Still on Sequoia? Why waiting to switch to Tahoe?

[Warped9]

I just updated Sequoia to 15.7.5 on my M3 iMac. I've already updated to Liquid Glass on my M2 iPad Air 13 and iPhone 14, and on those devices I haven't seen a huge difference. But from what I've seen on MacBooks and iMacs I've setup for customers Tahoe with Liquid Glass looks really different. And frankly I don't care for the look of it. But it is what it is for now until Apple's next major OS redesign or they start dealing back aspects of Liquid Glass.

So I'm wondering if I should just bite the bullet, update and live with it or hold off longer to see what they do with Liquid Glass.

Anyone else still staying on Sequoia for now? And why are you holding off upgrading to Tahoe?

 

[LeVan]

I just updated Sequoia to 15.7.5 on my M3 iMac. I've already updated to Liquid Glass on my M2 iPad Air 13 and iPhone 14, and on those devices I haven't seen a huge difference. But from what I've seen on MacBooks and iMacs I've setup for customers Tahoe with Liquid Glass looks really different. And frankly I don't care for the look of it. But it is what it is for now until Apple's next major OS redesign or they start dialing back aspects of Liquid Glass.

So I'm wondering if I should just bite the bullet, update and live with it or hold off longer to see what they do with Liquid Glass.

Anyone else still staying on Sequoia for now? And why are you holding off upgrading to Tahoe?

I and many others are still running Sequoia and loathing the upgrade (?) to Tahoe (tried it and immediately reverted).
Tahoe has many bugs, things that don't work as they should or are not intuitive. It also has many graphical/design quirks that I find obtrusive. For one example, just one of many, light white/grey text on only slightly darker menus/buttons that I find very hard to read. The icons are another sore point. That list goes on and on, read the posts in the Tahoe forums for more examples.
My recommendation is to stay on Sequoia until you are forced or ready to switch, Sequoia gets security fixes and is very stable, so why put up with Apple's problem child? Unless you have a demanding reason, I can't recommend updating now.

 

[Warped9]

I did two setups for customers this past week, both from older Intel iMacs at least ten years old. One was a magration to an M4 MacBook Air and the other to an M4 iMac. Everything went smoothly for the migration and setups, but then I had to navigate Tahoe to finish things up for the individual customers. This was quite unlike anything I’d seen on a Mac device over the past twenty-five years. Previously it was a small adjustment to go from an older Mac OS to a newer one. But Tahoe with Liquid Glass is one helluva adjustment. The overly rounded corners are not only bizarre they’re distracting as well. They also look like wasted space. Turning off or turning transparency right down helps to some extent as it did on my iPad and iPhone.

Overall it just doesn’t seem as intuitive as what we had before.

 

[SalisburySam]

Still on Sequoia for my M4 Mac mini and see nothing compelling to migrate to Tahoe. Sequoia is working, working well, and I’ll remain on it for the foreseeable future.

On one of our two iPhone13mini’s we accidentally allowed the update to iOS26. Neither of us likes the looks finding LG much harder for us to see and use compared to iOS18. We’ve taken the stance that we’re staying on iOS18 on the other iPhone13mini and iPadOS18 on both our iPadAir and iPadPro, again for the foreseeable future.

For us, migrating away from v18 and Sequoia has no upside and visual downsides we’d prefer to avoid.

Our AppleTV4K+ updated to tvOS26 automatically, as did our HomePods. The HomePods have become useless and we’ve taken them out of our system reverting back to the speakers in our TV. At some point when I’ve nothing else to do I’ll try to debug and fix the problem but for now just don’t care. The AppleTV4K+ seems to still be working with a slightly different but no less annoying user interface than tvOS18 offered up.

 

[Fishrrman]

I like "the look" of Sequoia more than that of Tahoe.
So... I think I'll be "staying put" with Sequoia into the near (and perhaps long-term) future.

I also maintain an external SSD with a copy of Tahoe on it and keep it "more than" up-to-date with the latest developer/beta releases...

 

[anika200]

I also maintain an external SSD with a copy of Tahoe on it and keep it "more than" up-to-date with the latest developer/beta releases...

hmmm, did not know you could do that. Sounds interesting, so If you wanted to move to Tahoe, what would be the procedure to move it to your main/internal drive? I guess you have to boot to it to keep it up to date?

 

[xXRainKingXx]

Tried it on my M4 Mac Mini. The removal of launchpad and the laggy animations had me ‘downgrading’ to Sequoia within a couple of hours.

 

[Warped9]

The removal of launchpad and the laggy animations had me ‘downgrading’ to Sequoia within a couple of hours.

Yeah, I noticed that on the Macs I setup. Stupid to remove a simple convenience like that.

 

[hieubui]

Low frame rate UI animations.

 

[WebHead]

Sequoia is the latest macOS my 2019 i9 iMac 27" will run. Don't intend upgrading for another couple years so will miss Tahoe and probably the next one too.

 

[keksikuningas]

I bit the bullet on my work laptop , went to 26.4

I am enjoying the transparent icons and the widgets, but the animations are slower (choppier ?) and windows with different corner radiuses are really annoying but not to the point of detriment (yet). I think I'll hold off on my personal MBP for now

I might try to reduce motions and see if it helps with the annoying animations

 

[Harddrive]

The main problem with not updating to current OS for any system is security updates are not done and if several OS's behind when someone decides to pull the trigger and update it runs into issues sometimes. If you purchase a replacement for your computer it will come with the newest OS so it is likely you will be forced to update.

 

[AlumaMac]

I just recently moved all my machines from Catalina to Sequoia, so not in any rush to go to Tahoe. I have no interest in being on a yearly OS upgrade cycle. Looking to add a Mac Mini or Studio to the stable and hoping to find a M4 config I'm interested in before the M5 (Tahoe only) comes out.

 

[Gregg2]

Sequoia works fine for my modest needs. I have not seen "liquid glass" but I've read lots of complaints about it. I'll stay put until I hear that those concerns have been satisfied. I suppose I could go to an Apple Store and see it for myself. Maybe someday…

 

[Miles Fu]

on my base model M4 Mac mini. I downgraded from macOS 26.4 back to 15.7.5, and with the fan speed staying the same (~1000 RPM), system temperatures dropped by around 10°C. Overall responsiveness also feels noticeably smoother on 15.7.5 .

 

[AdamBuker]

Right now I'm holding off on upgrading as Tahoe kills off two things I regularly use. First you can't use FireWire devices over Thunderbolt in Tahoe. Second, you can't access AFP file shares hosted on older macs. Going forward, I may end up putting Sequoia on an external boot drive while keeping the current macOS on the internal. My other issue with Tahoe is the substandard UI implementation of Liquid Glass. I've used Apple products starting with the Apple //e and macOS since System 7 came out. Fortunately for me, I can get around this by doing all of my non-internet related tasks on my older Macs, but that requires the ability to use FW and AFP on my AS Macs.

 

[SDAVE]

Not touching Tahoe at all on EOL 2019 Mac Pro (Still on Sequoia 15.7.7)

Tahoe runs fine on M1 Max / M4 Pro MacBook Pros though. I wish I could stay on Sequoia on the MacBook Pros but I'm too lazy to downgrade since it works ok. macOS 27 should smooth out all the issues with Tahoe anyway, but macOS 27 won't support Intel so there's no point in upgrading the Intel to Tahoe.

 

[SDAVE]

Right now I'm holding off on upgrading as Tahoe kills off two things I regularly use. First you can't use FireWire devices over Thunderbolt in Tahoe. Second, you can't access AFP file shares hosted on older macs. Going forward, I may end up putting Sequoia on an external boot drive while keeping the current macOS on the internal. My other issue with Tahoe is the substandard UI implementation of Liquid Glass. I've used Apple products starting with the Apple //e and macOS since System 7 came out. Fortunately for me, I can get around this by doing all of my non-internet related tasks on my older Macs, but that requires the ability to use FW and AFP on my AS Macs.

You can install Sequoia on a volume on your OS drive (APFS makes it easy), then slowly move stuff over make sure everything works and wipe Tahoe.

 

[keksikuningas]

Right now I'm holding off on upgrading as Tahoe kills off two things I regularly use. First you can't use FireWire devices over Thunderbolt in Tahoe. Second, you can't access AFP file shares hosted on older macs. Going forward, I may end up putting Sequoia on an external boot drive while keeping the current macOS on the internal. My other issue with Tahoe is the substandard UI implementation of Liquid Glass. I've used Apple products starting with the Apple //e and macOS since System 7 came out. Fortunately for me, I can get around this by doing all of my non-internet related tasks on my older Macs, but that requires the ability to use FW and AFP on my AS Macs.

there's a user working on a firewire driver for thunderbolt. But dual booting an older macOS is also a valid option for a while

FireWire stack re-write

Hey community, I didn't really find a better place to share this, so I hope it's okay to post here. I'm working on restoring the FireWire stack on macOS "Tahoe" for Apple silicon Macs. Here is my repo: https://github.com/mrmidi/ASFireWire Let me keep it brief: - It's a re-implementation of...

forums.macrumors.com

GitHub - mrmidi/ASFireWire: DriverKit OHCI FireWire Host Controller for macOS

DriverKit OHCI FireWire Host Controller for macOS. Contribute to mrmidi/ASFireWire development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

 

[AdamBuker]

You can install Sequoia on a volume on your OS drive (APFS makes it easy), then slowly move stuff over make sure everything works and wipe Tahoe.

I already downgraded back to Sequoia some time ago. It was initially a pain to set everything back up the way it was but I'm pretty much back to normal. I'm just glad I never upgraded the 14' MacBook Pro.

 

[AdamBuker]

there's a user working on a firewire driver for thunderbolt. But dual booting an older macOS is also a valid option for a while

FireWire stack re-write

Hey community, I didn't really find a better place to share this, so I hope it's okay to post here. I'm working on restoring the FireWire stack on macOS "Tahoe" for Apple silicon Macs. Here is my repo: https://github.com/mrmidi/ASFireWire Let me keep it brief: - It's a re-implementation of...

forums.macrumors.com

GitHub - mrmidi/ASFireWire: DriverKit OHCI FireWire Host Controller for macOS

DriverKit OHCI FireWire Host Controller for macOS. Contribute to mrmidi/ASFireWire development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

That looks like a great project though I think it's a bit of an undertaking for a very niche set of users even if I happen to be in that niche. Right now it doesn't look like it would be ready for my use case yet. I use FireWire for moving large projects and files between PowerPC and modern macs. I also just got a deal on a used Tascam FW-1082. I plan on using that with my PowerMac G5, but I might try using it with my modern AS macs. I also have my AS macs connected to AFP shares on my PowerPC macs.

For now I plan on sticking with Sequoia until I'm forced to upgrade. At that point, I will probably resurrect one of my 2010 Mac Mini to serve as a bridge between my PowerPC machines and my AS machines since even if the FireWire issue gets solved, I still have the issue of connecting to AFP shared volumes. I know there is Netatalk but I really don't have the time to set it up and learn it properly and a bridge mac is an easier solution.

 

[bmoraski]

Not touching Tahoe at all on EOL 2019 Mac Pro (Still on Sequoia 15.7.7)

Tahoe runs fine on M1 Max / M4 Pro MacBook Pros though. I wish I could stay on Sequoia on the MacBook Pros but I'm too lazy to downgrade since it works ok. macOS 27 should smooth out all the issues with Tahoe anyway, but macOS 27 won't support Intel so there's no point in upgrading the Intel to Tahoe.

Im thinking of updating my intel 7,1 2019 mac pro to a newer OS ( currently on Monterey ) and from all of my research i am staying away from Tahoe. It seems that Sequoia is the way to go. I figure this will probly be last update for this machine and want it to be newer and rock solid.

 

[Miles Fu]

Im thinking of updating my intel 7,1 2019 mac pro to a newer OS ( currently on Monterey ) and from all of my research i am staying away from Tahoe. It seems that Sequoia is the way to go. I figure this will probly be last update for this machine and want it to be newer and rock solid.

I have a 16' intel i9, 2019 MBP, now on Sequoia 15.7.5, works very well.

 

[SDAVE]

Im thinking of updating my intel 7,1 2019 mac pro to a newer OS ( currently on Monterey ) and from all of my research i am staying away from Tahoe. It seems that Sequoia is the way to go. I figure this will probly be last update for this machine and want it to be newer and rock solid.

Yeah stay away from Tahoe tbh, I had a horrible experience (see my Intel specs in my signature). Literally ran so bad that I wanted to jump off a bridge since I couldn't get work done. Everything was slow, including opening Finder windows, typing in simple Chrome based webapps like Google Docs, Adobe software was slowing to a crawl with memory leaks. I went from Sequoia > Tahoe and I couldn't downgrade without doing a fresh install and reinstalling everything (have a lot of plugins and software). Took me 2 days.

I'm super happy with Sequoia 15.7.7 runs perfectly. IDK Apple might show some love to Intel on Tahoe towards the end of the update cycle since it's the last supported OS, but I don't trust them.

I might give Tahoe a try when its at 26.7 or something later this year on the 7,1 on a separate volume/drive, if it doesn't work well, I'll just delete it. But I'm definitely not doing a direct Sequoia > Tahoe upgrade ever again on this machine, I have PTSD.

I'm perfectly fine with Sequoia being the last OS on the 7,1, it's a work machine at the end of the day. My main concern is if Adobe stops supporting Intel binaries next year with CC2027, I will be stuck in old Adobe software. I can potentially squeeze 2 more years out of it maybe, idk. I do want a M5 Ultra Mac Studio maybe next year I will get it, but I'm ok with the 7,1 for now. I wonder when Adobe will stop Intel support maybe in 2028 since Tahoe is still a thing on Intel in 2026. But I bet you they can't wait to get rid of Intel as soon as possible (I don't know what their internal update strategy is).

I do feel a huge difference between the Intel 7,1 and my M1 Max (which is already dated) and the M4 Pro MacBook Pros here, especially on single core performance, so definitely close to EOL my 7,1 and going with a Mac Studio. it is what it is. I'm not a hobbyist so I just use these machines for work and then I get off workstation chair and do other things 😀

For you, I think you should make a backup with Carbon Copy Cloner or something and then upgrade to Sequoia, if you hate it, you can restore your previous install. But I think you'll be happy with latest Sequoia, it's pretty rock solid. Rememeber, even if you have a Time Machine backup and you go to Sequoia, it will be harder to reinstall your previous macOS version and restore from Time Machine, but if you do it the same day you should be able to restore it to a TM backup that had your previous OS install.

 

[winxmac]

Just like how I'm keeping my iPhone 11 Pro Max on iOS 18.x I'm also keeping my MacBook Pro 2015 on OCLP Sequioa, however, because I have some older devices and older operating systems which are not detected during AirDrop, I decided to downgrade to OCLP Ventura and now my iPhone 7 Plus running iOS 15.x and iPad 6 and iPad 9 both running iOS 16.x are being detected as sender and receiver during AirDrop.