macOS Tahoe 26 Developer Beta 2
We are not highlighting this second round of developer betas because we think you should go out and install them on the Macs, iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches that you use daily. These are still early versions, and they’re likely to have significant performance, battery, and stability problems relative to the current publicly available versions of the software.
But generally speaking, these second developer builds are the first ones I install on my secondary test devices—a collection of mostly older devices that have been replaced but are still considered current enough to run the new update.
The official release notes don’t seem to say what’s new in beta 2. After day of waiting for Software Update to show the new build, I finally gave up and downloaded the full installer.
We did it! New finder icon in Tahoe beta 2!
The issue? Finder has a dark side and a light side. The dark side is located on the left half of the face while the light side makes up the right half. Finder in macOS Tahoe 26 reversed this arrangement (while using an outline effect around the right side).
In macOS Tahoe Beta 2, Apple included a new option to add a background to the menu bar, making it possible to have a menu bar design that’s similar to the menu bar in macOS Sequoia.
Mmmmm…settings…
The second beta also gives a fresh coat of paint to the Migration Assistant app icon.
I think we need to talk about what has happened to Disk Utility.
With this release being one of the most dramatic visual overhauls of macOS’s design, I wanted to begin a collection chronicling the evolution of the system icons over the years. I’ve been rolling these out on social media over the past week and will continue to add to and update this collection slowly over the summer.
Five thoughts on Tahoe’s Safari monstrosity that @siracusa shared via ATP show notes[…]
I think the Journal app in macOS Tahoe is the first first-party Mac Catalyst app to rely on rich text editing, traditionally a pretty weak spot along Catalyst’s API surface (text editing and document management in general). Hopefully that kind of dogfooding will finally close that gap.
Previously:
- macOS Tahoe Beta Forces Sharing FileVault Key
- macOS Tahoe’s New Theming System
- macOS Tahoe 26 Announced
- Liquid Glass
5 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon
You're one of the most valuable companies in the world, working on a massive UX overhaul ... why *not* start with an ambitious HIG that encompasses all the new platforms? That serves as your evaluation framework for the actual redesign.
@Lukas Apple already had great HIG that they unceremoniously chucked in the garbage sometime in the last 15 years. Every* UI change in macOS has been a regression since around 2010 or so.
( * I'm sure there's a few changes here or there that are arguably not regressions, but I stand by my point.)
The bevels (if that's even what they're intended to be) make everything look terrible. That Migration Assistant icon looks like it was punched out of cheap plastic blister packaging. Everything about Disk Utility's icon somehow gets worse the more you study it.
I just don't get it. Ever since I started using a Mac, they've systematically removed so many of the things that made it great.
Meanwhile in bizarro world, Microsoft has removed a lot of the reasons I didn't like Windows.
They've both injected a lot of ads and garbage.
I don't understand why Apple just throws away their advantages.
If they aren't reading blogs like this, listening to the people Michael quotes, who are they listening to? Who is telling them these things are good ideas? They don't listen to feedback. They apparently barely listen to direct instructions from courts.
It's all completely self inflicted.
