Tab management in Safari is in my view broken. It used to be it was easy to see when you had more tabs than would fit on the tab bar. Now I find that I have to fiddle a lot to find tabs.
Did they remove Tab Overview as a menu command (shift-cmd-) and/or a toolbar item?
Is it normal that printer driver compatibilities are not anticipated or universal workarounds installed in new systems?
Can’t print to Konica Minolta Bizhub C550i
Unfortunately, yes. I’d say printer and scanner connection problems are one of the most common issues on troubleshooting message boards.
Printer driver issues should be a thing of the past with modern printers and driverless printing (AirPrint/IPP Everywhere). All of my printers have survived macOS upgrades from Sonoma through Tahoe unscathed since I ditched their proprietary drivers back in Monterey and went driverless (all my printers support AirPrint).
It seems that driver problems are present for printers that dont’t have driverless support and whose vendors haven’t decided to invest in updating their proprietary drivers for newer macOS versions. Older, discontinued printers are particularly vulnerable to these issues.
This problem (needing THREE presses-in-a-row of the Control key to dismiss the screen saver) persisted in macOS 26.0.1, but now it seems to be fixed in macOS 26.1. While the screen saver is running, I can now press the Control key just ONCE to dismiss the screen saver.
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Well I finally bit the bullet and updated from Sequoia to Tahoe (26.1). So far, I’m impressed with how well everything is working. In fact, my only real complaint is that the size of the Calculator window in Scientific mode is significantly larger than before, and I can find no way to shrink it back to the size I have allocated for it on my (somewhat obsessively designed) desktop.
[Edit: Ok, now two complaints: Why did the beautiful overlay that appeared when you pressed the volume up/down keys get replaced with an ugly, up in the menubar popover with a slider display that is so granular it’s useless for quick adjustments? I knew I liked the sound at three bars on the old transparent overlay display–which I would argue was much more liquid-glassy than the new ugly slider thingy.]
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So the week when .1 came out I was fighting with internet provider about an intermittent DSL outage (restored to 100% after 10 days), so I didn’t know it was out and wouldn’t have tried with intermittent internet.
Anyway, long list of notes below for your entertainment.
First impressions though are ‘meh’, ‘ugh’, ‘why is this better?’, and ‘I wish they wouldn’t keep on turning on stuff I’ve turned off’ and a couple of ‘ok, yeah maybe that’s cools’…
Software Update settings changed to favor Apple so I changed back to my prefs
iCloud > Manage Storage, I always delete Siri data and now it takes more steps to do so and at one point a window told ‘your request is being processed’. Wait, am I not the Administrator of the Mac? I did not make a request of Apple, I gave a command
On/Off buttons/sliders are now oval and wider, how is this better
Animation of the sliders has some lines along the edge of the buttons going partway across and I don’t get the iconologic meaning of these lines. I’m not sure how to show that as I think I’d have to take a screen video and crop it very tightly…
Corner radius of windows seem larger, don’t see how this is better
Finder and Settings left columns are in rounded box, with blank space above, below and left which seems a waste of screen realestate
I was checking Widgets in notification center and was told they’d been moved to the desktop, regardless of my wishes. At least there was an option to revert!
Editing Menu Bar Controls in Settings takes you to Control Center. What? I wanted to work on Menu Bar…
Calendar Widget, hm. I had been hoping for a multiple month display, there is room for 2 months side by side, but no, there is still only one full-month Calendar Widget alas
Stocks Watchlist Widget still limited to 6 items. Used to be 10 or 12
I guess for some reason they want users to open the associated apps for these 2 Widgets
Default Web Browser is hidden in Settings > Desktop & Dock > Widgets. Maybe it has been there for a while but seems an odd place for it
Settings for Spotlight are quite different. There is a long list of Apps and maybe that’s useful but it might make sense to have a standard for ‘turn on/off all’ if any list of buttons is more than x.
There used to be options for types of files, now it’s just ‘files’
Clipboard history in Spotlight seems new and nicely enough they note that ‘personal and sensitive information may appear in search results’, which is uh, kind of obvious and makes me wonder why they warn users about it, perhaps Spotlight shares its activity with Apple. But I already use LaunchBar for this for a long time so turned it off
In Login Items & Extensions is something called ‘hdutil’, shown as from unidentified developer. I thought I’d turned it off but it’s on again. Would be interested to know what that thing is
In Application Notifications is ‘Kerberos’. I think it was in previous MacOSes but I still don’t know what it is and it’s not explained. If it’s important enough to list in Notifications you’d think they’d explain what it is. I don’t recall ever seeing a Notification from Kerberos
Menus are now chock full of tiny icons to the left of the text commands. I don’t find this an improvement. The icon department must be very busy
Saved to iCloud, as usual with software updates, lots was turned on although I’ve had them off for a very long time through several updates
In Settings > General > Storage > ‘Store in iCloud’, Desktop & Documents, Photos, and Messages are all selected On. It’s a non-standard dialog (not new in 26.1 btw), because if you turn them all off then the button lower right to confirm the decision is not clickable, you can only Cancel. Gives the impression you cannot turn storing all this stuff in iCloud off, and gives no indication of current status
Settings > Accessibility > Display shows several on/off buttons at the top that are off and gray (as if not able to be clicked) but clickable. I discovered this by clicking Invert Colors, and then turning back to normal. Oddly enough then the Settings and other windows had dark backgrounds as if in ‘night mode’ (which I have set for 10 pm but it’s now only 830 pm)
Then I looked in other Settings Panes and discovered that on/off buttons are often gray even though clickable. Maybe it’s been like that a long time and only now I noticed
When the Desktop is visible behind open windows, it used to be the icons of items on the Desktop were visible. Now they are only visible when showing the Desktop. I don’t see why this is better, it gives me the feeling Desktop is broken or lost
Folder icons in Finder Windows had turned themselves to Red. Then I discovered this was some automatic change based on my change in text highlighting. So I picked a color from the apparently new Folder Color option in Appearance > Theme
Then I noticed that Folder Icons take on the color of the Flag, but… wait there’s no reference to Flags (or was it Tags) in the context menu, just colored dots and… ahoy! there’s a Customise Folder option that allows lots of interesting changes to Folder icons, whoop!
That led me to notice in Mail, The Favorites are in my highlight color when selected, Smart Mailboxes don’t change from black when selected, and the On My Mac mailboxes are some other color I didn’t choose, when they are selected; nothing in Mail Settings about it
Changing Keyboard or Display brightness with Function Row keys, instead of a big centered indication there is now only a tiny barely noticeable indication up by the Status Menu. I don’t see this as an improvement
Connecting to my same years long in use Wifi router takes about 10 seconds instead of previous 2-4 seconds
I’ve set up a new cellular data wifi box and Tahoe rarely remembers it, I have to select Other… and enter the name and long password about 3 out of 4 attempts to connect
Sometimes clicking on the wifi symbol in Status Menu connects to the wifi, sometimes it presents the long-standing pop down where one can turn wifi on/off or go to Settings, etc. I thought maybe it was the setting for ‘automatically connect’ but I turned that off and it is still inconsistent
In Mail, I noticed that keyboard command equivalents shown are in gray text, not sure if this is new but I now find myself confused, Apple seems to have done away with the idea that gray means inactive/not available yet in fact it now has no such meaning. I don’t know if this is a Tahoe thing
Also in Mail, perhaps other apps, there are commands in black with > symbols for further options but the options are all gray. I thought if all the after > options were gray so would the main command before the >. Hm. maybe also not recalled correctly but is frustrating
Maybe not new in Tahoe but Apple demands the User Account Password with some activities related to iCloud. This puts full login data about my account in Apple’s hands, which doesn’t seem right. I always change my account password after being forced to give it up like this
This whole ‘Liquid Glass’ thing, seems like a waste of space with bigger roundings and more gaps, and makes things more visually confusing for me, with blurred gunk behind search fields, option buttons etc. One nifty thing is the reversed image of the material displayed behind clear buttons, along the edges of the buttons, like real glass (more noticeable in iOS)! Still, I need to look again at Mr. Engst’s article about making it more like the old style…
Used to be, you could drag a window to the right to put it in a new ‘Space’, but now nothing happens when I drag a window to the right edge.
Anyway, congratulations if you made it this far, though maybe the Reply was deleted for being too long…
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‘I wish they wouldn’t keep on turning on stuff I’ve turned off’
This is my major issue; Apple keeps turning on stuff I’ve turned off. Can’t tell you the amount of time I’ve spent either on the phone or in chats w/Apple about problems I’m having w/the new iOS and OS since the upgrades to 26.
I’ve never made note to changes I’ve made on my systems in the past so when things get fouled up after an upgrade, I don’t even know where to look as the settings setup is always different. I always need to ask to escalate the call as the 1st person I speak to never even understands what I’m asking. Then I get a senior advisor & the 1st thing they tell me is that whatever it is I’m asking about isn’t possible in the new iOS or OS.
Either I’m persistent enough that they finally figure out what I’m asking & provide a way for me to change the setting(s) back to what they were or I eventually give up. Sometimes after a long conversation, I keep looking at the settings & eventually figure out on my own where the problem is & I fix it myself.
The most blatant example: My phone has always been set so that when a call comes in, the full iPhone screen shows the phone call & I can easily accept the call or send it to voicemail. After the latest upgrade, when a call came in, it only showed in a small portion at the top of the screen, I couldn’t see it well enough to accept the call or send to voice mail or just not accept the call. Spoke to a senior advisor at Apple, he said there was no way to “fix” that, it was not possible to have the full screen show the incoming call. I was frustrated but figured I had to accept what he said.
Later that same day, I was checking something else in Settings & found the setting: Phone - Incoming Calls - Full Screen (or Banner). Obviously I changed it to Full Screen. Extremely disappointing that a senior advisor said there was not a way to do that.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg as to how frustrated I’m becoming w/Apple.
Sheri F. Ross
sf.ross@icloud.com
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One more thing I forgot above… used to be, when switching to the Dictionary App, the search field would be emptied and cursor placed, so: switch to app, start typing, hurrah!
Only in Tahoe, switching to the App, one finds it as one left it, so mouse over, click or multiclick in Search field to clear it, then back to keyboard. I use the translations of Dictionary daily, it’s always open, so this is an annoyance. I looked in its Settings and didn’t see anything on this. Maybe I can use Dictionary thru LaunchBar…
(added later: oh, and the usual loss of saved signatures in Preview app. Seems to happen every major update. Sigh.)
If you use iCloud Drive, Preview syncs signatures so you have them on multiple Macs. I’ve never lost mine in any upgrades, but perhaps that’s why.
Fill out and sign PDF forms in Preview on Mac - Apple Support.
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That might be it. I use very little of iCloud, I use one Mac as primary and wouldn’t need the signatures on other devices.
I suppose I’ll retrieve scans of signatures from my previous primary Mac (can’t find them on the new one) and just plunk them in as needed. 
I’d just turn on iCloud Drive on the previous Mac first, then the new primary Mac, and see if they sync over. Feels easier than redoing the scans.
In macOS 11.7.10 Big Sur on my MBA M1, Dictionary behaves as you described for Tahoe. I’ve noticed that clicking the x in the search field clears the search field and deactivates it. I make it a point to backspace to remove the current search so that the search field remains active. As you said, the previous state is maintained when the app is relaunched.
Thanks @Will_M , how odd! Til Sequioa the search field would empty itself upon switching to the app on my mac. I don’t recall researching that, maybe there is a Terminal command that would change the behavior.
For now I’ll have to hope someone who knows will post it or wait til I have time to research it. For now my workaround is command tab to Dictionary and immediately tap esc to clear the field then start typing what I’m searching for.
BTW I’ve learned when looking up words, there are a couple of tricks, one I forgot and one that I’m using, and that’s to select the word then do shift+control+D and Dictionary appears with the word in the search field and looked up. This is useful when looking up words in Apps where select > control click > Look Up doesn’t work. A bit quicker where available, is three-finger tap in a word (selecting not necessary).
Now if Apple would just buy the Langenscheidt Dictionaries and incorporate it into Dictionary, that would help. Or at least enable phrase searching. It has phrase definitions in it, you just can’t search for them any way I know of.
apple changes settings routinely. I have turned Game Center off in my phones and ipads at least 50 times over the years without ever turning it on. They used to turn bluetooth on with every mac update but I haven’t seen that for a long time.
They do, after all, know what you want better than you do. Apparently.
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Have run into the same situation w/Game Center; never turned it on yet it “mysteriously” keeps being turned on for multiple iPhones & iPads over the years. Game Center even has a name assigned to me; not my Apple ID, an off-the-wall name. The same name always appears; wonder how it was generated & why that continues to happen.
Things such as this are highly annoying. It’s not the occasional occurrence that’s annoying, it’s that there are so many of them & the repetitiveness of them.
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Yes I’m late to the party (???) so if any of these complaints have already been addressed and/or solved forgive me but… A good many of my comments (but not all) will have to do with the application Music but Apple’s odd choices show up all over the place!
Apple has in a whole lot of their changes in this macOS and very, very importantly, to me at least, looked away from something as simple as muscle memory.
On the good side:
Things, generally, appear to be a whole lot faster and more stable.
More security and more speed is always a good thing! (Except if you have to explain it to a cop!)
On the UNnecessary side:
System: To me “Liquid Glass” is no better than something nasty on the sidewalk. Something you would gladly walk around and forget about. For me it’s almost totally worthless/useless. It’s seems to be another one of those changes for change sake!
Icons: Did anyone really need a change to the look of the icons??? I mean I’m all for moving on something if there’s a real need for a change but…really?
Mail: At times Mail shows a thin (regular) line for separation of mail and messages but at times it becomes a thicker line.
Music: For audio volume in Music your hand/mouse wants to go to the top, where the volume control has been for years, but apparently someone got the bright idea to put it at the bottom (I imagine the discussion went something like: “Oooh let’s change this little thing and really f**k ‘em up!”). Using it [might] be doable if it weren’t for the unmovable part of the feature. I still can’t figure out why anyone would want it that way. That goes for the system volume to. The same people also thought it a good idea to put the scroll bar at the bottom where it interferes with seeing a song when it’s down there. A real and obvious waste screen real estate.
Music: The icon for “syncing” in Music was made so minuscule as to be almost invisible, and put it in a really out of the way place also all the way down at the very bottom of the page.
Music: Dismissing the main Music window in favor of it’s mini player manually works fine but when done from a key command it doesn’t dismiss the larger application image.
Tiling: I really wanted to find it useful but I was hard pressed to find anything helpful about it. I guess if we were still in ‘60s and I was on the production team for the film The Thomas Crown Affair it might make sense as it has that look.
I’m sure more observations will come into view but for now that’s it.
My wife just updated to Tahoe, and has some truly bizarre behavior. Her sister’s Contact and Mail data disappears and reappears, then disappears if you actually try to access it. Very bizarre…
For instance, if she opens Contacts and selects her sister’s record it displays, but if she actually tries to access in any way, for instance, editing, it disappears, doesn’t even show in “All Contacts.”
If you quit Contacts and reload it, her sister’s record reappears, but again disappears on access. (Rebooting doesn’t improve on this.)
Mail was behaving similarly. When you first open Mail, all her sisters email, and in folder would initially appear then disappear. Now it is just gone. Any ideas?
Thanks.
I’ve had that behavior on my system (that’s stuck on Ventura) for several macOS versions, unfortunately. I’ve never taken the time to figure out a fix, if one exists.