Juli Clover:
Apple today provided developers with the eighth beta of macOS Tahoe 26 for testing purposes, with the update coming a week after the seventh beta.
The release notes don’t call out any changes since beta 5.
Previously:
Update (2025-08-26): Mario Guzmán:
How is this good design? It is so busy. Way too much clashing. Blobs of low contrast. JFC… why?!
They were so concerned with if they could pull off liquid glass that they didn’t stop to think if they should or shouldn’t DO liquid glass globally.
😵💫
I hate using my Mac now.
Steve Troughton-Smith:
The new macOS Tahoe seed has new ‘order front’ and ‘order out’ animations for windows, including some physics springs and a little bit of bounce. It’s not as dramatic as on mobile, but it’s a lot more like iOS than before. I hope they go further, though.
I’m also hearing that the MEDecodedMessageBanner API for Mail extensions is broken,
Update (2025-09-02): Tuomas Hämäläinen:
Apple love to preach “the UI gets out of the way of your content” with each new redesign, but how true is that in practice? Let’s compare the total height of the Safari UI with a toolbar, favourites bar and tab bar visible, across the three latest Mac OS design languages – Yosemite, Big Sur and now Tahoe. I’ve added a red line for emphasis.
It sure looks to me like the UI is eating more into my content with each redesign.
Craig Grannell:
Just installed dev 8 on Mac. If the suggestions are true and this is the final design, it’s still shit. The window corners are ludicrous. The massive drop shadows make window buttons in eg Finder the most visually prominent thing in view. All these elements (incl the sidebar) sit ABOVE your content, rather than being deferential to it, thereby becoming a visual distraction.
Oddly, Reduce Transparency now knocks out most of the shadows. The result isn’t pretty or coherent but it’s more usable.
Craig Grannell:
I just don’t get this design. At all. The eye is distracted by the drop shadows, which lift the sidebar and buttons ‘above’ the content (ie the icons) and the title of the window. From a visual hierarchy standpoint, it makes no sense.
The menu bar also just feels weird without a background.
Mario Guzmán:
I saw @stroughtonsmith mention that Beta 8 typically is the last beta before the RCs… okay but wait, Beta 7 completely broke my toolbar. The toolbar where my code hasn’t changed since like -- 2018… And worked in Tahoe Betas 1-6 just fine. lol broken in Betas 7-8.
[…]
And I am not blaming engineering. I am blaming this full-height sidebar design and Liquid Glass that creates all these crazy edge cases in apps.
No one ever asked for full-height sidebars where we have to the split toolbars into sections and create movement along with the width of said split view panels… no one asked for invisible toolbars either… so many little issues that need to be addressed because the design is fundamentally complex and broken.
Norbert Heger:
Is there a single person at Apple who thinks: “Hey, this looks cool, let’s keep it that way”?
Mario Guzmán:
Okay, someone pointed out to me the #macOSTahoe controls window I posted yesterday was Beta 1.
I went ahead and recreated it myself with additional controls using Beta 8.
I will point out a few things I DO LOVE…
1. The text field actually looks nicer. Sequoia and older had sharp corners & the bottom edge was darker.
2. The Search field FINALLY has rounded ends again! Like in Mac OS X Tiger! Little visual cues like this go a long way!
Mario Guzmán:
What have they done to my boi in macOS Tahoe!?
Mario Guzmán:
I just realized that Mac always had centered window titles since the original Macintosh and Alan Dye just came in and changed all of that out of nowhere.
BasicAppleGuy:
Look how they massacred my boy…
BasicAppleGuy:
No more creative edges; macOS Tahoe forces all icons to stay trapped within the squircle.
Mario Guzmán:
The state of Mail in macOS Tahoe.
Mario Guzmán:
A while back, I reported feedback for FaceTime on macOS because the Settings window was so long and not resizable, some controls would be behind the Dock and were inaccessible.
I finally got a reply that it should be addressed now in #macOSTahoe… This was their solution.
Did Apple forget their own HIG for macOS app layouts? You might be saying, “but it is Catalyst.” So. And? They make this technology, it should be perfect.
Mario Guzmán:
This makes me so sad; this is why you need a proper HIG.
Checkbox labels should succinct (short, to the point). If you need a description, it goes as a secondary label under it and aligned with the checkbox’s title.
What you DO NOT DO is put the checkbox title to the left of the checkbox and the whole ass description to the right.
Trying to figure out how they got some right and some just super wrong in the FaceTime app Settings window… The left side is for section titles only.
Zsolt Benke:
The dynamic background adaptation is broken. Buttons shift from black to white as the background changes, and it’s jarring every single time. Toolbar consistency is all over the place too. Photos and Mail use progressive blur with gradients while Safari keeps the old blurred rectangle, with no apparent logic to which apps get which treatment. Scrolling through Photos is particularly painful as the interface flips from black to white and back again as you move through your library. This isn’t a minor polish issue. It’s a fundamental problem with how the adaptive system responds to content, and Apple should fix it.
When the general public gets their hands on Liquid Glass, I’m sure people will complaint. The current state is too buggy to survive contact with millions of users. I expect iterative improvements throughout the OS 26 cycle as the design gets tweaked based on user feedback.
Marcin Krzyzanowski:
the new icon for http://notepadexe.com embodies the macOS26 shape. it had to happen. but I'm not parting with the original icon. now it's available as an alternative dock icon 🖼️ - maybe add more in the future.
Matthias Gansrigler-Hrad:
I don’t know, but I feel like this grey artwork on the zip file icon makes it look like the file is not available yet, like when copying or something.
Matthias Gansrigler-Hrad:
It’s weird you have to hold down option (⌥) to edit widgets in Notification Center, but command (⌘) in Control Center to edit control widgets on macOS 26 “Tahoe”.
Previously:
Design FaceTime Icons Liquid Glass Mac macOS Beta macOS Tahoe 26 Mail App Extensions Music.app TextEdit
Juli Clover:
Apple today provided developers with the eighth betas of iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 for testing purposes, with the updates coming a week after Apple seeded the seventh betas.
The release notes don’t call out any changes since beta 5.
Steve Troughton-Smith:
Historically, since iOS 13, beta 8 has been the last beta of the summer cycle before the release candidate builds. That suggests that today’s seed is as good as it gets before release — this is it, folks, this is iOS 26.
Previously:
Update (2025-08-26): Steve Troughton-Smith:
From a user standpoint, iOS 26 is fiiine. As a developer, though, this thing is shipping pretty broken. I feel like Apple has done the bare minimum to ensure that their own apps can get out the door and support their marketing, and tread water with the long tail of apps from the App Store that barely go beyond simple layouts and controls, but there are major framework crashers and SpringBoard killers lurking in the weeds. You can bring SpringBoard down with just the Music app, for example.
John Brayton:
Sometimes when opening a Safari View Controller on iPadOS 26, its toolbar covers the status bar.
Update (2025-09-02): Marco Arment:
Beta 8 somehow broke .navigationTransition even more 🤣
Looking forward to when I can actually use all of what they showed off about Liquid Glass.
Mario Guzmán:
I feel like even the nav bar buttons in CarPlay command way too much attention. They look out of place.
At least in the current beta, taking a screenshot on your iPhone won’t include CarPlay’s screenshot anymore — hence a picture.
Mario Guzmán:
What’s the point of having accent colors to highlight selections? They’ll just get washed out anyway by media heavy apps like Music because all of the content shining through the UI competes with the accent color.
Mario Guzmán:
You don’t need to read anything. All good. Humans are resilient. They’ll figure it out.
It’s okay to have smudged text behind labels. It’s okay to not see pagination labeling or glyphs for buttons. You’ll see it eventually.
Adrian Schönig:
Upgraded to iOS 26 beta 8 this morning. App Library search didn’t work. App banners in Safari glitch into the tab bar. In the window behind, the background in Mail app’s sidebar keeps flickering.
Ryan Jones:
Home is the iOS 26 app icon champion. So clean.
CarPlay Design Icons iOS iOS 26 iOS Beta Liquid Glass
Bluesky (via Hacker News):
Mississippi’s approach [to child safety] would fundamentally change how users access Bluesky. The Supreme Court’s recent decision leaves us facing a hard reality: comply with Mississippi’s age assurance law—and make every Mississippi Bluesky user hand over sensitive personal information and undergo age checks to access the site—or risk massive fines. The law would also require us to identify and track which users are children, unlike our approach in other regions. We think this law creates challenges that go beyond its child safety goals, and creates significant barriers that limit free speech and disproportionately harm smaller platforms and emerging technologies.
[…]
Mississippi’s new law and the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) are very different. Bluesky follows the OSA in the UK. There, Bluesky is still accessible for everyone, age checks are required only for accessing certain content and features, and Bluesky does not know and does not track which UK users are under 18. Mississippi’s law, by contrast, would block everyone from accessing the site—teens and adults—unless they hand over sensitive information, and once they do, the law in Mississippi requires Bluesky to keep track of which users are children.
Jason Snell:
Laws like these favor tech giants (which have the money to throw at compliance) and require the collection of sensitive identification material from every user for any purpose. As anyone who has followed the data leaks in the Tea app already knows, strict ID requirements for all users open up enormous risks for all users.
[…]
The case is being appealed and Justice Brett Kavanaugh has gone so far as to write, that the appealing party “has, in my view, demonstrated that it is likely to succeed on the merits—namely, that enforcement of the Mississippi law would likely violate its members’ First Amendment rights under this Court’s precedents.”
Previously:
Update (2025-09-03): Mike Masnick:
Some companies have been blocked by foreign countries, or blocked access in other countries. But geoblocking specific states had generally been limited to adult content sites in the past. This unprecedented response highlights just how unworkable Mississippi’s law really is.
Here at Techdirt, we’ve been warning about the dangerous negative consequences of age verification mandates for years. But even then there are variations in the pure ridiculousness of some of these laws. Some can be dealt with. Some are effectively impossible. Enter Mississippi’s HB 1126.
The bill is ridiculous in many, many ways. It first requires “digital service providers” (defined fairly broadly) to engage in age verification of every new user (the bill is written so badly that it’s not clear if it applies to accounts from before the bill goes into effect). If the user is deemed to be under the age of 18, the site is required to get “parental consent” before making the service available.
Bluesky Children Lawsuit Legal Mississippi Privacy Web
Kif Leswing (via Hacker News):
Intel, the only American company capable of making advanced chips on U.S. soil, said in a press release that the government made an $8.9 billion investment in Intel common stock, purchasing 433.3 million shares at a price of $20.47 per share, giving it a 10% stake in the company. Intel noted that the price the government paid was a discount to the current market price.
Of the total, $5.7 billion of the government funds will come from grants under the CHIPS Act that had been awarded but not paid, and $3.2 billion will come from separate government awards under a program to make secure chips.
[…]
The government will also have a warrant to buy an additional 5% of Intel shares if the company is no longer majority owner of its foundry business.
[…]
Earlier this week, Intel announced another major backer, when SoftBank said it would make a $2 billion investment in the chipmaker, equal to about 2% of the company.
Intel:
Intel will continue to deliver on its Secure Enclave obligations and reaffirmed its commitment to delivering trusted and secure semiconductors to the U.S. Department of Defense.
[…]
“As the only semiconductor company that does leading-edge logic R&D and manufacturing in the U.S., Intel is deeply committed to ensuring the world’s most advanced technologies are American made,” said Lip-Bu Tan, CEO of Intel.
[…]
The government’s investment in Intel will be a passive ownership, with no Board representation or other governance or information rights. The government also agrees to vote with the Company’s Board of Directors on matters requiring shareholder approval, with limited exceptions.
[…]
The existing claw-back and profit-sharing provisions associated with the government’s previously dispersed $2.2 billion grant to Intel under the CHIPS Act will be eliminated to create permanency of capital as the company advances its U.S. investment plans.
On the one hand, this seems to come out of the blue, but it’s kind of just making Intel’s implicit quasi-government status more explicit. In addition to being a direct military supplier, Intel is at least as strategic as GM was during the GFC, and no American government is going to allow it to fail. It’s not clear to me how much strong-arming the deal required. With the funds already committed, you could look at this as the government just taking shares that were not part of the original CHIPS deal. What Intel is getting in return is the removal of some restrictive conditions, in exchange for essentially non-voting shares. Is that worth more than the dilution to shareholders? Did Congress authorize this? What happens from here? Maybe the government becomes a long-term partner, and maybe it’s not such a silent partner in reality. Maybe, with the provisions removed, Intel starts buying back shares, the stock price goes up, investors are happy, and the government sells its stake that “cost nothing” and claims victory.
Previously:
Update (2025-08-26): Tobias Mann:
From the sidelines, it’s hard not to see this deal as extortion. The President after all was holding all the cards. Intel has received just $2.2 billion in subsidies owed under the Chips Act so far, and with the division burning through $3.17 billion a quarter as it strives to enter the foundry business in a big way, Chipzilla could use as much capital as it gets.
Yet, the move shouldn’t come as much of a surprise for anyone who’s been paying attention. Trump played a similar game back in March when he used the specter of massive semiconductor tariffs – which still haven’t materialized – to scare TSMC into bolstering its US investment to the tune of $100 billion.
[…]
All the cash and tax breaks in the world won’t change the root cause of Intel’s trouble: the company can’t seem to convince anyone of consequence to let it fab chips for them. Not even Intel’s product teams seem all that thrilled about its building chips in house anymore. Over the last few years, Intel’s Product divisions have become increasingly reliant on TSMC for manufacturing. In fact, most of Intel’s current portfolio is now outsourced.
See also: this thread with Ben Cohen.
Update (2025-09-02): Nick Heer:
Near the end of Patrick McGee’s “Apple in China” sits a section that will haunt the corners of my brain for a long time. McGee writes that a huge amount of microprocessors — “at least 80 percent of the world’s most advanced chips” — are made by TSMC in Taiwan. There are political concerns with the way China has threatened Taiwan, which can be contained and controlled by humans, and frequent earthquakes, which cannot. Even setting aside questions about control, competition, and China, it makes a lot of sense for there to be more manufacturers of high-performance chips in places with less earthquake potential.
[…]
The rest of the world should see these massive investments as an instruction to build up our own high technology industries. We should not be too proud in Canada to set up Crown corporations that can take this on, and we ought to work with governments elsewhere.
Nick Heer:
This is a gift link because I think this one is particularly worth reading. The headline calls it a “long, painful downfall”, but the remarkable thing about it is that it is short, if anything. Revenue is not always the best proxy for this, but the cracks began to show in the early 2010s when its quarterly growth contracted; a few years of modest growth followed before being clobbered since mid-2020. Every similar company in tech seems to have made a fortune off the combined forces of the covid-19 pandemic and artificial intelligence except Intel.
Ben Thompson:
Lincicome and all of the other critics of this deal are absolutely correct about all of the downsides. The problem with their argument, however, is the lack of steelmanning, in two respects: first, Lincicome’s Twitter thread doesn’t mention “China” or “Taiwan” once (the Washington Post column mentions China, but not in a national security context). Second, Lincicome et al refuse to grapple with the possibility that chips generally, and foundries specifically, really are a unique case.
[…]
In my case, I had been worried about Intel ever since they missed out on mobile, which meant they missed out on the associated volume that came from making chips for every smartphone in the world. Volume is critical when it comes to managing the ever-expanding cost of staying on the leading edge: as the cost of fabs has surged from hundreds of millions to tens of billions of dollars, the only way to fab chips profitably is to have enough volume over which to spread those massive capital expenditures.
[…]
What is worse is the tree that wasn’t planted: the real payoff from Intel building a foundry business in 2010, or 2013 as I recommended, is that they would have been ready for the AI boom. Every hyperscaler is still complaining that demand exceeds supply for AI chips, even as Intel can’t win customers for its newest process that is actually best-suited for AI chips. The company simply has too many other holes in its offering, including the sort of reliability and throughput that is essential to earning customer trust.
Rui Cramo:
Nor, should I add, the actual success of their products—their top consumer CPUs have been plagued with issues over the last couple of years, and, rather ironically, their most successful products (by volume) are the new low-end Alder Lake chips that have been quietly flooding the Mini-PC market, even as AMD take the most profitable niches.
Previously:
Business Intel Processors
Bruno Brito (release notes):
This update allows you to create custom Git workflows, enabling you to define and enforce the exact workflow that meets your project’s needs.
[…]
The first step is to define your core branches, i.e., your “trunk” (e.g., main, master) and “base” (e.g., develop, dev) branches so that you can establish the foundational structure of your repository. […] For each topic branch type, you can set specific branch prefixes (e.g., feature/, hotfix/). This clarifies intent and ensures consistency across your team and can be used for automated checks and organization.
[…]
Next, you can take full control of how changes flow through your branches. You can now define distinct downstream merge strategies (merging the parent into your topic branch to keep it up to date) and upstream merge strategies (merging a branch into its parent to finalize topic branches).
Previously:
Developer Tool Git Git Tower Mac Mac App macOS 15 Sequoia Programming Version Control
Nathan Manceaux-Panot:
Enjoy staggering performance improvements. Every last part of the app has been thoroughly tuned: Retcon is now incredibly responsive, and easily handles Git histories with hundreds of thousands of commits.
No compromise was made to reach these speeds: Retcon still transparently preserves your working directory and stage, offers pervasive undo, a combined stage, and the ability to rewrite history even when conflicts are pending.
I kind of love seeing release notes that are like: no new features, we just fixed some bugs and made it 35× faster.
Previously:
Developer Tool Git Mac Mac App macOS 15 Sequoia Optimization Programming Retcon Version Control
