Been using Apple for personal and business - Macs, iPhones, iPads exclusively - since 2008 (I was a Windows guy for 16 years before that). I still use Windows a couple of times a year. I’m in my forties…
I updated to Tahoe with the Release Candidate, stayed on until Tahoe 26.1, and then went through several Beta 2 releases. So many issues and bugs made me want to scream, so I went back to Sequoia 15.7.2. It took me an entire day to wipe my 16” M4 MacBook Pro and reinstall everything. Another full day to restore 3.7TB of data.
My issues are all over the place. The corner radii are insane - they literally cut off important space and information from toolbars and desktop icons. Issues with Photos and iCloud, issues with Contacts and iCloud, issues with parental controls and children’s accounts. Performance problems, battery drain, Spotlight search not working properly. The Music app controls being on the bottom instead of the top. Inconsistent with other Apps that have it on top. It makes sense to have it on top on a desktop (who's idea was to put it on bottom?) The wild inconsistencies across Apple’s own apps when it comes to toolbar placement, design language, and corner radii. The Contacts app layout for a single contact is just nuts - important info like phone, address, and email now require scrolling because Apple decided a giant poster image is more important. CarPlay disconnecting, etc... There’s just so much…
It feels like one arm doesn’t know what the other arm is doing. Apple seems completely out of focus, and you can see it in all the firing, hiring, talent leaving, and leadership that feels so old it reminds me of Congress. It’s frankly embarrassing for Apple to release Tahoe in this state. And iOS 26 is even worse - that’s a bigger disaster as there is more iPhones than Macs.
Liquid Glass is actually not terrible and I enjoyed many aspects of it, and with the tweaks you can make in Beta 2 on both desktop and iPhone/iPad, they are getting there... I like the idea and the potential. But the execution is not well thought-out. The main control panels “float” above app windows, giving apps weird double edges. The floating panels add extra shading, which makes it harder to tell what belongs to what. If you have multiple apps open next to each other, it becomes confusing which one is active and which one isn’t, etc...
My feeling is that they bombed the AI race and needed a big announcement, so they pulled Liquid Glass forward - something that might have been planned for next year or even 2027. It feels VERY RUSHED. And I really do believe their shortcomings in AI pushed them to jump on Liquid Glass before it was ready - to simply shut everyone up about Siri and AI and make them talk about Liquid Glass. Mission accomplished... partially.
I’ll be skipping Tahoe for a long time (first time skipping a major macOS version since 2008). I’m a big Apple fan and genuinely love the products and software. I used to stand in line overnight for the newest iPhones I always updated to major releases right away. I even got the iPhone 17 Pro again on day one. That’s why I updated to Tahoe - I was excited like always. So this was my first big disappointment with Apple.
I might wait for macOS 27 since they already announced they’re focusing on quality there.
Apple’s software quality decline since COVID is significant. I’ve seen and felt more bugs and issues over the last five years, and I read about it from friends who would never post online. Even my wife experiences issues on her iPhone (which I basically never touch… LOL). Disappearing contacts, FaceTime not starting, apps quitting, things not syncing - things she never complained about before. So something is going on, and it isn’t pretty.
No wonder more and more people are complaining about it. You can hear it from all corners of the internet.
