Why I’m Holding Off On Upgrading to MacOS Tahoe 26 For Now
If you’re anything like me, you’re typically excited about new operating systems being released, but also approach with a little hesitation. After diving right into iOS 26 on iPhone, I regretted it for various reasons including some Liquid Glass annoyances, sluggishness, and battery drain (though my opinions are rapidly evolving, more on that separately!), and so I am taking a much more cautious approach regarding installing MacOS Tahoe 26 on my MacBook Air.
I’m certainly intrigued by MacOS Tahoe 26 and its newness, but my Mac is used almost exclusively for work and productivity, and I am going to sit on the sidelines a bit longer to wait and see. I’ve seen enough feedback, gripes, complaints, social media threads, forum posts, and reviews, and this article is going to discuss how I arrived at my currently paused position on MacOS Tahoe.
1: Liquid Glass & Interface Changes can make usability difficult
MacOS Tahoe 26 adopts the new Liquid Glass interface and visual overhaul, which features a lot more transparency, translucency, motion, animations, reduced contrast, frostiness, and sort of a cartoonish look in places, that, all combined, to my eyes make the interface less usable. I already find this to be the case with iOS 26 and it’s partly why I’m frustrated with Liquid Glass in iOS 26 for iPhone, but I don’t want to deal with this on my Mac.
There are many stories, gripes, and complaints online of Mac users who are frustrated with MacOS Tahoe and Liquid Glass and who express challenges with usability, and I’m just not interested in that frustration right now.
What is your opinion here, do you find Liquid Glass and the interface changes to make usability more difficult on the Mac? Leave a comment at the bottom of this article and share your thoughts.
2: Liquid Glass can reduce legibility for some
Another common theme of complaints about Liquid Glass, not just for Tahoe by the way, is that general legibility is reduced, text is harder to read, and that visual elements are more cluttered. Low contrast interface elements and heavy transparency, plus visual clutter, can make everything blend together and harder to differentiate.
Look, my eyesight isn’t perfect, and I already use corrective lenses. My eyes tire easily when looking at screens already, and a reduction in contrast, blurry interface elements that seem to blend together, and text that is harder to read because of design language decisions, just sound like more friction in my digital interactions, and it’s not something I want to deal with on my Mac at this point.
Some of the typical tweaks to fix text legibility issues are not effective in MacOS Tahoe, like “Increase Contrast” which, EclecticLight describes as “the predominant effect is the outlining of controls within each window, rather than any change in contrast.”. I actually do like outlining of controls, but what I like more than that is contrast of those controls and any text on the screen.
What do you think, do you find Liquid Glass on MacOS Tahoe to reduce legibility of text and interface elements? Let us know in the comments at the bottom of the article!
3: Mixed reports of apps crashing and incompatibilities
A notable number of online complaints for MacOS Tahoe have to do with app incompatibilities, or equally frustrating, with certain apps just outright crashing in MacOS Tahoe. This is likely more situation depending on the apps you use, and your specific hardware, but again I need to use my Mac for productivity on a daily basis and I can’t afford to have major app issues right now. These reports are scattered around social media and the web, and cover many different apps, including some default apps from Apple.
What has been your experience, have you encountered any major app incompatibilities or problems with apps crashing in MacOS Tahoe? Whatever the case, share your experiences in the comments below the article!
4: Miscellaneous complaints about bugs, performance, battery life, wi-fi, etc
If you wade into the waters of Apple Support forums, MacRumors forums, reddit, X/Twitter, Bluesky, Mastadon, and the like, you’ll inevitably find the usual complaints that come with any new operating system release; general bugs, problems with performance, reduced battery life, wi-fi connection issues, internet connectivity issues, bluetooth dropping, etc etc. Some of these complaints might be because of Tahoe, some of them might be standard behavior after any major update (like temporary slowdowns and battery performance drops are), and some could even be due to bugs in MacOS Tahoe itself.
I don’t know about any of this, but again my primary usage of a Mac is to work and be productive, and right now MacOS Sequoia is rock solid so I don’t see any need to tempt fate quite yet.
If you have jumped onto Tahoe already, do you have any major complaints or issues, bad bugs, or has it been smooth sailing? Share those with us in the comments at the bottom of this article, we want to know.
I am waiting for MacOS Tahoe 26.1
Since I am holding off on updating my Mac right away, my current plan is to wait for MacOS Tahoe 26.1, which I assume will fix any of the major issues and bugs that are impacting early Tahoe users. I suspect we will also see some changes introduced to help issues around legibility and accessibility for the Liquid Glass interface too.
Trying MacOS Tahoe without commitment
I will continue to explore and use MacOS Tahoe 26, but just not as my primary operating system. The safest way for me to tinker with Tahoe is to use a virtual machine, which is so easy to setup on an Apple Silicon Mac that it offers a really easy way to try out MacOS Tahoe without having to fully commit to replacing Sequoia with it.
Articles we have covered in the past for running Tahoe in virtual machines that could be helpful are:
- How to run MacOS Tahoe 26 in UTM (article was written for the beta but it works the exact same with final release)
- How to run MacOS Tahoe with tart VM (also written with the beta in mind, but works the same on final, but tart uses the command line to setup)
You’ll want the final macOS Tahoe 26 installer file or IPSW for this, which you can always grab from here.
Using MacOS Tahoe 26 in a virtual machine allows you to try out Tahoe without fully committing to the upgrade as your primary operating system, and for me this is a perfectly adequate solution as I wait for the first major update to Tahoe to address some of the common user complaints out there.
Final thoughts
MacOS Tahoe 26 has many bright spots and some nice new features, and the new interface change to Liquid Glass can be really quite aesthetically pleasing in some scenarios, but for me right now, I need to wait until MacOS Tahoe has a bit more polish applied. As it is right now, it feels like Apple prioritized the new visual look over functionality, and that’s enough to make me hold off for the time being. As Apple continues to iterate on Tahoe, it’ll undoubtedly be improved, and the concerns that I have will hopefully be allayed, otherwise I might just have to update in resignation.
And who knows, maybe I will throw caution to the wind and jump aboard MacOS Tahoe 26 on my Mac, just like I put iOS 26 on my iPhone, and initially hate it, but then quickly grow to appreciate it? That’s basically how my experience with the new OS and Liquid Glass interface on iPhone was for me, and I’ll cover that little rollercoaster of a journey in another article.
What about you? Where do you stand on MacOS Tahoe 26, Liquid Glass, the new interfaces, any bugs or major issues, or perhaps it has been a fantastic trouble free experience for you that has improved your workflow? Tell us your experiences and thoughts in the comments, we are always interested in learning from you too!
The most notable addition—live translation across Messages, Phone, and FaceTime—feels incremental compared to competitors
I’ve been an Apple user since 2010, and this is the first time I’m going to pass — I won’t be installing the new iOS or especially the new macOS. That border radius is just too big! I hate it. The Finder feels ruined. I don’t care about the Control Center (I rarely use it anyway), but making everything so rounded… ahhh.
I completely agree. I already get eyestrain at the computer, even with my “computer glasses.” But the tools for the visually impaired are overkill for me, at least for now.
I just need decent contrast and sharpness and no visually-confusing “transparency.” I thought there was an entire discipline of visual design that understood this stuff…
Why is it necessary to make such a muck of things? I just want to be able to use my computer without all this stuff getting in my way.
Haven’t seen anything compelling in 26 to adopt right away. I always give a significant release time to release bug fixes and get app developers onboard with updates. For me, I could still be using Snow Leopard if I could and it would do everything I need. Apple sort of is committed to this annual cadence of releases so it has to come up with new stuff. Sometimes they have good ideals, other times it feels more like fluff and eye candy. All filler no substance.
I installed 26. It worked ok and I kind of liked its looks. I did a re-start to sort out a small problem and found myself in a ‘Locked’ ‘Guest’ screen from which there was no way out, no password input or anything. I’m now on a re-installed OS 15. I’ll wait for 26.1 before trying again.
I think that 26 is a gimmick just to show how clever Apple is. It’s OK but I don’t like pages auto resizing with no obvious way to go back to full screen. Multi tasking is supposed to be easier but I don’t find it so. I don’t like windows lurking on each border and I can’t remember what they are without opening them! Unnecessary complications are anathema to old man like me.
I have No need for it….none. I love simplicity and speed….the memory is huge for this update and AI is nothing I want as well as combing the iphone to the macbook…my computer is not my phone. I do have the M3 pro…when I eat a steak I do not need 10 sides. I know what I have is good.
I wait as long as possible to upgrade. Basically until Adobe tells me to, or until the utilities I rely on stop being supported. Until Apple gives us a “power mode” to configure the interface elements (ahem, corner radius), I cling to my old ways and the cat-and-mouse with other macOS nerds out there.
Well,
Big mistake on my side, upgrade to macOS 26 Tahoe.
As said in the article, I find it very unstable. A lot of app crashes without reasons.
Most apps show all keyboard shortcuts as grayed out (so cmd-Q or cmd-C don’t work).
The finder sometimes freezes, no way to move icons around, nothing works besides a reboot.
It looks they outperformed this time and were able to make something worse than the worst: Catalina (a total disaster).
But the kill of the Launchpad, made me restore my Sequoia backup (Sequoia is by far much more stable and usable).
There’s something totally wrong with this Liquid Glass. Nobody asked for a redesign.
I hate that Apple imposes a graphic UI that I don’t like. I’m talking about both iOS and macOS. It’s even worse for me on macOS. Sorry, but I hate the transparency (unreadable), I hate the new ugly Finder icon, I hate the more rounded corners (so much wasted space and nonsense)… I will stay on Sequoia and iOS 18 as long as possible. All this new graphic stuff is superficial, useless… and a failure. There are so many more important things to fix in macOS for productivity.
Sorry again, I’m a bit angry about this because I loved the macOS 15 UI, and they destroyed it… but you know what? Apple has made so many mistakes (like the butterfly keyboards, the Mac Pro trash, to name a few…) that they’ll probably backtrack when enough people start complaining about the unreadability, etc. It’s the macOS Vista moment, unfortunately.
Anyway, thanks for your website, which I’ve known for a long time. Best regards from France :)
I do not like 26 on any of my devices. On my iPhone I see that exercise options now have an arrow for starting the exercise which is harder to hit that the text was. My wife hasn’t upgraded her watch like I have and I told her to wait.
I will NOT install it on any of my Macs until maybe sometime next year, I’m not in a hurry. I think Apple has blown it with this release. I do not care about Liquid glass I want my GUI to be familiar and easy to use. Don’t touch what works well unless you add something that’s selectable. I don’t want Finder to change or exercise or photos and more.
I hate the implementation on iPhone and I will not update my iPad.
I downloaded macOS Tahoe 26 to my new MacBook and played with it for a couple of hours. I found it to be, well, interesting. For the things I normally do, it was basically helpful, but I definitely want to test it further. I turned off my MacBook for the night and went to bed.
During the night, old man disaster sneaked into the room.
The sun came up, and it was time to work. I turned on the MacBook—whoa, it would not turn on. The screen was black, the computer was dead. Pressing all of the key combinations I know for recovery and so on produced nothing. It was dead—no sound, not the slightest clue of life.
It just lay there on its back with its four feet in the air like an armadillo run over by a semi-truck on a West Texas highway.
Then the little green light by the camera started blinking. I tried another round of key combinations—nothing. Just a blank screen and that little green camera light blinking.
Next, I attempted to test if charging it would make anything work. The charging cord has a rather unique connector. The days of plugging in are over. The new concept uses a magnet to hold the cord connector to the electric contacts on the computer.
There is a small light located in the connector that lights up when properly connected and receiving a charge. As usual, the little light came on. Well, I told myself, at least we have one thing working normally.
Normally, the light burns steadily; however, this time it was blinking in unison with the camera light. Still, the screen remained blank, dark, and lifeless.
Today, I am looking for someone to fix it—that is, if someone is willing to fix it real cheap. My Social Security check doesn’t arrive until the last Wednesday of the month. I would hate to have to throw the computer away, especially since I still have $400 to pay on it.
Installed and approved. However, I don’t use anything except one photo and one video software (and VPN, Startup Cleaner, and Little Snitch). I don’t use Apple’s cloud either. No Microsoft apps. Installation on my phone and MBP worked in no time, and even the few apps ran immediately without any problems. Affinity is 10 times faster than Photoshop, and a lot of things seem to calculate faster. Yes, I updated all apps before switching to Tahoe.
I appreciate the balanced view — you didn’t oversell the solution.
I downloaded Tahoe but decided not to install because of the overbloated memory effect of AI. I still wish that Apple would realize that small font light gray text on a white background is almost unreadable to us oldies, yet almost all documentation accompanying new products is designed this way!
Well said… I’m still on Sonoma for many of the reasons you mentioned, namely stability. If I could, I’d still be running Snow Leopard lol. I see no compelling reason to upgrade beyond the security updates until I need to.
As for iOS—well, that’s a big bag of hurt right there. Lotsa fancy gloss I don’t care about. I hope Apple finds its way soon. cheers!
I wish I had not upgraded to Tahoe 26. I am inundated with problems of wifi dropping, apps not responding or freezing, long terms of beach balling and slow responses.
I probably will not uninstall though as I hope there will be a fix, “very soon”.
Why is it that every few years developers get a hardon for transparency? It sucked in Vista, and it sucks in Tahoe.
I’ll probably skip Tahoe altogether. I can’t see any reason to upgrade. The reduced legibility/readability of all this transparency and roundness is just not worth it for the meager collection of new functions. I’ll upgrade when some app I need requires the latest macOS.
And yes, I have actually tried out Tahoe in a Virtual Machine to make an informed decision.
Cosmetic changes may eventually be coped with (not ideal).
After a brief trial in Eclectic’s Viable virtual app, I will be actively resisting Tahoe. Deal breaker was the awful replacement of Launchpad with Apps menu.
Apple’s arrogance rivals my least favourite OS. The Software update process from 15.6.1 to 15.7 was duplicitous. You had to drill into the Sequoia Update now, uncheck Tahoe 26 and manually select 15.6. Tricky/Trickery?
Perhaps the only way forward is to run Sequoia in a VM and pretend it not happening
Exactly. Tricky. I may have accidentally hit “update tonight” because I hadn’t opted for that for Tahoe but it appeared anyway. I just want the Sequoia updates and Safari patches.
Am sick of having to turn off all of the connectivity that updates turn back on again and the new surprising connectivity that they add each time.
Where’s the full lockdown, remember nothing, radio button. I swear my phone connected to a neighbour’s fridge the other day and ordered itself a Coke using my credit card the other day…
So I’ll have to see if Tahoe starts injecting itself like a tricky ghost in the night. Maybe if I lock it in the faraday freezer it’ll keep Sequoia?
I should’ve waited to upgrade before diving right in.
Since upgrading to Tahoe, my M4 Mac Mini has been lagging and randomly rebooting and I can’t seem to get anything done.
Surfing the web, reading e-mails, working on documents, coding, everything that I do on my computer daily, since the upgrade, that used to take me a few minutes, to complete is now taking 2 to 3 times the amount of time to get down. I should’ve waited.
I first installed 15.7 which installed seamlessly. After a couple of days, I decided to move to 26 on my Mac Mini M1. Overall I’d say its an improvement. Since battery isn’t an issue on a Mini, I noticed bugs I’d seen with Sequoia have been fixed with Tahoe. As to liquid glass I like the new icons and folder design along with animation. As to issues with other apps, I haven’t run into any worth commenting about. I’ll be upgrading to the Mac Mini M4 Pro soon so it will be interesting to see how a rocketship deals with the Tahoe
my ios13 mini can no longer charge with cable can only use memory bank
Apple should have left the interface design to professionals. Liquid glass is just fluff and bloat and doesn’t add anything to anything.
Sage advice, Jamie. I never install the dot zero version of anything, especially an OS. Also, most of the Unix tools I use as a developer are open-source and need to catch up with the latest release. This can take months. I set aside the year-end holidays, when I’m using up my PTO, to do the upgrade – first on a non-work computer and then on my daily driver.
I’m reluctant to move to Tahoe – finally broke down and moved to Sequioa when I could not access some websites, and sure enough, my printer would not work. I had someone do a work-around, but don’t want to take any chances until, again, I don’t have a choice!
Although I was kind of skeptical towards macOS Tahoe 26, I’m actually pleasantly surprised by the increased overall readability. What is however very annoying are the rounded corners especially in the tabs of Safari which can be confusing, although visibility has improved. Also after the update, in FaceTime I can’t hear people speak although they can hear me, I checked all settings and they all look good. The arrows on folder aliases are standing out better, but aliased folders can apparently not be customized! On the other hand, iOS26 for the iPhone should on the whole be abandoned, the Liquid Glass doesn’t really hold up to its promise.
In addition to what you already outlined above my biggest gripe is that I don’t see any benefits from Tahoe. Aside from liquid glass (which I don’t like, especially the pointlessly large space wasting rounded corners) what are the benefits of upgrading? I haven’t seen any since updating to Tahoe. It seems pointless from a functional perspective. Fluffware.
BTW, booting is significantly slower on two Macs I own.
I have been beta testing Tahoe for months and have upgraded to the release. No problems on MacMini M2. Every time a new OS is released some journalists will advocate waiting. If you see new features that you find attractive or interesting, I recommend going ahead. the rare occasions I see problems, they are caused by apps that were long ago abandoned by their developers.
I miss “Launchpad” in macOS Tahoe.
I have been using macOS 26 since it was released at WWDC. It has been largely stable. I’ve only had issues with a couple 3rd party utilities. With that said, I don’t run any resource intensive apps either.
I’m old and my eyes are slowly failing. I have always thought that Apple computers would provide the accessibility tools that would help me in the future. Having switched to Tahoe, I despair. It’s not just the decrease in legibility – it’s the unexplained dog’s breakfast of accessibility/visual/screen settings, interrelated in mysterious ways, and scattered across so many settings pages that making adjustments is a fool’s errand. What is the alternative?
I completely agree. I already get eyestrain at the computer, even with my “computer glasses.” But the tools for the visually impaired are overkill for me, at least for now.
I just need decent contrast and sharpness and no visually-confusing “transparency.” I thought there was an entire discipline of visual design that understood this stuff…
Why is it necessary to make such a muck of things? I just want to be able to use my computer without all this stuff getting in my way.
Surprisingly, no issues with iOS 26, wish I could say the same for macOS 26. Liquid Glass is nothing more than eyewash so I can take it or leave it. I spent half a day messing with light mode and dark mode, increase contrast, reduce transparency, and I’m still not satisfied. Little things like scanning not working using Image Capture and a general slowdown of EVERYTHING will probably go away in 26.1 or 26.10 but waiting to update is always a good idea.
To me it looks much the same … once I disable the new UI. What I really miss is the Launchpad. The new program that replaces it, Apps, forces you to use Spotlight and is dumber than an iPhone, which at least gives you a way to group your apps the way you like. Taking away functionality makes some of us cranky.