when macOS comes out by its beta release schedule. All the OS’es but macOS tend to go from bi-weekly to weekly earlier than macOS does. The gap between the transition will probably tell us when macOS comes out.
 
My opinion on Liquid Glass is mixed. In some areas, it can get annoying, like in Safari where the web page can be seen above the usual web page area. My bookmarks bar gets mixed up with web content. Keep the web page where it belongs. In most areas I think it’s fine. When Apple puts content where it shouldn’t be is where I think it should be fixed. That Safari effect happens on Tahoe but not on iPadOS. It does happen on iOS but it’s not quite as annoying at the bottom of the screen as it is at the top.
 
Nice video. Happy with all the changes. Have not yet tried out the beta. Eagerly looking forward to trying it out.
 
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Remember when the Mac's entire reason for being was simplicity?
Cook needs to honor the history of Apple, this ain't it.

If you're comparing one macOS release to another, you may be right. But if you compare to Windows or many Linux variants, macOS still sets the standard.

People demand more, more, more... and when Apple delivers, the complaints never cease to amaze. 🤣
 
Spotlight has made it more difficult to search my computer for files. I don’t need to search the internet, just find the files I want. Ugh.

Isn't the Search field in Finder windows already scoped to that?

You can fully configure what Spotlight searches in Settings. Very granular control.
 
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