Major Changes Coming in OS 26
Apple’s WWDC 2025 keynote once again felt like the lightning round of a “What’s New In?” game show, featuring categories for each of the platforms. Oddly, Apple presented them in the order of iOS, watchOS, tvOS, macOS, visionOS, and iPadOS, perhaps to conclude with the highly positive changes coming to the iPad. (I’m once again condensing the entire collection to OS for space-limited headlines.)
With only a few pauses to switch presenters, the company raced through announcements and brief demos of numerous new features, or, as Tim Cook redundantly said, “new innovations.” Although the feature selection often felt disjointed, two themes emerged: the new Liquid Glass interface design and Apple Intelligence. More on those shortly.
Apple also swiftly confirmed the rumors regarding the version numbers, which will all increase to 26, much as car manufacturers designate their model years. And yes, as was leaked a few days ago, the name for macOS 26 will be Tahoe, named after Lake Tahoe.
As usual, developer betas of the new operating systems are now available, with a public beta scheduled for July and initial releases in the “fall,” which typically means September to coincide with new iPhone models. Although we’ll be sharing all the details soon for this year’s version of “The Real System Requirements for Apple’s 2024 Operating Systems” (12 July 2024), the quick summary is that some of the oldest supported hardware models from last year have been phased out, although several Intel-based Macs still survive. At Six Colors, Dan Moren writes that Tahoe will be the final version of macOS to support Intel chips, so Intel-based Macs will stop receiving even security updates at the end of 2028.
For a preview of what’s coming to each platform other than tvOS 26, which received only a press release, scroll through these pages:
Now, let’s explore the changes I believe will significantly enhance your daily experience with Apple devices.
Liquid Glass Becomes Apple’s Visual Paradigm
Liquid Glass is Apple’s first major interface redesign since iOS 7 in 2013, and although I’ll admit to a snarky comment about rearranging deck chairs while Apple’s Craig Federighi introduced it, it will radically affect everything we do.
In large part, that’s because Liquid Glass extends across all of Apple’s platforms. In the past, although there were certainly many interface commonalities, each platform had some unique aspects that may have made sense in isolation but didn’t support a unified experience for those switching among devices.
While Liquid Glass is the name for the new design language, Apple also seems to be thinking about it as a real-world material that blurs the lines between hardware and software. It’s translucent and behaves like glass in the real world, at least if glass were sufficiently malleable to squish and wiggle. (And no, real glass isn’t liquid.) Because Liquid Glass controls are inherently see-through, they absorb their color from the surrounding content. That’s not entirely new or good—I have long turned on Reduce Transparency on my devices to ensure that screenshots don’t have distractingly different colors based on the current background. I also worry that text in a Liquid Glass object—like a Lock Screen notification or Safari toolbar—will lack sufficient contrast to be readable. I assume Reduce Transparency will remain available in Accessibility settings; we’ll see how well it works.
There are functional changes as well. Liquid Glass controls sit on top of content, automatically giving way to allow the user to focus on the content and returning to the forefront when the user interacts with them. Additionally, context menus expand into scannable lists, eliminating the need for scrolling.
I’m sure there will be complaints about Liquid Glass being change for change’s sake, and some of those changes may be a step backward in usability. Nevertheless, we hope that Apple’s experience in interface design and the cross-platform consistency of Liquid Glass will make it overall easier to use Apple devices. Feedback from users and developers during the beta may help tone down some of the more extreme changes. Regardless, Liquid Glass will affect everything you do after you upgrade.
Apple Intelligence Opens to Developers
I’m going to give Apple executives, engineers, and designers credit and assume that they know Apple Intelligence is mediocre at best. Nevertheless, they can’t—and didn’t—admit that in any way. So it wasn’t surprising that the company plowed on, briefly describing the current features and introducing some new AI-powered options.
But not everything has to come from Apple, which is why the second most important announcement of the keynote was the new Foundation Models framework. With it, developers will be able to tap directly into the on-device large language model at the heart of Apple Intelligence. The Foundation Models framework should be fast, private, and free, and it will work even when offline, which is a compelling proposition.
On the other hand, on-device models are inherently less capable than those, such as ChatGPT and Claude, that run on powerful data center hardware. Plus, the ability of those services to incorporate real-time information from the Web has been a game-changer. Although I don’t want to bet against the combined creativity of the Apple developer community, it’s hard to imagine the kind of magic that comes out of the top large language models being accessible on an offline iPad.
The Mac-ification of the iPad
Hallelujah! Apple has finally acknowledged that getting real work done on an iPad requires the kind of interface that we have on the Mac. Previous efforts to provide multitasking, multiple simultaneous windows, and access to the file system have been tepid. iPadOS 26 brings numerous changes that will make using an iPad feel much more like using a Mac and, I’m willing to bet, far more effective for real-world work. The changes include:
- Window management: Whereas iPadOS was previously limited to various split views, every app can now be turned into a standalone window that you can move and resize freely. Windows remember their size and position, and you can also tile them flexibly, with options to split the screen into two, three, or four pieces. The familiar traffic light window controls from the Mac make an appearance along with the macOS Move & Resize and Fill & Arrange options. Swiping up invokes Exposé, allowing you to see all windows and switch to the desired one easily.
- Menu bar and Dock: Although the iPadOS menu bar will look and act like the Mac’s menu bar, it will appear only when you swipe down from the top of the screen. That’s sensible: as with full screen mode on the Mac, the menu bar could be distracting in apps that assume they can take over the entire screen. You will also be able to put folders in the Dock and access their contents in much the same way docked folders appear as a stack on the Mac.
- Filesystem access: The Files app retains its name, but it looks as though it’s going to feel a lot more like a Finder window. It has collapsible folders, and you’ll be able to resize the column widths. Folders can be given custom colors and icons. You can even choose which apps will open documents and change the defaults.
- Mac and iPhone apps: One of my favorite Mac apps, Preview, is coming to the iPad! Apple intends it for viewing and editing PDFs, of course, and it will also support image viewing and editing, even with the Apple Pencil. There are plenty of other apps that do this sort of thing, of course, but Preview has been a staple on the Mac for decades, and it will be welcome to have on the iPad. iPadOS 26 will also gain the iPhone’s redesigned Phone app and the new Games app, both of which are also coming to the Mac.
- Background processing: Computationally intensive processes and other activities that take a long time, like exporting edited videos and downloading large files, can now run in the background while you do other things.
Despite the company’s protestations to the contrary, many people have worried that Apple wanted to dumb down the Mac experience to make it more like the iPhone and iPad. These changes to iPadOS make it clear that the Mac experience has won. Those who previously preferred a MacBook may look more seriously at the combination of an iPad and keyboard.
Spotlight Shines More Brightly
While the Apple Intelligence-powered version of Siri that is supposed to understand our personal context is still in the future, Apple unveiled a new version of Spotlight that has many of the same capabilities. Thanks to the new App Intents framework that developers can use to expose the capabilities of their apps, Spotlight will enable users to take hundreds of actions in many different apps without lifting their hands from the keyboard. Spotlight will also be able to understand what you’re working on and suggest relevant files, apps, or actions. For instance, you’ll be able to start a timer, create calendar events, generate a new email message with fields pre-filled, play a podcast episode, and more.
Spotlight also introduces the concept of “quick keys,” which are short, custom mnemonics for particular actions. For instance, you might type sm to trigger Spotlight to send a message or ar to add a reminder.
In addition, Spotlight becomes a clipboard manager, providing access to recently copied items, including text, images, and links. You can browse, search, and insert past clipboard entries directly via Spotlight.
It’s also worth noting that this new Spotlight will be available on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Given the new Mac-like focus of iPadOS, Spotlight may become an ecosystem-wide way of accessing a vast number of cross-platform capabilities.
In an interesting historical echo, Apple’s previous searching technology, Sherlock, was the impetus for the verb “to Sherlock,” meaning to kill third-party apps that provided the same features. (Sherlock killed Karelia’s Watson by delivering essentially the same feature set as a built-in feature of Mac OS 8.5 in 1998.) The new Spotlight may Sherlock numerous keyboard-focused launchers and clipboard management utilities—it’s going to be a tougher sell for the likes of Alfred, LaunchBar, and Raycast. However, I suspect that they all have enough more capabilities to retain both loyal users and attract new users looking for more than Spotlight can provide.
Apple Intelligence Opens to Users via Shortcuts
As much as I like automation, I’m not a fan of Shortcuts. I find it clumsy, lacking connections to the apps I want to control, and ultimately frustrating. My only use for Shortcuts is Federico Viticci’s astonishing Apple Frames shortcut that frames and combines iPhone and Apple Watch screenshots quickly and easily. Even editing it to work the way I want (always saving combined screenshots as JPEGs, for instance, and putting my preferred export option at the top of the list) is an exercise in frustration.
That said, it is exciting that Apple will be providing Shortcuts with direct integration with Apple Intelligence. A new category of intelligent actions powered by Apple’s on-device foundation models will enable text summarization, image generation, and text manipulation (including proofreading, tone adjustment, and more) through Writing Tools. Even more interesting, Shortcuts can call Private Cloud Compute, Apple’s online system for more powerful models, or even access ChatGPT.
You’ll also be able to run shortcuts automatically on a schedule or when you take specific actions, such as saving a file to a particular folder or connecting to a display. I plan to see if I can create shortcuts to automatically rename all JPEG files saved to my desktop from .JPEG to .JPG, a task I have previously accomplished with Hazel (my only real need for that brilliant little utility). Shortcuts also gains integration with Spotlight, so you can trigger shortcuts via Spotlight’s new quick keys and even collect and pass information from Spotlight to the shortcut.
Hold the Phone
Although actual phone calls aren’t central to the iPhone anymore, particularly for younger users, Apple has significantly enhanced the Phone app and brought it to both the iPad and the Mac thanks to Continuity.
A new Call Screening feature automatically answers unknown callers without even alerting you to the fact of a call. Once the caller shares their name and the reason for their call, the Phone app rings and gives you information to help you decide if you want to pick up. Live Voicemail, which is triggered with the Voicemail button that appears on the phone screen in iOS 18, has never worked for me, so I’m a little dubious that Call Screening will work as advertised, but I’m happy to give it a try.
The other big feature of the Phone app is Hold Assist, which waits on hold for you and notifies you when someone on the other end picks up and is ready to talk to you. Hold Assist kicks in automatically when it detects hold music and asks if you want it to wait for you. You can continue to use your iPhone or put it away and do other things while you wait. Again, I’ll believe this will work once I experience it.
Finally, the Phone app supports Live Translation, Apple’s new system-wide feature for real-time translation. It uses on-device models to translate text in both directions, enabling you to talk with someone with whom you don’t share a language. Live Translation also provides translated captions in FaceTime and texts in Messages. Developers will be able to access a Live Translation API, so expect to see apps that make it easy to translate back and forth in person.
A Flick of the Wrist
Although the marquee feature of watchOS 26 is the new AI-driven Workout Buddy, which coaches and cajoles you through workouts, I’m reserving judgment on that until it ships. Speaking as someone who coaches runners in real life, parts of the demo made me cringe.
However, the watchOS 26 feature that I’m sure I will use is the new wrist flick to dismiss notifications. There are times when I’m riding my ElliptiGO and would like to check my mileage or time, only to have the Workout app’s screen covered by a notification. Being able to dismiss those with a flick of the wrist rather than having to use my other hand would be welcome. The wrist flick gesture is compatible with Apple Watch Series 9 and later, as well as Apple Watch Ultra 2; it is not available on the Apple Watch SE.
Which of these features seems the most compelling to you? Are there others that you’re waiting for with bated breath?
My mouth dropped to the floor with the iPad update. My biggest question is does the pointer and menu bar only work with the iPad hooked up to a keyboard and trackpad? The demo looked the pointer only works with a trackpad (or I assume a mouse)
The new files app is a definite welcome for me.
Three things caught my eye:
Apple OSs has always had a single underlying foundation since the introduction of Mac OS X and “OS X for the iPhone”. However, they had separate UIs and separate SDK UIs.
Once the Arm processor became powerful enough and took over the Mac platform, there was a push from Apple to unify their two development platforms. First came Marzipan and then MacCatalyst. Both really failed. The UI language between the two systems just weren’t compatible. No one wants to run an iPhone app on their Mac rather than a full featured Mac App.
By unifying the UI under Liquid Glass and making the iPadOS more capable, the ability to write one unified program for all platforms is now possible.
I suspect we will see a combination Mac/iPad sometime in the next 18 months.
I’m not a developer but just installed the macOS (called Tahoe 26.0) on my Mac mini and iOS 26 on my iPhone 16 Pro Max. I have not done the iPad yet.
The installation on my iPhone took a couple of hours. The macOS was huge at more than 13 GB. The iPhone is running without a hitch so far, but there seem to be several Mac apps that do not run any longer. I have not figured out yet exactly which ones.
The thing that annoyed me were the subtitling. I have Automatic Subtitling turned off in the Apple TV settings. I could not find a way to disable it on my Apple TV as it seems to be baked in to Apple programming.
To me, the iPad is a different machine with a keyboard and trackpad/mouse.
With a keyboard and trackpad, I have it on a table and using it like a desktop computer (Mac Mode). Without a keyboard and trackpad, I’m holding it in one hand and scrolling with the other like a gigantic iPhone (iPhone Mode)
In iPhone mode, I don’t really want menus and vertical context menus. It’s a touch device. I’m doom scrolling, playing a game, or making minor updates in a document. I want a simple interface.
In Mac Mode, I plan to be doing some heavy lifting on the iPad. I don’t want to go through a dozen touch and swipes to set a format in Pages. I don’t want to scroll through five or six left swipes in a context menu.
I do serious work on my iPad, but it’s frustrating. The File App doesn’t obey file locking I’ve designated on my Mac which means I might accidentally change a file I was using as a template. Going back and forth between three and four apps is painful. Finding a feature in Pages and Numbers almost always requires me to ask for help to figure out the secret sequences of taps and swipes where the feature is hidden.
Most people have always felt the iPad is so close to being a serious computer, but alas…
I have told people who want a computer for home use to get an iPad rather than a desktop or notebook computer. For TV watching, Amazon ordering, doom scrolling, and occasional document creation, it’s fine for 75% of the population. It’s simpler to use and less likely to get infected. The built in password app is great. My go to demo is to take out my iPad and print to their printer. Many can’t even print to their printer with their computer. And here I can walk into their house and just print.
I just started reading the article, but just a quick comment about your first liquid glass photo. I felt like I needed to check my glasses and thought for a moment, “hmm… maybe I need that cataract operation in my right eye sooner rather than later.”
Wow. Is that live translation feature for the Phone app (also for Facetime?) sort of like a Star Trek universal translator?
I tried to watch the WWDC podcast, but for some bizarre reason the sound kept cutting out part-way through the tvOS segment. I tried restarting the Podcasts app—I even tried restarting my Mac—but nothing would bring the audio back beyond that point.
Fortunately I could watch the rest of the podcast on the web, but for a while I was almost tearing my hair out.
As regards content…I, too, am blown away by what’s coming in iPadOS.
But, for all their hyping it, am I the only one who doesn’t see a whole lot of difference between current app icons and Liquid Glass app icons? (Maybe this is just something you have to see for yourself up close.)
Yeah, I dunno, this all seems very incremental to me. I’m not complaining, mind you—I’ve spent enough time as it is complaining about all the bugs and QA issues introduced in previous releases because of the tech debt that’s built up with all the newly added features, and I’m hopeful that a relatively shorter list of features means there’ll be correspondingly more of a focus on refinement and bug fixing.
That having been said, I’m still largely interested in the accessibility features for Braille and the focussed reader. I expect those will have a much, much more profound impact on me personally than a few welcome tweaks to Spotlight, a free Apple LLM in the system, and triage for phone calls—though the wait-on-hold-for-me feature does sound pretty sweet, assuming it can’t be fooled by repeated “You’re call is very important to us …” recordings from the other end that always seem to interrupt the hold music in a way that makes even the pleasure of listening to that unattainable.
And you already have “Folder Actions”, so you can implement your simple automated image filename extension change as a shell or Apple script (but not quite so conveniently as with Hazel, obviously).
I do the same, as well as turning on “Reduce Motion” and “Always Show Scroll Bars”. Within seconds of the beginning of the Liquid Glass presentation, I started wondering if it would be possible to disable the wettest and glassiest bits of the Liquid Glass interface. I also had the thought that I would need to make an appointment to see my optometrist soon.
On the bright side, I did think that “macOS Touch” — sorry, I meant to say iPadOS 26 — looked promising. I also thought that the changes in the Phone app and CarPlay were mostly positive.
I’ve mentioned before that I have a sister who has precisely zero interest in technology for technology’s sake. She has an iPhone and an iPad, both of which uses frequently, but not for much beyond messaging and basic web browsing, which she enjoys. However, she hates feeling disoriented by seemingly arbitrary interface changes whenever there is a major new OS release. Normally, I encourage her to bite the bullet and update relatively quickly. I think OS 26 is the first major update that I will recommend she avoid for as long as possible. I’m certain it will leave her angry and frustrated.
PS. I laughed out loud when Federighi made a big deal out of the ability to add color and custom icons to folder. I think Macs could add color to folders as early as System 4 or 5 (1987) and custom folder icons at least as early as System 7 (1991). Dont get me wrong — I appreciate the feature, but still…What’s old is new again!
PPS. I also chuckled at the new “Quick Keys” feature. Was it an homage or an accident?
I was so bored to tears with the keynote that I stopped paying attention to it as it played on a second screen. It seems like this “Quick Keys” feature is somewhat already available with Siri (even on the macOS) by saying the commands rather than typing them.
It did feel incremental overall beyond the iPadOS changes which were significant. I wonder if the new naming approach, an annual update, prefigures slightly boring incremental shifts for the future.
It’s hard to avoid the sense that there’s a lull in the overall scheme of things, that something new is coming, yes AI driven like everything, but what it is… is not clear yet.
There’s a question mark over whether Apple is going to be the source of what is coming. Has it become the IBM of this era, the giant in the room?
I found most of the keynote extremely underwhelming. Lots of new “fluff”, nothing that caught my attention, until the iPadOS update. Wow, will an iPad finally be able to fully replace a MacBook?
I am planning to buy a new MacBook pro, but maybe I should wait until I’ve experienced iPadOS 26? Will it work on my iPad Air 4? Only time will tell.
Just one more thing would excite me even more, a MacBook with touch screen. If you’re harmonizing the software, why not the hardware too?
Sufficient contrast is the last thing developers at their 20 or 30 pay attention to. And even their managers who are responsible for the product as a whole. But 50+ users notice it right away. Regrettably, leaving it only to Accessibility settings to deal with afterwards, but not taking into account when introducing such important changes, is their tendency for many years.
For those, who is mature enough to remember translucent Aqua UI, Liquid Glass is just the reminder of their age. ;)
Not too “universal”, at least at first. A footnote says it only works for English, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish (with Chinese, Italian, Japanese, and Korean added for Messages). I’d like to see any reports about how it works if someone here tests it. Similar features I’ve tried elsewhere tend to have a lot of delay and accuracy problems.
I wish I did as well. My problem with all of those macOS Accessibility tweaks, especially transparency and contrast, is that although they help make the GUI more usable (as in, I can actually see what I need and distinguish items), it makes the GUI, frankly, look like ass, pardonnez mon français.
I look forward to the day when Apple can again design a desktop GUI (yeah desktop, no need to make it look like a phone or goggles interface) that is legible, works well, and still looks fresh and nice.
I’m also a “reduce transparency” user (as well as “reduce motion”) and the interface is pretty dreadful with that enabled in the beta. There is much less contrast between icons and backgrounds (a lot of buttons don’t have a background until pressed).
My father (in his 80s) has been using the Mac for a couple of decades but now struggles with identifying what is clickable in the MacOS interface and on web sites. So I’m acutely aware of the ways that Apple violates the old human interface guidelines.
The “new” background-less menu bar better have a toggle. We went through that with the Aqua UI and I thought it was resolved that menu bars need a bar!
There seems to be a universal “back” arrow now, which is great, but there’s also a new check mark button that is a bit odd - it’s kind of a combination of a close button and a cancel button, and it doesn’t have a button background. Ugh.
Using the accessibility controls often results in messed up layouts, with viewports not fitting to the screen and controls getting truncated. So I’ll be sending in lots of beta feedback on these changes to let the devs know they have some work to do.
When I looked at Apple’s screenshots, I thought of Neil Postman’s first question about new technologies: “What is the problem to which this technology is a solution?” Are Apple users troubled that they can’t see what’s behind a menu or dialog box?
On this Apple page, the buttons in the “Screen new senders” screenshot look like black and blue marks. Ugh.
I’ve already advised a friend with serious vision problems not to update his devices. Me, I’ll wait and see how things look with reduced transparency.
I don’t think (at least I hope not) people will expect cloud-level performance from a hand-held device.
On the other hand, you can install and run open source LLMs on commodity hardware. Performance on a Raspberry Pi is abysmal, but it works (and this really surprised me). A powerful PC or Mac desktop shouldn’t have a problem running at acceptable levels.
See these YouTube videos from Dave Plummer (retired Microsoft developer), who enjoys running popular AI models on commodity hardware:
It is always dangerous to install beta/developer builds on production hardware. Not something I would recommend. But since you already did, please keep us up to date (to the extent that any possible NDAs will allow) with your experiences.
And be sure to report any and all bugs to Apple. This beta period is when they will be paying the most attention to bug reports. It will be harder to get things fixed after the OS is officially released.
Does it recognize the “Stationary Pad” Finder attribute? On a Mac, this makes the file (more or less) a template. Attempting to open it results in opening a new document with the file’s content.
If iOS handles that attribute correctly, it may be a better solution than just using file locking/permissions.
I’ve had much better luck watching Apple keynotes on their YouTube channel than with any of Apple’s apps (podcasts, TV). Take that whatever way you like.
It is amusing. But, of course, it’s not the same. Back in the oldest versions of Mac OS, it would draw the (monochrome) icons in the selected color. Later on (PPC era), it would tint icons.
What the presentation appears to be showing, is that the icons are rendered as if they are pieces of glass, with different color backlights shining through it. Which is a different effect. I wonder if it (and the clear-glass appearance) will be applied to third-party app icons, or if it will only be for Apple’s apps (or if third-party apps will need to do something to use this effect).
Ironically, Apple did away with icon coloring in Mac OS X a long time ago, when colors became tags and they needed to support the use of multiple tags for a single file.
Doh! I completely forgot about Folder Actions. I’ll have to try that shortly.
I really like the feature cards that Apple makes for its keynotes, but given the extent to which most features now extend across multiple operating systems, I wasn’t able to use them in my article. I share them here as a quick summary of features that go beyond what I covered. (The odd one out is additional features in iOS 26.)
I don’t know what Jupiter Environment means. But what I really wonder is what’s the story with New incident report type in Maps and Password history.
Joanna Stern did a really quick overview of iOS 26. She points out where Apple is playing catch-up with Google and Samsung, and she didn’t hide her disappointment over lack of Apple Intelligence details or any commitment to delivery.
https://www.wsj.com/video/series/joanna-stern-personal-technology
More investment in frivolous eye candy that no one asked for rather than making a rock solid operating system and apps. For example, I have reported several TextEdit bugs over the years, none of which have been fixed. Remember when changing all the icons was an earth shattering innovation? Or the “touch bar”? Liquid Glass My A–. Apple is the worst computer company out there except for all the others. Snow Leopard is still my go to system.
“Major Changes” that I’d like to see include reversion to a usable and informative System Log and Activity Monitor, an Uninstaller, restored support for AppleScript, a decent Mail client, Dark Mode for all apps, and the ability to restore bootable back-ups to mention a few.
On an Apple Vision Pro, an environment is the equivalent of wallpaper in other Apple OS’s. It can be transparent so that you see the actual room you are in, or it can be an Apple-supplied scene. So Apple has provided several environments such as Yosemite, Mout Hood, Joshua Tree, White Sands, the Moon, etc. These environments may show some activity when nothing else is active. Jupiter is simply another such environment.
Can we not do this again?
This time, I think I’m responding to the proper comment:
It appears that the referenced video has been withdrawn and replaced by one that is an excerpt from a longer (soon-to-be-published) interview of Craig Federighi and Greg Joswiak of Apple by Ms. Stern:
WSJ article, Apple News Version, YouTube
Thanks. The video is still there, but I guess in the meantime they changed the name or URL. I edited my link. Should work now. Right now, her iOS 26 summary is the 2nd video, right after the interview with Federighi and Joswiak.
https://www.wsj.com/video/series/joanna-stern-personal-technology
Cringe - it made me want to vomit. A childishly cheesy, over-hyped, influencer voice telling me how wonderful I am is the last thing I want to hear during a workout. This hype is exactly why I can’t stand to use Fitness + despite having a Premier One subscription.
Apple now seems to believe every new feature has to include AI, even when it’s going to be extremely annoying. It’s analogous to how Apple Music annoys the hell out of me pretty much daily.
The call screening was the most useful thing I saw as I get spam calls every day, often multiple times. As someone who travels a lot, the built in translation may be handy.
Most of the rest was just, uninspiring.
In the article, you said (correctly) that “Dan Moren writes that Tahoe will be the final version of macOS to support Intel chips.” However, neither you nor Dan cite the primary source: Apple‘s Platform State of the Union. That would be a worthwhile update to the article.
I’m traveling so just had a chance to finish watching the keynote.
It’s definitely not for me, but I know many people need encouragement like that to increase their fitness. For someone like me it’s just going to push me to work too hard, but I’ve long grown accustomed to ignoring the “go a little further” encouragements, monthly challenges, etc. The good news is that I can continue to ignore them. Other watchOS improvements are welcome - a smarter Smart Stack, custom control center icons, and the workout app really needed the improvements they showed. I’ll be interested to see if watchOS is finally able to realize that I run the same running workouts by day every day of the week, and they are not the same from day to day. So Monday is always a one hour run, Tuesday is always 6.5 miles, Wednesday is never a run but instead cross-training, etc.
Otherwise, I love the changes to iPadOS, particularly windowing and multitasking, Preview, and the improvements to the Files app.
Improving continuity is great, and especially the improvements to tvOS. I’ve replaced a few Apple TVs over the years and always regret having to log in to everything all over again. My wife and I do watch different shows and use different services, but I’m not sure we’ll need the profiles feature, but maybe she’ll want to try it?
I know I’m rare here, but really like the new liquid glass look they’ve come up with (which I’m sure will be tweaked and improved over time, as the flat look of iOS 7 was). I know my wife is going to hate another change, though.
I think the change to the Photos app on iOS is welcome. I’m ok with the iOS 18 photos app changes, but I think allowing taskbar buttons to access the library and other features is a better interface.
I’m glad to see the improvements to Spotlight - perhaps I can retire Alfred and reduce the number of apps I have installed. I like Alfred but I mostly use it as an app launcher.
One thing I’ll say, though, is the number of new features this year compared with last is really not high. Lots of people hoping for improvements rather than flashy new features may end up liking the 26 updates.
I’ve been floored to see so many people online complaining about the Finder icon’s colors are reversed with 26. It seems a little nit-picky to me.
I did skip ahead anytime they did the F1 references, and skipped through the gaming sections - I don’t play games - and also skipped the visionOS, more to save time than anything - I’ll never get one, and I doubt I’d be close to an early adopter of AR glasses, too. It’s a long way before I’ll even consider VR or AR glasses.
Here’s hoping Apple will get the new Siri running next year. I rarely use Siri, and when I do it’s fine for me (since I only use it for simple requests), but it will be nice to get some more power and reliability for a change.
The reaction is interesting.
I suspect that some people see it as an example of change for the sake of change, rather than driven by functionality or a larger aesthetic vision. It would be one thing if it were clever or amusing, but it just feels arbitrary and perhaps even a bit jejune.
By itself, it’s a trivial matter, but in the context of a widely believed decline in software quality and usability, it seems like a symptom of a serious problem.
It’s a new virtual environment for the Vision Pro so you can pretend to be on a moon of Jupiter.
Yes once there was. But then Apple decided replace with the less visible tags. I vaguely recall Federighi doing a little rave about this ‘improvement’. Fortunately, 3rd party app developers filled in the newly created and unnecessary hole with apps such as the good Folder Colorizer.
I often wonder if Federighi actually uses Apple apps.
I think it’s really Alan Dye (previously Jony Ive) who designs the interface elements. I’m not sure how much say Craig Federighi would have.
This is the most comprehensive list of “Sherlocked” features that I’ve seen:
I wish someone besides me would tell PreSonus/Notion that. I’ve used Notion for over a dozen years, but the current version is a Hybrid from Hell besides missing deal-breaking features I’ve used constantly in the original that still runs but is Intel code.
Not looking forward to the learning curve of Dorico, but the current Notion’s learning curve is worse, and Apple will be breaking the old one soon.
Well, I’ve installed iPadOS 26 on my iPad Pro. Seems to be stable enough… quite like the glass interface. The multiple windows and the ability to quickly close or expand windows, the menubar, all great. Quite happy with it overall.
Excellent point about the “Your call is very important to us” messages, not to mention the rare (
) “We are experiencing higher than usual call volumes” messages.
I was also wondering how my phone is going to recognize hold music, when it is usually barely recognizable as music - Will they train the AI on old cassette decks that have been dropped on the floor one too many times?
Of interest mostly to nerds like me, but very cool nonetheless, they’ve also Sherlocked Docker with their own implementation of OCI containers that’s based on the Virtualization framework they’ve been gradually improving all this time; you wonder, perhaps, whether this was always the endgame.
Apparently macOS 26 also introduces a new disk image, which is recommended for use in virtual machines.
I was not commenting on the designer but more about the purported user.
Non-developers need to understand this is an unstable developer release. Primarily for developers to test their applications against the new OS. I’m testing macOS 26 and things are not fully complete, and I’ve encountered numerous random crashes. Not the whole OS (no kernel panics, yet) but an app or even System Settings quitting unexpectedly. It could corrupt your data, then sync to iCloud and really ruin your day.
The best way to test macOS if you don’t have a spare Mac and enough free disk space is to dual boot Sequoia & Tahoe. In Disk Utility add a new APFS volume to the Container, name it macOS so it is different than ‘Macintosh HD’. Set your default startup disk (macOS / Macintosh HD). Hold power on Apple Silicon when powering up to switch between them. On Intel (2019 MBP) hold Option key at boot to switch volumes.
I would not advise testing iOS / iPadOS Developer Betas unless you have fully backed up the device to a Mac. You can also download the IPSW restoration images from Apple Developer website. You’ll need Apple Configurator to use these restoration images.
And when setting up the new beta system, don’t associate it with your usual iCloud (or OneDrive or Google Drive or any other cloud service) account. Either run without iCloud or create a separate account for beta testing. So if it glitches and corrupts cloud data, it won’t mess up your important content.
As far back as Mountain Lion, I’ve found that with each OS Upgrade, it’s the little things that Apple doesn’t even talk about in the keynote (or only briefly mention) that make the most difference for me in day-today use.
I hope that is the case with Tahoe, as for the most part what I’ve seen so far makes me yawn.
The changes to iPadOS sound best to me: actual functionality/usability changes but time will tell. I have underused my iPads in part for this reason, maybe 26 will put them more in regular use. I suppose these changes appeal more to long time Mac users than those who only know iPad. Hm.
I didn’t watch the presentation (they’ve become so staged and artificial in recent years I gave up) so am wondering if these changes were given with a context, a reason, an inspirational framing?
What I mean is, Steve used to show how changes/new features could actually be used, I felt he tried to make more of an emotional personal connection as I recall. Now the coverage of, say Liquid Glass is ‘golly, look! new! more transparenter! fancy! it’s got AI in it’’ as opposed to ‘we want to give users more of a feeling they are inside, or as one with the software, and our engineers have worked with human interface team to maximize the use of A-Silicon in a way we think is really compelling, to bring the Vision experience closer to Mac and i-OSes!’.
Again, that’s just a knee jerk response to recent presentation styles, but I’m wondering if the purpose or meaning of innovations like this visual style were explained. If it was I might go look at the presentation videos.
I don’t think WWDC included such an explanation. While @ace mentioned above that there were two “themes” apparent at WWDC (Liquid Glass and Apple Intelligence), I had the very strong sense that there was no larger vision.
There were a lot of new features, some good, some not so good, some yet to be determined, but I didn’t see much evidence of a guiding “purpose or meaning”, aside from Apple’s usual desire to use words like “bold” and “beautiful”.
I believe the presumption is that Apple hopes to eventually have Augmented Reality glasses (as opposed to the Vision Pro Virtual Reality products) and having overlayed interface elements that are translucent will be helpful in that environment. So Apple is getting users accustomed to this interface element design well before that product is ready.
I watched the video; I really don’t recall exactly what was shown and not shown, but I think the multitasking interface of iPadOS was shown in use. Skip ahead to the iPadOS portion - I don’t think they spent a lot of time on it.
As somebody who is heavily invested in desktop computing and has no interest in AR/VR goggles, I’m not thrilled to be hearing that my UX shall be compromised just so the gen pop can be accustomed to Apple’s next Apple Vision attempt.
The macOS GUI should be tailored first and foremost (if not exclusively) to computing. Contrast is important, legibility is paramount, but creating see-through illusions for panels when we have opaque screens with nothing to see behind is not (unlike AVP where this is a very real aspect of the platform).
But people buy good-looking systems.
If you want to design everything strictly along the lines of functionality, the UI of System 6 was more than sufficient. But do you think anybody would buy a modern computer with a UI from 1985?
When the “Five Flavors” iMac shipped, each with a corresponding desktop color scheme, it was purely gratuitous. But everybody loved it and Apple sold more systems than ever before.
I understand, and even agree that a lot of UI changes are gratuitous, but things like this sell computers. That’s why it’s done on Windows and Linux as well as macOS.
I’ll disagree with that a little bit. I wouldn’t call the “Five Flavors” iMacs gratuitous. They were part of a deeply thought-out, clearly differentiated strategic design change that was aimed at delighting users. They were the logical, integrated, next step manifestation of Apple’s “Think Different” campaign. That is very different from today’s directionless pattern of design changes for the apparent sake of change.
That said, the associated hockey puck mice that debuted with the first iMacs were abominations.
Not with respect to marketing. But definitely, with respect to system usability. Which was (I think) @Simon’s point.
Ditto. A gratuitous cosmetic change. Looks good in a photo shoot, but does nothing to improve system usability, and (according to people with typical adult-size hands) made use really uncomfortable.
That’s not a real argument. There is no dichotomy forcing us to decide between either functional or pretty. We absolutely can have both. Apple itself set a great example of that compared to Windows and Linux for many years. Just because they recently missed the mark on a few issues does not mean we should give up on the overarching goal. Apple just needs to hear where they went wrong and then they can fix that. But by no means shall we assume if we want nice, we have to give up useful. Or that good/efficient functionality means it can no longer be pretty or fresh.
This is a straw man. Those colors did nothing to deteriorate the UX so there’s no harm in having them and using their color to brighten up dreary office work days. But adding AVP-like transparency to macOS running on a non-transparent monitor does because it screws up legibility. These two examples are nothing alike so let’s not use one to argue the other.
To reset the conversation slightly, it may be worth thinking about the extent to which some users see functionality as easy access to tools, whereas others may see it as a focus on the content that’s being worked on, with the necessary tools appearing only as necessary.
I don’t think there’s a right answer here, but you might imagine the difference between the ultimate home workbench, where there’s a pegboard on the wall holding every imaginable tool, and an operating room, where numerous tools are at hand, but the surgeon requests a particular one and an assistant provides it instantly.
Once you use something long enough, habit will allow you to find the tools even if they’re hidden. The issue is when things are sufficiently obscure as to be an impediment to learning - which leads to great frustration (and often swearing).
I’m not a fan of hiding useful tools which aid functionality. When I need to ‘relearn’ something because I haven’t used it for a month there’s something seriously wrong with the GUI. My golden rule for software design is it should work the way a user would expect it to work - even when they’ve never used it before.
Thanks for that. It’s something I miss from the Apple of old I remember. I had the feeling back then the products and services were more personal and designed for users’ benefit.
These days it feels like Apple is just another huge company cranking out stuff on a schedule for the sake of spouting more hyperbole.
Ah well, times change.
Thanks @ddmiller I’ll aim to check out that portion later this week when I catch up on other stuff!
I agree on the interface design comment and have wondered, since it was announced, why they started with Vision “Pro”, instead of just “Vision”. Kind of implies there will be a Vision Mini or something for ‘ordinary’ users at some point.
Then again, I’m kind of clueless about the product. In the early coverage I read I couldn’t figure out if it is a ‘computer’ itself (ie how much internal storage, how to back it up etc) or or merely a very expensive keyboard/mouse that interacts with… Macs? iPads? (not asking for answers here, just commenting on the coverage of the launch… I read enough to know it’s not something I want or need)…
It must be quite a challenge to gradually merge the interface design for all these products.
Capabilities in “Sherlocked” apps that are not included in macOS 26 features:
Possibly interesting interview on Macstories about iPadOS, will look at it when not so busy but wanted to link it meantime…
Also intrigued by the iPadOS moving to a Mac-like interface, so people can actually do real work on them. This suggests that macOS is not about to be overhauled to just become a big version of the iPhone as some feared.
There are other features that sound interesting as well, but time and trial will have to prove their merit (and functionality).
However, I will be truly impressed when you can tap a Recent call to view details and NOT auto-dial the number (Phone app), or verify/toggle the current audio quality for Voice Memos WITHIN the app. You know… like macOS.
Current process to verify or change audio quality:
That may be if you stick to a single set of tools. But I switch to Brave when Safari chokes on a web site (which happens fairly frequently to me; Chase’s site hasn’t worked in Safari for months). I figure everyone makes sure their web site works on Chromium-based browsers. Safari hides its close icon on the left of the tab, Brave on the right, although at least it deigns to display it on the active tab.
Muscle memory or not, I like to see a target before I start moving towards it. How would someone do in a firing range in which the target doesn’t appear until after the gun is fired?
But apparently, Apple believes they were onto something.
So you agree with me.
I hate hidden stuff - but I also accept familiarity will eventually lead to it being less an issue. The problem is anything which can be learned can be forgotten over time, which is why hiding things is so annoying.
Those two approaches describe the difference between Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro precisely. Apple has, of late, valued the latter.
Can anybody comment if iOS 26 will finally allow users to prevent older notifications from being auto hidden by the OS?
Just to add a comment to this, I had to replace an Apple TV yesterday (running tvOS 18.x, so not on the beta) because the TV 4k 68 GB model doesn’t support being a Thread Border Router but the 128 GB model does
and it took all of ten to fifteen minutes to get the old one wiped, the new one set up, and all of our apps (which automatically installed into the correct place in the grid) entered so I could log in to each. I guess it’ll still be nice not to have to do that last part anymore, but t wasn’t a huge burden after all.
I don’t believe that was a feature covered during WWDC25, so no, I am unable to confirm or deny that it will be included in iOS 26. Perhaps you should avail yourself of the public beta which has been promised for later this month, to see for yourself.
Just a footnote: AFAIK, all of the 2nd Gen 4k Apple TVs support thread border router service, as does the 128 GB WiFi-Ethernet 3rd Gen model. The 3rd Gen 4K WiFi-only model does not support thread border router service. I don’t know about the 1st Gen models.
Right, and unfortunately the model I had was the 3rd Gen 4k 64 GB. I’ll move it to my other house to replace an old Apple TV HD (which is connected to a 1024 TV, but that doesn’t matter.) I do have a 2nd gen 4K at my other house but that would have been a two-hour round trip just as we moved up to the summer house.